MASP

In 1614, his father entered him as an apprentice in the studio of painter Pedro Diaz de Villanueva (1564-1654) in Seville. Three years later, he was already working as a master artist in Llerena na Extremadura, where he lived for more than ten years, sending numerous works to important religious institutions of Seville. He then moved to Seville in 1629, invited by the city to work at the service of powerful monastic congregations, becoming the interpreter of their dramatic spirituality. His severe images, though inspired by the realism of Caravaggio (1571-1610), represent the enlightenment of religious ecstasy and mystical vision; the figures are often isolated in an indeterminate space that makes them more striking and intense through the energetic relief of the shapes chiseled on the dark background by violent contrasts of light. Apparition of Jesus Child to St. Anthony of Padua (?) (1627-30) is an example of Zurbarán’s tenebrist style: the gloomy scene is lit by a single source of light. The identity of the saint portrayed is not known for certain, with opinions divided between St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua. The open book suggests that the saint, an intellectual, was interrupted during his studies by the divine vision of the baby Jesus among the clouds. The white lily, symbolizing purity, demonstrates the spiritual nature of his readings.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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The source of the painting The Holy Child Jesus Appearing to St. Anthony of Padua? is totally unknown. It appeared on the market in the early 1930s, possibly from an Italian collection. In 1952, the year of its donation to the museum, the canvas was on display at Matthiesen Gallery. The attribution to Zurbarán is by Roberto Longhi, in an expertise signed in January 1933 on the reverse side of a photo of the painting conserved in the Masp archives: “Work characteristic of Francisco de Zurbarán. Pictorially comparable to the paintings of the cycle St. Buenaventura (particularly the saint’s funeral, currently at the Louvre) and for this reason datable of circa 1630. Spiritually, it is nearly a mystic pendant of the St. Francis in meditation conserved at the National Gallery, of London, that also matches this static figure of another great Franciscan character, Child Jesus Appearing to St. Anthony”. In 1952, both attribution and date were reiterated by Martin Soria, who dated the work of 1626-1629, though he believed it to be a representation of St. Francis: “This is the artist’s first extant depiction of that saint, who later painted another eight versions, all with different poses. (...) Possibly the work was produced when Zurbarán first went to work for the Franciscan church of St. Buenaventura in 1629”. The remaining doubt with respect to the iconography was stressed by Guinard, who remarked on how the typology used in facial features of the figure is more similar to that used by Francis (1181-1226) than by his Portuguese coreligionist (1195-1231). Finally, Camesasca resumes with demonstrative vigor the thesis that perhaps the figure is St. Anthony. In this case, the painting would be the representation of the event when, during a preaching journey in France sometime in about 1225, St. Anthony had a vision, in his cell, of the Holy Child Jesus seen in a flash of light among the clouds. Introduced in the saint’s imagery at the time of Counter-Reformation, this tribute to Child Jesus at times depicted on the Virgin’s lap, at times, on the Franciscan’s prayer book, became its most distinctive sign in the 16th century, namely, as Camesasca remarked, in Iberian and Flemish painting. Additional attributes such as the book and the lilies were to enhance theme identification. Without overlooking the persuasive strength of Camesasca’s argument, it seems prudent not to exclude the doubt once and for all: the close parallelism drawn between the biographical data of both saints, which resulted from the controversial existing between Franciscan group in Assisi and in Padua led to a number of reciprocal contamination in both iconographies, at times rendering it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the two. Thus, there are many representations of St. Francis’s vision of the Holy Child, including in the catalogue of Zurbarán’s works, as for example the painting formerly conserved in the Spencer-Churchill Collection, in Northwick Park, Blockley, Gloucestershire, presented to Christie’s, of London, in 1965 (Apollo, 1965). This ambiguity is further stressed by the fact, which Guinard already pointed out, that the figure’s facial features resemble those of St. Francis. Camesasca remarked on the composition being ostensibly detached from classical syntax. Its three incoherent figurative nuclei are unified through a light that, despite not circulating, is forced to concentrate upon the painter’s request. Furthermore, there is the contrast between, on the one hand, the book and the foreshortened hands described with a nearly fierce distinctness and, on the other hand, the saint’s robe that gently undulates in space, that renders it in an affectionate interplay of luminous values. If the open book is a polyhedron, i.e., a form in itself, endowed with the nearly-hallucinatory objectivity of Zurbarán’s still lifes, paradoxically it appears in the representation as an element of narrative: the fact that it is open on the floor suggests that the saint, previously concentrated in its reading, set it aside at once to place his palms together in prayer when surprised by the divine vision. Therefore, a connotation is inevitably held of subordination of theological meditation to the direct experience of the divine and the movement of reflection on ecstatic vision, the essential topos of St. John of the Cross’s mystique. Although there are no accurate data on this historical personality, Saint Agnes was one of the most famous martyrs of the Roman empire at the turn of the 4th century. She was also the object of a well-known epitaph in verse authored by Pope Damasus I (366-384). She was martyred probably under the rule of emperor Diocletian, in 304. It is known that she was buried in a graveyard at Via Nomentana where the church Basílica de Santa Agnese fuori le Mura was erected in her honor, in 350. On the reverse side of a photo conserved in the Masp archives, an expertise by scholar A. Mayer designates the work as being “autograph of Francisco de Zurbarán because of being highly characteristic of him and datable 1635-1642. The copyright is mine. According to my old documents, the picture comes from the collection Don José Suárez, of Seville”. In two manuscripts also conserved in the museum archives, Pietro M. Bardi deems the work painted by an artist close to Zurbarán. In this catalogue we share this same opinion. Notwithstanding the undeniable tonal vigor of the painting, the draped fabric and the actual drawing of the figure present hiatuses of quality, even taking into account the damages caused by repainting restraining a more balanced reading of the work.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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