The collection of foreign painters - Western European Painting, XVII century

The collection of Spanish art of seventeenth century, its most glorious period, ranks among the Museum’s richest. It includes recognized masterpieces by Zurbaran, Ribera, Murillo, Velasquez and several pictures by his pupil and son-in-law Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo.

Luis Tristan in The Martyrdom of St Andrew (Pic. 1, 2) treats the subject in a realistic manner. The athletic figure of the saint personifies an indomitable spirit, but is perhaps too powerful for the aged man.

The colour scheme of Jose de Ribera’s St John the Baptist with a Lamb (Pic. 3) is based on combinations of greys and reds typical of his earlier works. Francisco de Zurbaran’s work is represented in the album by the Madonna with a Child (Pic. 4), a picture in which composition and colour scheme combine to create an air of warmth and sincerity that envelops the personages and makes them look as real and earthly as if they were the artist’s living contemporaries.

Juan Valdes Leal’s signed and dated picture St John of Capistrano (Pic. 5), is characterized by nervous brushstrokes and a lack of precision in the drawing. Bartolome Esteban Murillo’s The Holy Family (Pic. 6), shows a harmonious unity of content, composition and technique.

Of particular note among the Museum’s works of the seventeenth-century Flemish school is the great Rubens’s Faun and Maiden (Pic.7), a joyous canvas painted in succulent colours. There are also several portraits by Anthony van Dyck, among them Lady Mayo (Pic. 8), a work, that gives us to see how the artist beautified and ennobled his sitters. The intricate draperie and the idealized landscape in the background are superbly conveyed.

The Jan Wijnats works in our collection are amply illustrative of Dutch landscape painting. The alternations of light and shade in his Landscapes (Pic. 9), produce a dramatic impression. The four dainty little figures in the foreground, the wall with the round tower, the undulating hills receding into the distance, the trees dominating the centre of the scene – all are the feast for the eyes.

Another type of Dutch landscape, cultivated in the late seventeenth century, was that inspired by travels to foreign part. This trend is represented in the Museum by Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem’s gaily pastoral Italian Scene (Pic. 10, 11). It is a monumental piece, but every minute detail of the idyllic scene is, in the characteristic Dutch manner, depicted with painstaking accuracy.

Monsu Desiderio is another seventeenth-century artist whose work is represented in the Museum. Actually the name stands for two artists, Frenchmen from Metz, who sometimes worked together. One was Didier Barra, the other Franḉois de Nome. It is to the latter that The Martyrdom of a Saint (Pic. 12), should be assigned because of the two only he painted apocalyptic visions unusual even for the seventeenth century – volcanic eruptions, shattered piling up cliffs illuminated by flashes of lightning and peopled with stone figures.