Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
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Lot 51
Luis de Morales(Badajoz circa 1509-1586)Ecce Homo
5 July 2017, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £62,500 inc. premium
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Luis de Morales (Badajoz circa 1509-1586)
Ecce Homo
oil on panel, with a later extension to the top 2cm
31.4 x 25.2cm (12 3/8 x 9 15/16in).
oil on panel, with a later extension to the top 2cm
31.4 x 25.2cm (12 3/8 x 9 15/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance
The Collection of Carlos Ceballos (no. 15, according to a label on the reverse)
Acquired in Madrid by the great-grandmother of the present owner in the late 19th Century
Literature
Professor Alfonso G. de Ceballos, 'Nuevas Pinturas de Luis de Morales', in Revista Archivo Español de Arte, no. 181, 1973, pp 69-71
The subject of Ecce Home was a particular favourite of Morales owing to its private devotional appeal and there was a high demand for it amongst his private and ecclesiastical clientele: compare, for example the very similar composition of the panel, (32 x 24.5cm.) sold at Sotheby's London, lot 5, 4 December 2013, and the panel, (33 x 22.8cm.) Christie's London, 10 July 2002, lot 10. He is further valued for the way in which he combined the sfumato modelling of Leonardo and his followers with the fine precision of the early Netherlandish masters which is evident here in the individual hairs of Christ's beard and eyelashes. It is for this reason that the 17th Century Spanish biographer, Antonio Palomino wrote in his Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors: 'He was nicknamed El Divino because everything he painted had a sacred subject but also because he painted some heads of Christ in which the hair was executed so finely and so delicately that it made even those who are most versed in art want to blow on it to see it move, for each strand of hair seems to be as fine as a real one.'
We are grateful to Isabel Mateo Gomez for confirming the attribution to Morales, on the basis of a colour photograph. She has noted the quality of the face and hair in particular.