Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 99. (Budapest, 2003)

NYERGES, ÉVA: New Attribution in the Spanish Collection: An Hitherto Unidentified Painting by José del Castillo

NEW ATTRIBUTION IN THE SPANISH COLLECTION: AN HITHERTO UNIDENTIFIED PAINTING BY JOSÉ DEL CASTILLO Due to the systematic explorations carried out over the recent years, there are very few works left in the Spanish collection of the Museum of Fine Arts whose authorships have not yet been identified.

1 This time we will put forward a tentative attribution that remains to be substantiated by further research. The recent conservational treatment of a painting depicting The Death of Saint Anthony Abbot (fig. 30), previously ascribed to Antonio Viladomat, enabled us to advance a more convincing attribution.

2 The picture was catalogued as by A. Viladomat in the 1820 inventory of the Esterházy collection,

3 and this traditional attribution was maintained in the subsequent literature,

4 although the monographer of the Catalonian painter, Santiago Alcolea Gil, expressed doubts about it.

5 Viladomat s authorship was not challenged until 1991, when the small picture in the Museu de Arte Antigua, Lisbon, which was previously considered a sketch for the Budapest painting,

6 was referred to as a copy, while the latter was listed as by an unknown 18th-century master.

7 1 For the history of the collection and the recent acquisitions see Nyerges, É., La colección de pinturas de Alonso Cano en Budapest. Nuevas aportaciones al maestro, in El arte espanol fuera de Espana: IX. Jornadas de Arte (ed. Cabanas Bravo, M.), Madrid 2003, 227-243, notes 14-24. 2 Inv. no. 771, oil on canvas, 144.5 by 208 cm. From the collection of Edmund Bourke. The conservation was carried out by Ilona Csík. 3 Meiler, S., Az Esterházy képtár története, Budapest 1915. Inv. nos. 10, 1820, 1012: "A. Viladomat: Der Tod des h. Antonius. L. 4'6" - 6'7". The painting was first reproduced in Térey, G., Gemäldegalerie des Museums für Bildende Künste in Budapest. Vollständiger beschreibender Katalog mit Abbildungen aller Gemälde I, Berlin 1916, 337. 4 Pigler, A., Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, Budapest 1967, 757. Gaya Nuho, J.A., La pintura espanola fuera de Espana, Madrid 1958, 331, considers the painting in Lisbon (no. 2931) a sketch for the one in Budapest. 5 Alcolea Gil, S., La pintura en Barcelona durante el siglo XVIII, Anales y Boletín de los Museos de Arte de Barcelona XV (1961-62) 210; id., in Viladomat, exh. cat., Mataró 1990, does not mention our picture, but he rejected its attribution to Viladomat in a private communication with the author of the present article around 1980. 6 Gaya Nuno, op.cit. (n. 4) no. 2931, oil on canvas, 60 by 81 cm. The work is published as by Antonio Viladomat. 7 Barkóczi, I., in Old Masters' Gallery. Museum of Fine Arts Budapest (ed. Tátrai, V), Budapest 1991, 160. Spanish, 18

th Century. The painting in Lisbon is only known to us from a photograph. I am grateful to István Barkóczi for making the photo available to me. Notwithstanding the obvious identity of the composition, it has to be noted that some minor details, for example the attributes