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

30. Here attributed to José del Castillo: The Death of Saint Anthony Abbot. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts late work of del Castillo, provides a dating to around 1785. This is in itself an ample proof that the attribution to Viladomat has to be rejected.

10 Born in 1737 in Madrid but trained, among others, under Giaquinto in Rome, José del Castillo's biography was written in detail by Ceán Bermúdez in his Diccionario.

u His traveling to Rome in 1751 was made possible by a scholarship provided by José Carvajal y Lancaster, Minister of State. Here the painter studied with Giaquinto, whom he continued to assist after accompanying him to Madrid in 1753. Del Castillo returned to Rome on a scholarship in 1757

12 and worked there until 1765. Before returning to Spain, he visited Naples and Herculaneum. Back in Madrid he designed cartoons for the Santa Barbara tapestry manufacture, which was under the direction of Anton Rafael Mengs. His first cartoons reflect the influence of Luca Giordano and Corrado Giaquinto, but the later ones can be considered instant forerunners of those by Goya, both in style and the subject matter taken from everyday life. 10 Antonio Viladomat died on 19 January, 1755. 11 Ceán Bermúdez, J.A., Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores de Bellas Artes en Espana I, Madrid 1800, 284-87. 12 Ibid., 284. He gives 1758 as the start of José del Castillo's second stay in Rome, for which Luna, in The Dictionary of Art (n. 8) 6, 47, suggests 1757.