A ‘Pieta’ by Goya, painted in his youth, up for auction in Madrid

The presence of religious works from Goya’s youth in the Spanish art market is becoming almost a custom. After the appointment at Alcalá Subastas in Madrid on June 23 with ‘Apparition of the Virgin of Pilar to the Apostle Santiago and his disciples’, whose starting price was 2 million euros and which finally remained unsold on July 6 went on sale, this time at Abalarte Subastas, ‘Bautismo de Cristo’, from the Condes de Orgaz Collection, a BIC and non-exportable work that was auctioned off at 3 million euros. Now a ‘Pieta’ (83.5 by 58 centimeters) by Goya, dated around 1774, which will go up for auction on the 30th, appears in this same room. It was declared non-exportable in 2014 “because it is considered a highly rare, representative work from the early period of the author’s production and for constituting one of the few examples of his religious work, thus helping to define the figure of the artist in his context». It’s not BIC. Part with a starting price of 3 million euros. Unpublished until 2011 This oil on canvas is nothing new. It was unpublished until 2011, when Arturo Ansón Navarro, doctor in Art History and author of monographs on Goya, published a study in the specialized magazine ‘Ars Magazine’. A year later the painting passed through the Prado for his study. X-rays revealed an earlier composition below the surface of the painting. Specifically, a full-length male figure, with a beard and covered in a cloak, reminiscent of Saint Joachim, and a little angel. As in other compositions from the same period, Goya reused a previous canvas to paint a new scene. In 2015 the work was included in the exhibition ‘Goya and Zaragoza (1746-1775). His Aragonese roots’, curated by Manuela Mena, then in charge of the Aragonese master at the Prado, which took place at the Goya Museum. Zaragoza Ibercaja Collection. In the file of the painting included in the catalog of that exhibition, it is stated that it is a work of “inestimable quality, in which the masterful interpretation of light on the different surfaces of the composition stands out, allowing this painting to be attributed to Goya without kind of doubts ». ‘Gallant Scene’, by Paret Abalarte Auctions The Paret exhibition at the Prado brings the artist’s works to the market The long shadow of Goya weighed heavily on his contemporaries: Maella, Bayeu, González Velázquez or Luis Paret and Alcázar. The Prado vindicated this year the Madrid painter, known as ‘the Spanish Watteau’, with a great exhibition. And, as usually happens in these cases, works by artists appear on the market, in the heat of their rediscovery. The Abalarte room is putting up for auction, in addition to Goya’s ‘Pieta’, a ‘Gallant Scene’ by Paret (oil on canvas, 50 by 57.5 centimeters), whose starting price is 2 million euros. Unknown until recently, it is on public display for the first time. The curator of the Prado Juan José Luna, who died in 2020, planned to include it in an exhibition of Paret that he was preparing for Japan in 2023. This ‘Pieta’ is included, according to Ansón Navarro, among the devotional works that Goya painted in his time in Zaragoza, which runs from his return from Rome in July 1771 to his departure for Madrid in 1775. «A work of great formal and chromatic beauty, it was always in Zaragoza. Goya would paint it commissioned by some ecclesiastic or client of the Zaragoza bourgeoisie », he points out. Regarding its origin, it is known that in the mid-19th century it belonged to a canon of the Cabildo. After his death, it passed to a family in Zaragoza, who kept it until 2008, when it became part of the collections of the Bernat gallery in Barcelona, ​​its current owner. The restorer Rafael Romero affirms in a study on the work that «its state of conservation is very good, almost exceptional. It only shows scant minor damage to the upper and lower edges. The work is in original canvas; the old frame is fixed, without wedges. The canvas, which has never been relined, has been nailed to this stretcher with modern iron tacks.” Romero highlights «the good conservation of the fabric, being of good quality, without imperfections or damage. It shows no sign of acidification or oxidation.” Little damage Likewise, he adds that “examination using ultraviolet light reveals little damage, just tiny dots scattered over certain areas of the surface, mainly located on the bottom.” A small damage of about 2.5 centimeters can be seen on the right shoulder of Christ and very slight abrasions in certain areas of the sky. Rafael Romero explains that in the upper left corner there is “a diagonal mark left by the priming knife when the preparation is applied to the fabric. In some old restoration this mark was misinterpreted, it was stuccoed and retouched as if it were damage. Arturo Ansón appreciates a stylistic relationship between this ‘Pieta’ and the last scenes of the ‘Life of the Virgin’ cycle, which Goya produced in the church of the Cartuja de Aula Dei in Zaragoza. Thus, he believes that many of the female faces that appear in these mural paintings are similar to the face of the Virgin, as well as the treatment of the wide and broken folds of the cloak. This work has also been related to the ‘Pieta’, by Annibale Carracci, from the Collection of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, as well as other famous ‘Pieties’: Michelangelo’s in the Vatican (the size and vigorous anatomy of Christ ) and the one he did for the Colonnas. Goya must have seen all of them on his trip to Rome. MORE INFORMATION noticia Yes ‘Bautismo de Cristo’, by Goya, sold in Madrid for 3 million euros noticia No attack in the Prado against Goya’s ‘Las Majas’, which do not have protective glass The artist centers the moving scene in close-up : the Virgin and dead Christ on her lap, before the Cross. Only its lower part is visible. And at the feet, various symbols of the Passion: the cartouche with the inscription INRI, the crown of thorns, the nails… An intense white light strongly illuminates the figures. Goya uses a soft palette: blue, pink, white and ocher.