First it was Appearance of the Virgin del Pilar to the Apostle Santiago and his studentswhich will be auctioned on June 23 by Auctions Alcala Madrid. Now, just ten days after I heard the news, baptism of christanother picture signed Francisco de Goyawhich will go on sale in Auctions Abalartealso in the capital, 6 July. According to the newspaper ABCthe starting price of both canvases exceeds two million euros, and at least the second of them was declared a Object of Cultural Interest (BIC) and not exportable in 2019 for being “a work that Goya unanimously considers to be of excellent technical and expressive quality and be in an excellent state of preservation.
baptism of christ it was written around 1774 and has not been updated since. It also retained its original frame, although it was finalized in 1994 in the restoration workshops of the Prado Museum, in connection with the opening of the exhibition. Goya. whim and ingenuity. According to Sala Abalarte, “he stands out for his treatment of the nude, where the influence of Italian painting still appears in a very specific sculptural form.” The figure of Christ is compared with the drawing “Cain killing Abel” from Cuaderno Italiano. And it is even possible that the head of Christ was self-portrait of a young Goyasince his hair is tied in a ponytail, as in other self-portraits of the artist.
Appearance of the Virgin del Pilar to the Apostle Santiago and his disciplesfor its part, dates from about 1775. According to what Natividad Pulido writes in the newspaper ABC“belonged to the Rosillo Collection and passed into a private collection in Madrid by inheritance. It is not exportable, although not BIC. Its starting price: 2 million euros. In addition, Ansorena’s roomalso from Madrid, will be auctioned today Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, oil on canvas, glued to a board with a diameter of barely 10.7 centimeters. Its starting price: 180,000 euros. This is a small work of devotion, made at the first stage of the artist’s work.