Sevillian school, Circle of MATIAS DE ARTEAGA... Lot 9

Sevillian school, Circle of MATIAS DE ARTEAGA (Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real, 1633 - Seville, 1703); 17th century. "Virgin's annunciation". Oil on canvas. Re-tinted. It presents restorations. Measurements: 42 x 56,5 cm. In this work we see an Annunciation typical of the full Spanish baroque, with a scenographic and triumphalist composition, clearly counter-reformist, where the heavenly and the earthly plane are united in only one. The scene is set in an austere, meticulously depicted interior, as befits the desire for truth and reality in Baroque painting. Mary is in the foreground, kneeling before a lectern on which rests a small book. The space, in which we can also see the vase of lilies symbolising Mary's purity, is constructed in depth according to the laws of perspective. The heavenly area, represented by thick clouds flooded with clear divine light, breaks into the earthly setting, although the angel does not actually step onto the ground. Between Mary and the angel, we see the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove... A Spanish Baroque painter and engraver of the Sevillian school, Matías de Arteaga y Alfaro was able to capture and interpret the dual influence of Murillo and Valdés Leal with his own personality. The son of the engraver Bartolomé Arteaga, while still a child his family moved to Seville, where he trained in his father's studio and in contact with Murillo, whose influence reveals his early work together with that of Valdés Leal, who settled in Seville the same year that Arteaga passed his master painter's examination in 1656. In 1660 he was among the founding members of the celebrated drawing academy promoted by Murillo, among others, of which he served as secretary between then and 1673. In 1664 he joined the Hermandad de la Santa Caridad brotherhood and two years later the Sacramental del Sagrario brotherhood of Seville cathedral, for which he produced a number of works. Around 1680 he is also recorded as working as an appraiser of paintings. He died in 1703, but the inventory of his estate at his death reveals that he lived well off, having a slave and a large, well-furnished house with a medium-sized library containing important books in Latin and Spanish and an engraving studio, as well as over 150 paintings, almost half of which were of religious subjects. Among them were four series of the Life of the Virgin, some of which were expressly said to contain architectural views, such as those in the present work and those in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Seville. The most characteristic feature of his peculiar style is precisely these series of always religious subjects, set in broad landscapes and architectural perspectives taken from prints. Skilful in the creation of these deep, skilfully illuminated perspectives, he was, however, somewhat clumsy in his treatment of the figures and their bodily expressions. Arteaga is represented in the aforementioned Sevillian museum, various Sevillian churches including the cathedral and the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, among others.