Lot 319: JUAN DE LA CORTE MADRID 1597 - 1660

signed lower left: Juan de la corte

oil on canvas

162 by 196 cm.; 63 3/4 by 77 1/4 in.

According to his own testament, Juan de la Corte was of Flemish origin and probably trained in Antwerp. By 1613 however he had entered in to the service of Philip III in Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life. His oeuvre consists chiefly of historical, mythological and battle scenes, although he is perhaps best known for his views of Madrid, in particular his painting of Fiesta en la Plaza Mayor, which was painted to record a fiesta given in honour of the Prince of Wales on the occasion of his marriage to the Infanta Doña María in 1623, a painting now in the Museo Municipal, Madrid (see D. Angulo-Iñiguez & A.E. Pérez Sánchez, Pintura Madrileña, Primer Tercio del Siglo XVII, Madrid 1969, p. 367, cat. no. 110, reproduced plate 289).

The present painting is entirely characteristic of the artist's work, which appears to have undergone little stylistic progression during his long career. The grand architectural setting belies the artist's flemish origins and like many of his works, may have been inspired by northern engravings by artists such as Hans Vredemin de Vries, Cornelis Gallé the Elder and Younger, and Johannes Stradanus. The overall mise-en-scène, in which a military commander and his entourage are depicted in the right foreground, with a mass of soldiers arranged in a circular arc attacking a fortified building in the left background, appears to have been a popular compositional formula for the artist, which he employed similarly in a painting representing the Battle of Gascony, now in the Museo del Prado (see op. cit., pp. 363-64, cat. no. 95, reproduced plate 304).

The precise identification of the battle in the present work has yet to be established. The presence of the double-headed eagle on the standard carried to the right of the mounted military commander suggests that it comes from roman history. It is possible that the scene may represent the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman general Pompey (in late autumn 63 BC), but like many of De la Corte's large-scale historical paintings (such as The History of the Emperor Charles V, today in the Spanish Embassy, London), this picture may once have belonged to a series of works, and until further evidence comes to light the identification of the scene must perforce remain a matter of conjecture.