Lot 72: The Adoration of the Magi

Diego López de Escuriaz (active El Escorial 1587-1597) The Adoration of the Magi pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, the outlines pricked for transfer, on blue paper 18 x 14 7/8 in. (458 x 379 mm.)

SPAIN

FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION


A cartoon for an embroidered panel decorating a chasuble in the Monastery of San Lorenzo at the Escorial (P. Junquera, 'Ornamentos sagrados y relicarios del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo', Goya, Sept-Dec 1963, p. 181).
The monastery was founded in 1563 by King Philip II of Spain, and a studio employing many artists was instituted to design and manufacture the many richly decorated embroideries needed for the vestments, liturgical hangings and other textiles. This activity was certainly in high demand, as shown by an Escorial inventory of 1605 which lists more than 1,200 embroidered chasubles.
A large group of drawings (see the following lot), most of them still bound in two albums at the Escorial, document the work of the studio. The drawings are all in pen and brown ink, brown wash, on blue-green paper, with the outlines extensively pricked for transfer. Many of them, including this and the following lot, do not however show evidence of pouncing. This would suggest that the pricking here was to transfer the design to a second substitute cartoon which was used, and therefore as a result probably irretrievably damaged, for the physical transfer of the design to the fabric support.
Little is known about the organization of the studio, or the precise identity of the masters responsible for each design. The drawings that survive show evidence of several different hands, although two artists seem to have played a decisive and leading role: Miguel Barroso (1538-1590) and Diego López de Escuriaz. The present drawing is rare among the surviving designs as the chasuble for which it prepares is documented as having been designed by López de Escuriaz, and it is therefore an important addition to his oeuvre.
López de Escuriaz' formation and career outside the Escorial remain mysterious, but he was active at the monastery between 1587 and 1597. Three other comparable drawings sharing the same shape and style and known as having been comissioned in 1587 are in Orléans (D. Angulo and A. Péréz Sánchez, A Corpus of Spanish Drawings, I, Spanish Drawings 1400-1600, London, 1975, nos. 186 and 191, and E. Pagliano, L'Europe dans l'Italie: Dessins de toutes écoles trouvés dans le fonds italien, exhib. cat. Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2004, no.7).
As with many Spanish artists of his time, López de Escuriaz seems to have taken inspiration from many different sources, including Taddeo Zuccaro and Luca Cambiaso, who both worked at the Escorial, and also the large collection of prints by Northern Masters gathered by King Philip II.
A large drawing also treating this subject but arranged in a different shape is in the Louvre (L. Boubli, Musée du Louvre. Département des arts graphiques. Inventaire général des dessins. Ecole espagnole XVIe-XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2002, no. 32).