With this
publication I was given the opportunity to
deepen, not having the scholars up to now well
determined the reasons for why Diego Velázquez
has painted, first He the work here examined
and then with other copies, of various sizes,
carried out in the shop by his collaborators,
of: “Portrait of
a knight of the Order of Calatrava. Don Martin
de Leyva” and to
investigate in the archives and libraries the
contemporary manuscript and printed texts at
the time.
I
expanded what had been written before with the
archival and bibliographic updates of both the
works mentioned and the people.
It
is good, therefore, to clarify that before
starting to describe the historical-artistic
path, to motivate and determine the
authenticity of the painting, I referred to
the examination carried out by prof. Maurizio
Marini, an art expert, who, on March 25, 1998,
authenticated the survey with his own
signature in the back of the photo of the
painting as a photo inserted in his catalog
“Diego Velázquez, Electa, 1997”, in front of
the Notary of Rome dott. Panvini Rosati, which
corresponds to the expertise carried out by
the same professor Maurizio Marini who
accompanies the work. On 20 June 2009 the same
professor Maurizio Marini, issued a valuable
report on the painting that further confirms
its authenticity. On behalf of the property,
in order to better analyze the work, I was
given the technical report on the state of
conservation of the same that was carried out
by Professor Giampaolo Ghislandi on December
1, 2004.
The
painting in question is an oil on paper,
applied on canvas (20
5⁄64
in. x 16 59⁄64
in.), the work of the painter Diego Velázquez
also published in the volume of Maurizio
Marini in 19971
which depicts a study for a
Portrait of a Knight of the
Order of Calatrava.
According to professor José López Rey2
the identification derives from a coat of arms
of the noble family of Murcia present in a
version (oil on canvas, 38
37⁄64
in. x 30 5⁄16
in.) conserved in New York, at the Hispanic
Society of America and represents “Don
Martìn de Leyva”
mentioned in his reasoned volume on the
Velázquez.
On
this identification I have followed another
additional historical-archival path that
certifies the motivation of the four portraits
of Martín de
Leyva
cataloged.
The
other versions are: in Brescia, a collection
of Conti Lecchi (oil on canvas, 41
11⁄32
in. x 35 7⁄16
in., which comes from a collection of South
Africa in 1947)3.
Then
we have the version already (1936) in London,
at the Vermeer Gallery, (with apocryphal
additions, 28
47⁄64
in. x 21 27⁄32
in. originally, 25
25⁄32
in. x 20 5⁄64
in.) whose characteristic is to have as a
basis the study in object (20
5⁄64
in. x 16 59⁄64
in.) which, in 1929, was on the antique market
in Venice and, in recent years, in a
collection in Caracas (Venezuela)4.
The
work in question is always a portrait of the
knight of the Order of Calatrava (20
5⁄64
in. x 16 59⁄64
in.), reported by Mayer in his 1936 catalog
(he had seen the work) and by Rey (as written
by Mayer) and it is inserted in its catalog
raisonné of 1963, only from the examination of
a photo; the painting was present in Venice in
1929 and after a long period with an unknown
location, appeared in a collection in Caracas,
Venezuela5
and then in Switzerland.
For
this work we have the scientific-archival
motivation that Diego Velázquez painted this
portrait, under examination, commissioned by
the sons of Martin, being this dead in 1600,
and therefore could not be the direct
commissioner. This is proven in the
investigation done on the Leyva Family, on the
Order of the Knights of Calatrava and Diego
Velázquez.
With
this publication, I pay homage to the Spanish
master Velázquez and to his important and high
artistic quality; and it is truly a pain to
know that he, like Leonardo da Vinci, no
longer has their own grave where I can deposit
a bouquet of flowers. He died on 6 August 1660
and was buried in Madrid in the crypt of the
Fuensalida in the church of San Giovanni
Battista. His wife Juana died only 7 days
later and was buried next to him.
Unfortunately, the church was destroyed by the
French in 1811, so today we do not know
exactly where his tomb is. Until the
nineteenth century, the work of Velázquez
remained little known outside of Spain and
many of his paintings disappeared, stolen by
French soldiers during the Spanish War of
Independence.
Furthermore, I wanted to pay tribute to the
Order of Calatrava, founded during the
Templars' period and whose founding monk is
called as our artist: Diego Velázquez.
