Object details
Accession number
P6n2
Primary Creator
Francisco de Zurbarán
(Fuente de Cantos, 1598 - 1664, Madrid)
Full title
The Virgin of Mercy
Creation Date
about 1640
Provenance
Collection of the priest and politician, Manuel López Cepero (1778 -1858), Seville. By descent to the art dealer Jacopo López Cepero (about 1830 - 1917), Seville, 1858. Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from Jacopo López Cepero, Seville on 23 April 1888 for 2250 pesetas.
Marks
Inscribed (below Virgin's feet): LOCO VOLVPTATIS/ ....VVIVS AD IRIGAND PARAD.VM [An abbreviation of Genesis 2:10: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden..."]
Dimensions
139 x 42 cm (54 3/4 x 16 9/16 in.)
Display Media
Oil on canvas
Web Commentary
Following a spectacular debut in Madrid, Zurbarán returned to Seville and dominated the market for religious paintings. This one was probably produced by his studio rather than the master himself. It depicts the Virgin Mary wearing a crown of roses enthroned in the clouds of Heaven with music making angels on either side. The Christ Child stands in her lap and raises his right hand in a blessing. Below on earth two enclosed gardens, symbolic of her purity and chastity, underscore the inscription of a passage from the biblical Book of Genesis: “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden...”.
Isabella Stewart Gardner bought this painting from an art dealer in Seville during a trip to Spain in 1888. There she witnessed Holy Week processions, watched a bull fight, and became acquainted with the finest seventeenth century Spanish religious paintings including works by Zurbarán.
Permanent Gallery Location
Spanish Chapel
Bibliography
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), pp. 107-108, 110-11.Philip Hendy. Catalogue of Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 430. (as Zurbarán)Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 46. (as Zurbarán)Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), pp. 6, 55. (as Zurbarán)Ronald Hilton. Handbook of Hispanic Source Materials and Research Organizations in the United States (Stanford, California, 1956), p. 194.“Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 11 (11 Nov. 1962), pp. 1-2. (excerpting Carter, pp. 107-12)William N. Mason. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 6, no. 21 (20 Jan. 1963), p. 2.Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 303-304. (as Studio of Zurbarán, dated 1630-1635)Eric Young. "Notes on Spanish Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum." Fenway Court (1979), pp. 24-35, no. 17. (as Studio of Zurbarán, dated after 1640)Alan Chong and Giovanna De Appolonia. The Art of the Cross: Medieval and Renaissance Piety in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2001), pp. 20, 36. (as Workshop of Zurbarán)Richard L. Kagan. The Spanish Craze: America's Fascination with the Hispanic World, 1779-1939 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019), pp. 261, 264, ill. p. 265, fig. 37. Madeleine Haddon. "'Spain Says It All' Isabella Stewart Gardner's 1888 Travel Albums of Spain" in Diana Seave Greenwald and Casey Riley (ed.). Fellow Wanderer: Isabella Stewart Gardner's Travel Albums. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2023), p. 65, fig. 7.
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