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| Title | The Communion of Saint Maria Maddalena De' Pazzi | |
| Collection | Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle | |
| Artist | Pere, Antonio van de (painter, probably Spanish, ca.1618-ca.1688) Previously attributed to Posadas, Miguel (Spanish artist, active mid 16th century) |
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| Date | 1659 (dated) | |
| Signed | yes | |
| Description | This vision of the Carmelite nun Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi (1566-1607) was painted in 1659 by Antonio van de Pere for the convent of the Carmen Calzado in Madrid. Little is known about the training and career of van de Pere, a Spanish painter of Flemish descent who worked mainly in Castile. The miraculous vision of the mystic saint is explained on the scroll held by angels on the right. On the left, Maddalena receives the communion from Christ's hands, observed by the Virgin Mary and by her congregation in the Florentine convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli. |
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| Current Accession Number | B.M.18 | |
| Former Accession Number | No. 233 | |
| Inscription | front ll 'ANTONIO [...] PERE FACIEBAT 1659' | |
| Subject | religion (St Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, angel, Christ, Eucharist) | |
| Measurements | 203.5 x 528 cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Bequeathed by the founders John and Joséphine Bowes 1885. | |
| Provenance | Acquired from the artist by the convent of the Carmelitas Calzadas, Madrid, 1659- about 1830; Museo de la Trinidad, Madrid, by about 1830-40; purchased by John and Joséphine Bowes from the widow of the Conde de Quinto, 1862, cat. no. 116, as Communion mystique de sainte Rosalie, by Miguel Posadas. | |
| Publications | Gaya Nuño, J. A., La Pintura Española Fuera de España, Madrid, 1958; Kubler, G. and M. Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800, Harmondsworth, 1959; Soria, M., 'Notes on the Spanish Paintings in the Bowes Museum', The Connoisseur, vol. 148, no. 595, 1961, pp. 30-37; Pérez Sánchez, A. E., 'Antonio van de Pere', Archivo Español de Arte, vol. 39, 1966, pp. 309-15; Young, E., Catalogue of Spanish Paintings, Middlesbrough, 1988, pp. 128-31. | |
| Notes | Inscriptions on the scroll held by one of the angels describe the torture, penitence and temptation which the mystic saint experienced during her life. The miracle represented in this painting is also described: Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi received the Eucharist from Christ during mass, while the Virgin Mary crowned her with roses and angels sang around them. The text also refers to her death in 1607 and her canonisation by Pope Urban VIII in 1626. In 1961 Martín Soria correctly identified the signature and suggested that this painting came from the Convent of the Carmelitas Calzadas in Madrid. A. E. Pérez Sánchez connected this work with the series of large canvases that Juan Agustín Ceán and Antonio Ponz saw in the convent in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Young noted the provenance of this painting to the Museo de la Trinidad, which in the 1830s held paintings removed from suppressed religious houses in Spain. From there it passed to the collection of the Conde de Quinto, director of the Museo de la Trinidad, whose widow sold it to John Bowes in Paris. |
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| Rights Owner | The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham | |
| Author | Dr Mercedes Cerón | |