The painting had been considered until now a copy of Van Dyck made by the painter from Burgos of the Madrid school, Mateo Cerezo (1637-1660). The research of the French expert antiquarian, Philippe Barnabé, demonstrates its authentic authorship: it is a first version, painted in Genoa, of a total of six paintings with the same composition made by Van Dyck between 1621 and 1632, in Italy and Antwerp.
An in-depth reading of the handwritten texts about the artist’s life, La Vie 1769/91, preserved in the Louvre Museum, together with the stylistic study, technical analyses, and restoration of the work, have allowed Barnabé to confirm the authorship of the Flemish painter during the period he worked in Genoa, and to identify it with the composition he gifted to the brothers Lucas and Cornelis de Wael in 1625, just before leaving Genoa for France.
The Virgin and Child
X-ray examinations of the painting revealed the existence of numerous poor-quality repaints resulting from an old restoration which, once removed, have allowed the high quality of the painting to be appreciated.
The recent restoration, carried out in the workshop of the Cerralbo Museum by the restorer Elena Moro, has also revealed that the work was cut at some point in its history, and that its original, somewhat larger dimensions would have approximated the classic Italian format known as “tela d’imperatore”. These works have also made it possible to verify that the density of the canvas corresponds precisely to the type of canvas used by Van Dyck during his stay in Genoa. Likewise, the chemical analysis of the pictorial samples confirmed the similarity with the pigments used by the master during his stay in Italy.
The Cerralbo family acquired the painting in 1884 in the estate of the Marquis of Salamanca. Previously, it had been part of the collection of the painter José de Madrazo, who in turn bought it, in the 1820s, from the widow of the collector Bernardo de Iriarte (1735-1814). The 1927 inventory by Juan Cabré, the first director of the Cerralbo Museum, describes it in the list of assets located in the chapel on the mezzanine floor of this palace.
This chapel was located precisely in the room where this early version of The Virgin and Child can now be seen. The work, displayed individually, is the sole protagonist in a setting conceived for it to be appreciated in all its potential, before the rehabilitation work of the room is undertaken in the context of the recovery of the original environments that governs the intervention criteria in this palace museum. Furthermore, this research is included in a detailed study by Barnabé in the new issue of the ESTUCO Magazine, Studies and Communications of the Cerralbo Museum.