Murillo: A Spanish Painting Owned by an English Lord
The recent history of this Ecce Homo is worthy of a British-style detective story, but it also reveals much about the mysteries still in store for the Seville painter.
Estimate: €200,000/300,000
Among the most eloquent pages of Francis Haskell’s art-historical bible, Rediscoveries in Art, those devoted to the reception of Spanish painting in English collections are extremely instructive. The author recalls that general opinion remained hostile to what a member of the National Gallery’s acquisition committee called, in 1853, “more or less a corruption of the inferior Italian schools”! At the time of the dispersal of King Louis-Philippe’s extraordinary collection in London that same year, the Art Journal evoked the underlying reasons for this lack of interest: how could English good society take pleasure in hanging spectral-looking saints and martyrs, monks and nuns in their homes? Only an erudite audience could grasp the power of these works. Lawrence Dundas, first Baronet of Kerse, the owner of Aske Hall, was one of them, and almost a century earlier! Documented as early as 1765 in his collections, the Ecce Homo by “ditto (Murillo)” was also mentioned in 1833 in a guide to local curiosities as “an Ecce Homo believed to be by Murillo”. Thirty-five years later, it was exhibited in Leeds, alongside Titian’s Ecce Homo belonging to the Duc d’Aumale (Chantilly, Musée Condé), to demonstrate Murillo’s debt to the Venetian master… In 1981, however, the painting was listed as a “work in debate” in the catalog raisonné by Diego Angulo Íñiguez. It was then somewhat forgotten by specialists.
For some specialists, it is the prototype, but above all the original painted for Guadix Cathedral in Andalusia.
Man and His Destiny
All this, not to mention a tragedy, which a descendant of Sir Lawrence Dundas decided to turn into an opportunity for the painting. Stolen in 1992 from the chapel at Aske Hall, it went on sale the following year in London, then in Paris in November 2023, at Rossini, where it was presented as “School of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo” from the “former collection of the Earl of (“comte de”) Zetland”, estimated at €4,000/6,000. The work was then bought for €8,000 by Robin Dundas, Earl of Ronaldshay, on the advice of Parisian dealer Guillermo Pinilla. Nearly a year later, expert Pierre-Antoine Martenet exhibited Ecce Homo as an original work by Murillo, for his “first legitimate sale since the mid-18th century”. In the meantime, it has been restored — by Cinzia Pasquali (Arca-nes Restorations) — hung and “unhooked” from Aske Hall. Hung in majesty in the entrance of Drouot, in December, on the occasion of “Red Week”, Jesus crowned with thorns answered with panache to the plunderers of the English castles! To date, the attribution to Murillo has been confirmed by Enrique Valdivieso González “after examination of high-definition photographs, in a letter dated February 15, 2024”. Other specialists will have to judge the work in person, in particular to better debate its place in the chronology — Professor Valdivieso suggests dating it to 1665 — and its role within the studio. Ideally, this oil on canvas should be compared with the studio copy at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, or with the version created for the church of St. Anne, on deposit since 2012 at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. For some specialists, this is the prototype, but above all the original painted for Guadix Cathedral in Andalusia. These discussions are virtuous, since the other Ecce Homo composition, admired by all, star of the July sales in London in 2017, had been auctioned for nearly £2.8M.
Friday 07 February 2025 – 14:00 (CET) – Live
Salle 4 – Hôtel Drouot – 75009 Paris
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