LOS HARRIS Y LA SPANISH ART GALLERY: FARABUSTEADORES, BRASAS, GARIFEROS, AVISPONES Y OTRAS GERMANÍAS DEL ARTE

They don’t make them like these anymore!

Antes que cuervos, picapleitos y rábulas terminaran de redactar las distintas clases, modalidades y tipos de delito, los delincuentes ya habían creado un hermosísimo vocabulario que contenía todas las especialidades de su arte, su jerarquía en el oficio y un ordo naturalis ajeno al del mundo en que vivían.

Ateniéndonos a la legislación moderna española (1) y a los convenios internacionales sobre protección de bienes históricos y culturales (2), los Harris, individualmente o a través de distintas sociedades (3) cometieron expolio y contrabando (4) de obras de arte de manera continuada durante un período que sobrepasa el medio siglo. Pero también cometieron estos delitos según la legislación española de la época (5). Por tanto, la definición jurídica de sus “operaciones comerciales” no presenta problema alguno.

Para entender cómo fue posible que sacaran impunemente de España, principal víctima de su tráfico, tal cantidad de obras hay que estudiar el modus operandi de esta clase de traficantes:

La elección del país o región. España, uno de las naciones con más patrimonio histórico artístico del mundo, a finales del siglo XIX, era una nación desangrada demográficamente por guerras y pandemias. En menos de un siglo casi un millón de personas murieron en la Guerra de la Independencia, Guerras Carlistas y coloniales y unas ochocientas mil murieron víctimas de epidemias recurrentes de cólera. En 1900 casi un 70% de una población de poco más de 18 000 000 era analfabeta absoluta y las condiciones de la clase trabajadora agravaban el índice de mortalidad por malnutrición y falta de condiciones higiénicas. En términos prácticos, el país era un despojo de guerra abierto al saqueo.

Cooperación y complicidad de la Iglesia Católica, la nobleza y los grupos intelectuales en el expolio. Como puede observarse en las notas que acompañan a cada obra gran parte de las obras que consiguieron los Harris proceden de iglesias, monasterios y conventos, que  vendieron patrimonio propio y ajeno amparando su desaparición en las desamortizaciones y, posteriormente, en la guerra civil. Esta versión ha sido perpetuada por historiadores sin aportar documentación y pruebas de consistencia;  sólo tardíamente aparecen estudios donde se describen las ventas que la Iglesia llevó a cabo, pero su carácter local ha restringido su conocimiento y apreciación. Necesariamente el inventario de todas las obras expoliadas tiene que tener en cuenta todos y cada uno de estos estudios y ha de aquilatar las fuentes documentales en la que están basados.No es cierto que falte esa documentación. Está en las hemerotecas, a veces anunciadas como gran operación de beneficiencia por la cual la autoridad católica  se deshacía de “cosas viejas” para construir asilos o colegios de huérfanos o para comprar un órgano. También aparece, caso del van der Goes, el papel de nobles como el Duque de Alba, actuando de marchantes e intermediarios en las operaciones (6).En la prensa también han quedado las protestas de algunas personas cada vez que se producía un expolio. Existe la correspondencia entre los mismos expoliadores, como tenemos un precioso ejemplo en el caso de George Bonsor y Archer Milton Huntington, dos saqueadores con formas,  que nos enseña cómo entretejieron una red de intereses entre políticos, nobles y académicos bordoneros (7) que encubrieron el desmantelamiento de Itálica y otras ventas como operaciones de promoción cultural de nuestro patrimonio en Estados Unidos (8). En esta misma correspondencia se confirma, por ejemplo, que “el famoso Harris de Londres” era poseedor en 1913 de la tabla del Camino del Calvario de Juan y Diego Sánchez. Existen, en fin, los archivos de marchantes y galerías donde se han guardado anotaciones de los contactos y posibles vendedores de obras en condiciones irregulares (9)

Eliah Meyer,  fragmento de «Smog in the eyes«: Informes inclasificables del espionaje inglés.

NOTAS

(1)    Ley 16/1985, de 25 de junio, del Patrimonio Histórico Español; Ley Orgánica 10/1995, de 23 de noviembre, del Código Penal y Ley Orgánica 12/1995, de 12 de diciembre, de Represión del Contrabando, con sus modificaciones y desarrollos. Ley 36/1994, de 23 de diciembre, sobre restitución de bienes culturales que hayan salido de forma ilegal del territorio de un Estado miembro de la Unión Europea, (norma modificada por la Ley de 13 de junio de 1998), que ha incorporado la Directiva 93/7/ CEE, dictada por el Consejo de las Comunidades Europeas con fecha 15 de marzo de 1993 y publicada en el Diario Oficial de las Comunidades Europeas el día 27 de marzo de 1993.

(2)    Convenio para la Protección de los Bienes Culturales en caso de conflicto armado, firmado en La Haya el 14 de mayo de 1954; Convenio Cultural Europeo, hecho en París el 19 de diciembre de 1954;Convención de la UNESCO para la Protección del Patrimonio Mundial Cultural y Natural, París el 23 de noviembre de 1972, artículo 1º; UNESCO, el artículo 1.2.c) de su Constitución; Convenio Europeo sobre las infracciones relativas a los bienes culturales (Delfos, 23 de junio de 1985).

(3)    Looting, plundering  y smuggling son las denominaciones internacionales.

(4)   Los marchantes principales fueron Lionel Harris y su hijo Tomás Harris. Otros hijos (Maurice, Lionel Jr. y William) también se dedicaron al negocio de arte y antigüedades, pero en menor escala. En el caso de las hijas Violeta Harris, Conchita Wolff (a veces conserva su apellido de soltera Harris) y Enriqueta Frankfort/Harris, las transacciones descubiertas es en la entrega de obras como pago de impuestos. Las sociedades principales con las que operaron fueron: Hispanish Art Gallery y Tomas Harris Ltd.

(5)   Desde la Real Cédula de Carlos IV (Ley IIIª, tº XX, lº LVIII); Ley de Instrucción Pública de 9 de septiembre de 1857; Real Orden de 1 junio de 1864 sobre Comisiones Provinciales de Monumentos Históricos y Artísticos, ley de 1915 de Monumentos Históricos artísticos; Decreto ley de 1926 hasta la Constitución de 1931, Artº 45.

(6)    Vid. Juan Díaz Ferreiros, “La Adoración de los Reyes de Hugo van der Goes”. De Monforte a Berlín”. Boletin do Museo Provincial de Lugo, pp. 83-97.

(7)    La untuosidad de nuestros académicos ofreciendo sus servicios a forasteros de tronío es un capítulo muy divertido:
“(…) Ayer vi a Cerralbo en la Academia y me dijo que había recibido su carta e iba a pedir en seguida una dosis. Le remito en este correo la fotografía del cuadrito que no me han traído hasta ayer, mide la tabla 0.33 x 0.235 y no me extrañaría nada que fuera un buen maestro. Mucho me alegraría poder enajenarla en buenas condiciones y dudo luego pueda hacer las gestiones que estime oportunas, que además agradecería mucho. Mil gracias por todo y mande lo que guste a su afmo. amigo. Antonio Vives (Escudero) (Académico de la Historia) 12 abril 1913. Carta a Jorge Bonsor.
Otro académico, que ruge por el expolio de arte, a propósito de que Lionel Harris vaya a sacar de España el Camino del Calvario de Juan y Diego Sánchez: “¿Cómo no lamentar, pues, en esta ocasion, como lo hemos hecho en tantas otras, la funestísima apatía, hija de la supina ignorancia que en materias artisticas demuestran las personas que rigen los destines públicos, al mirar indiferentes cuanto se relaciona con nuestros monumentos históricos. arqueológicos y artisticos? (…) y asi podriamos hacer larga enumeracion de los espolios verificados en nuestro tesoro artistico durante los últimos cuarenta años: esto no obstante, que en ocasiones fueron advertidas las autoridades, de que se iban a efectuar las enagenaciones, a fin de que impidiesen el despojo, que entonces pudo evitarse sin grandes sacrificios pecuniarios para las areas municipals o provinciales; requerimientos y consejos que fueron desoídos,  perdiendo Sevilla para siempre tan inapreciables objetos”. Gestoso y Pérez, J.,  “Juan y Diego Sánchez, Una de las Caídas de Nuestro Señor en el camino del Calvario. Pintores sevillanos primitivos”. En Revista Mensual de Arte Español Antiguo y Moderno. Vol.VI., pp. 134-139, ofrece simultáneamente sus servicios a Bonsor en el rastreo de la obra y sólo se atreve a piar: “¡Qué pena que tales obras salgan de España” (…) Consérvese bueno y disponga de su afectísimo amigo. Jose Gestoso. (Academia de Bellas Artes de Sevilla) .Carta a Jorge Bonsor 12 enero 1914.

(8)    Jorge Maier Allende, Epistolario de Jorge Bonsor (1886-1930). Meier, p.20, intenta negar que Bonsor expoliara aduciendo argumentos un tanto chuscos, que, una vez más ponen en evidencia la necesidad de que la defensa de ciertas actuaciones académicas vaya acompañada del conocimiento de las leyes de protección artística o, cuando menos, del Código Penal.

(9)    En el caso español, conviene consultar, en  los Archivos de Germain Seligmann, la sección “Gente interesante” (España) y, sobre todo, en la sección “Correspondencia” la mantenida con el misterioso marchante austriaco afincado en España Ludwig Losbichler Gutjahr.

CATÁLOGO RAZONADO  DE OBRAS DE PROCEDENCIA DUDOSA O ILÍCITA CON LAS QUE TRAFICÓ LA FAMILIA HARRIS (SPANISH ART GALLERY, TOMAS HARRIS LTD)/ FOOTNOTE: CATALOGUE OF WORKS WITH UNKNOWN, ILLICIT OR “PROBLEMATIC”  PROVENANCE DEALT  BY LIONEL HARRIS /TOMÁS HARRIS / FAMILY (SPANISH ART GALLERY, TOMÁS HARRIS LTD.)

Alberti, Cherubino, attributed to: Design for the decoration of a wall in the Palazzo Mattei di Giove, Rome. The Courtauld Gallery

Material: Graphite, pen and ink and watercolour
Dimensions: 49.1 x 34.9 cm
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Professor Anthony Blunt, via the National Art Collections Fund, 1984
Reference: D.1984.AB.53
Provenance Tomás Harris, London, from whom acquired by Anthony Blunt in 1940.
Questions in the operative period: Where was this drawing between 1933 and 1940?
 
The Courtauld Gallery Spoliation Reports

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Anonimous: Alexander the Great receiving the submission of three kings. Glasgow Museum France (Burgundy), late 15th century
Material: Wool
Dimensions: 11ft 8in x 17ft 9in
Acquisition: –
Reference: 46.88
Provenance M. Ledoux; acquired by Burrell from Maurice Harris on or before 24 December 1947.
Questions in the operative period:  When did this enter Ledoux collection? When was it acquired by Harris?

Spoliations Reports Glasgow Museum  

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Anónimo italiano al estilo de Nicolas Cordier: El Salvador.

Museo del Prado.
Num. de catálogo E00445;
Materia: Mármol
Medidas: 60 cm x 65 cm x 26 cm – 108,2 kg
Procedencia: Donación Tomás Harris, 1955. «Adquirido por Lyonel (sic) Harris (padre del donante) en la capilla del palacio de Alcañices (Madrid), donde llegaría en el siglo XIX desde el monasterio de El Parral (Segovia). Supuestamente encargada para el monasterio por Felipe II a Gaspar Becerra (1563).
Sin documentación acreditativa.

Donaciones de Tomás Harris al museo del Prado

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Antipendium o frontal del altar del Monasterio de Sant Cugat del Vallès. Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, Torino

“L’antiquari de Barcelona Celestí Dupont va vendre el frontal de l’altar del mones­tir de Sant Cugat del Vallès a la Spanish Art Galle­ries de Mr Lionel Harris de London, i aquest el va revendre a un antiquari parisienc per 200 lliures. Va anar passant per dues colleccions particulars franceses fins arribar al Museu Cívic d’Art Antic de Torí, on és ara»  Izard, Feliu i Llordés, Dolors. “Aproximació a les dades generals de la recuperació i salvació del patrimoni pictòric romànic de les Nogueres Pallareses”, Èxode del Romànic Pallarès, p.5

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Arqueta prismática de marfil. Museo Lázaro Galdiano
Cronología S. XII
Escuela Española
Lugar de producción España
Material Marfil, madera, oro, cobre
Técnica policromado, atauriqueado, cincelado y dorado
Dimensiones34 x 18,5 x 11 cm.Localización SALA II

“Esta magnífica pieza perteneció a Lionel Harris, siendo adquirida por D. José Lázaro Galdiano en París. Estuvo en la colección Plandiura de Barcelona y en la Spanish Art Gallery de Londres. Erróneamente COTT la sitúa en el Museo de Arte de Barcelona, porque seguramente la encontró en un inventario de Plandiura que, como es sabido, legó casi toda su colección al Museo de Arte de Cataluña. FERRANDIS (1940) lo sitúa correctamente en la colección Lázaro, de París, aunque duplica su referencia (nº 32 y nº 149) al no detectar que habia pertenecido anteriormente a Michel Boy, por quien fue vendida en 1905 (nº 297 del Catálogo G.Petit, con atribución “oriental siglo XV”).

En el interior muestra varios sellos de las Aduanas francesas y una etiqueta correspondiente a la Exposición de arte musulmán de Munich, en 1910, donde figuró con el nº 8, siendo entonces su expositor la Spanish Art Gallery de Londres.” (Camps Cazorla, Emilio. Inventario del Museo Lázaro 1948 – 1950)

Sin documentación sobre el dueño anterior a Harris o permisos de salida.

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Auguste et Cléopatre, formerly attributed to Nicolas Poussin. National Gallery de Canadá

Unknown (Italian – 17th century)  
oil on canvas  
145 x 195.2 cm
Purchased 1953   
National Gallery of Canada (no. 6092)
Huile sur toile, 145 x 195.2 cm
Acheté en 1953
No. 6092
Provenance: ? Palais Barberini, Rome (selon une étiquette sur le chassis). Collection particulière, Angleterre, depuis v. 1870.  Tomas Harris Ltd., Londres, à partir de 1938. Vente anonyme, Sotheby’s, Londres, 21 juillet 1948, no. 814 (lot Harris), non vendu.   Acheté de Thomas Harris Ltd. en 1953.

National Gallery of Canada

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Ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira. Artesonado del Palacio de Altamira de Torrijos (Toledo) .

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Painted, gilded, and composed wood
225 (571.5 cm)
Ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira – Anonymous (maker) Spanish.

“También incrementaron la popularidad de estas artes entre los coleccionistas y llevaron al establecimiento en Londres de galerías en las que se vendían las antigüedades enviadas desde Madrid. Una de las más importantes fue la Spanish Art Gallery de Conduit Street, inaugurada en 1898 por Lionel Harris (1862-1943) 85. El South Kensington Museum – ya conocido como Victoria and Albert Museum– realizó importantes adquisiciones en este establecimiento, incluidas numerosas piezas textiles nazaríes y mudéjares que formaban parte de un lote de más de doscientos fragmentos textiles comprados en 1910 (del T.66 al 260-1910); pero lo más espectacular fue probablemente el techo de madera de finales del siglo XV procedente del Palacio de Altamira de Torrijos, cerca de Toledo, que había sido demolido en 1904 (407-1905)” Miriam Rosser-Owen, Coleccionar la Alhambra. Owen Jones y la España Islámica en el South Kensington Museum, p. 64.

El Palacio de Altamira pertenecia a Francisco de Asís Osorio de Moscoso y de Borbón (1847-1924),  XVIII duque de Maqueda.

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Códice “Leyes del Rey Jaime”. Lionel Harris (1901). Localización desconocida

“Vendido por el Vizconde de Espes a Mr. Harris.” (3ª ép. T 5º, p. 58, enero, 1901).
(Catálogo de la Revista y el Boletín de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, (enero de 1871-Diciembre de 1910)

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Colgaduras de la Catedral de Santiago. US (?)

“Yo he oído contar a Tomás Harris —pintor inglés que se mató no hace mu­cho en un accidente de automóvil en Mallorca— cómo su padre, don Lionel Harris, compró poco antes de la primera guerra mundial las famosas colgaduras de tercio­pelo rojo de la Catedral Compostelana a cambio de doscientas mil pesetas y unas nuevas. Estas colgaduras, que estuvieron mucho tiempo expuestas en la «Spanish Gallerie» (sic) de Londres, fueron vendidas a Norteamérica por unos seis millones de pesetas de la época”. Victoria Armesto, Galicia feudal, p.276, n.39

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Cuttings from illuminated manuscripts (Miniaturas recortadas de manuscritos) (14th-15th century): Image of David in prayer.

British Library. 

Acquisition : Accepted by HM Treasury in lieu of inheritance tax from the estates of Miss Violeta Harris and her sister, Mrs Conchita Wolff, and allocated to the British Library through the National Art-Collections Fund, 1992
Reference: Add. MS 71117-71119
Provenance Formerly owned by Miss Violeta Harris (1898-1989), who apparently purchased them soon  after World War II through her brother, Tomas Harris, managing director of the Spanish Art Gallery in London.
Other fragments from the same manuscript as Add. MS 71117 are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam:
“Collection of 31 manuscripts from the 14th and 15th centuries. Includes an illustration depicting The Flight into Egypt, a miniature from a Book of Hours, late fifteenth century, attributed to . Acceptance in Lieu of tax.
Provenance: Tomas Harris, OBE; his sister Miss Violeta Harris.

Spoliation reports from British Library

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MS Typ 270  Cuttings:

    Four related leaves (formerly in the collection of Tomás Harris and sold at Sotheby’s, London, 12 July 1971, lot no. 3 to Bernard H. Breslauer) include:
Annunciation (later Witten Catalogue 12, no. 57 and later still Jörn Günther, Catalogue 5, no. 26)
Christ before Pilate (later Witten Catalogue 12, no. 56)
Crucifixion (formerly Breslauer leaf no. 41; now Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art)
Virgin Appearing to a Dying Priest (formerly Breslauer leaf no. 42; now Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art)

• Harvard College Library, Illuminated & Calligraphic Manuscripts: An Exhibition held at the Fogg Art Museum & Houghton Library, February 14–April 1, 1955. Cambridge, Mass.: n.p., 1955. MS cited n. 91, pl. 64.  
•  Jeffrey F. Hamburger. “Typology Refigured: Marian Devotions derived from the Speculum humanae salvationis,” Harvard Library Bulletin 21.2 (Piecing Together the Picture: Fragments of German and Netherlandish Manuscripts in Houghton Library edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger) (2010), 73-94.  MS cited throughout.

Hamburger identifies 5 sister leaves from a manuscript which was probably a personal devotional miscellany that incorporated a set of poems derived from the final section of the Speculum humanae salvationis  that focused on the Sorrows and Joys of the Virgin Mary.

Vid. etiam:  Cuttings from mss by Tomás Harris San Marino, Huntington Library,

HM 58285     

View All Images for this Manuscript (7)

Description:  —ff. i + 64 + i—  Bound, s. XVIII, in speckled brown leather, the covers framed by a single gilt rope-work motif over pasteboards, sewn on hemp(?) cords; the spine with simple horizontal gilt fillets marking the five bands, the second compartment lettered in gilt «MS.[…] / MISSA[L…]»; the spine covering partly defective and the spine side of the lower covering shrunk, perhaps from exposure to fire (not mentioned in the 1930 description), revealing blue marbled paper over the pasteboards; stored in a light-faded green cloth-covered box with a red leather title-piece lettered in gilt «MS. NO. 13 / BOOK OF HOURS / FRAGMENT / ENGLISH / 15TH C.» —  Belonged probably to someone closely related to Simon de Felbrigg (d. 3 December 1442), and his first wife, Margaret of Teschen (d. 27 June 1413), daughter of Przemyslaw Noszak, kinswoman and Lady of Honour of Anne of Bohemia, Richard II’s wife, who married Simon ca. 1386, as suggested by several of the obits added to the calendar, by the fact that the first miniature (now missing, see below) depicted St Margaret, and by the prayer written in Czech (f. 62); inscribed «Iste liber constat Felbrygg generoso [signed?:] R. ff.» (f. 62v); «Felbrygg» scratched into the outer margin of f. 13v. The de la Pole and Cheyne obits in the calendar might be explained if the manuscript passed to Margaret’s daughter Elizabeth, and after the latter’s death to her husband Miles Stapleton’s second wife, Katherine, daughter of Thomas de la Pole and Anne, née Cheyne. Owned, s. XV, by someone with a special veneration for Peter of Verona (feast added to calendar, and prayer added on f. 61v). Inscribed «tout ma fiance», perhaps a motto, written twice (f. 62v). Inscribed with a copy of «An indenture or porcion of devyded among systers» (sic), dated 12 July «… in ye thyrde & forth yeares off ye reynes of sir philipe & marye …» [i.e. 1556/7], appears to be initialed by the scribe «P W» and signed «William Pa[x?]er of the towne of Congleton within the [county of Cheshire]» (f. 63r). This may perhaps relate to the fact that Simon Felbrigg had three daughters (Alana, Anne, and Elizabeth) by his marriage to Margaret, and no further offspring by his second marriage; Anne was the owner of the Felbrigge Psalter in the British Library (Sloane MS 2400), whose calendar includes the added obits of her parents Simon and Margaret. Inscribed «L EAMES FAVELL»(?) (f. 10, upper margin). Inscribed, s. XIX, in purple pencil with a price and Reference number «[£]20/-/- 376(?)» (front pastedown, upper left); and with brown ink price-codes(?) (front pastedown, upper right corner, and f. 1, upper left corner, both very indistinct). George Folliott (d. 1851), of Vicars Cross, Chester; «sold by the joint direction of his daughter, Mrs. E. I. E. Folingsby Walker [d. 1931] … and her son James Folingsby Walker» at Sotheby’s, 12 May, 1930, lot 73, at which time it had 77 leaves and «four full-page miniatures between the calendar and the beginning of the text, seven large historiated initials with full bar and scroll borders», the miniatures representing Sts Margaret, Catherine, George, and the Crucifixion; «In addition to these miniatures are three contemporary pen-and-ink drawings on fly-leaves, one a remarkable full-page pen drawing of St. Christopher» (the latter is reproduced as a full-page plate in the catalog, but it represents John the Baptist with the Agnus dei, not Christopher); bought by «Harris, T.» for £155, probably the dealer Tomás Harris (1908–64), of the Spanish Art Gallery, London, who was presumably responsible for removing the four full-page miniatures, historiated initials, and flyleaves with drawings (in addition to being an art dealer, Harris was an MI5 agent and was awarded the OBE in 1945; see ODNB). Inscribed in pencil, March 1946(?): «Sarum Missal / Export Mar. ‘46». Endowment for Biblical Research, Brookline, Mass., Zion MS 13; inscribed in pencil «Zion MS. 13» (f. 1, upper right corner; cf. box); fol. 65 inscribed «Zion 13 / fol. 66*» (upper right corner); deacessioned after 1985. Sam Fogg Rare Books Ltd, London, acquired by the Huntington through the Library Collectors’ Council in January 1999.  —  Peter Kidd, «Supplement to the #tGuide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library#,» Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 4 (December 2009) pp. 1–101. Judith Oliver (ed.), Manuscripts Sacred and Secular from the Collections of the Endowment for Biblical Research and Boston University (Boston, 1985), no. 86 pp. 50-52.

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Iron Work of the Middle Ages (collection of Spanish). (Colección de forja medieval y renacentista que estaba depositada en el Museo Arqueológico de Madrid). Several locations and owners.

“A UNIQUE and admirably representative collection of Spanish Iron Work of the Middle Ages, brought together with infinite pains and discernment by Senor Nicolas Duque, has recently been acquired by The Spanish Art Gallery, 50, Conduit Street, W. Mr. Lionel Harris has had this rich collection, covering a period of three centuries, bodily transported to London from the Archaeological Museum of Madrid, where it has been on view for the last quarter of a century. The generosity of Senor Duque in lending the collection for public use received a signal mark  of recognition by a letter sealed with the Royal Arms, and bearing the signature of the Queen Regent. This Exhibition has a double interest. Not only have we here one of the finest collections of the most delicate and exquisite specimens of worked iron, wrought and beaten by the master smiths of the Middle Ages into gargoyles and Gothic arches, or into Hispano-Moresque twinings of flowery arabes- ques ; but we have also an Exhibition that can never be repeated in this or any other country out of Spain, for the Spanish Government is about to issue a decree that the remaining relics of Spain’s artistic past shall be preserved to her people. There was a violent outburst of popular feeling in Madrid at this piece of gross vandalism as it was called, and the Spanish Press was unanimous in denouncing what they considered a case of sheer robbery. But their protests were useless. The El Liberal and other journals, after speaking of the artistic knowledge and enthusiasm this collection represented, of the long patient years in which Segovia and the adjoining provinces had been searched from end to end, goes on to relate the admiration these specimens excited when exhibited in Madrid, the visitors’ book at the Museum being filled with lines of grateful homage and enthusiastic praise addressed to Senor Duque, and signed by the most eminent men —literary, artistic, and political — of Europe, The El Liberal deeply laments the fact that such a collection was not bought by the State to prevent it leaving the country. » This beautiful collection will, no doubt,» continues the irate journalist, «bear eloquent testimony in other lands to the height which the Metal Workers’ Art had reached in Spain during the Middle Ages; but it will also bear eloquent testimony to our national lethargy.» The more closely we examine this wonderful collection, which has excited the ire and waked the eloquence of the Spanish journalists, the more we can sympathise with them. The nails alone include about five hundred different specimens, the heads measuring from two to for the creaking of the heavy oaken doors that led to the dungeons and torture chambers of the Inquisition. And into the dungeons Senor Duque did verily descend in the course of his artistic pilgrimage, for we find sj)ecimens in this collection of handcuffs, anklets, and queer muzzle-shaped devices for imprisoning the hand. Almost every kind of Architectural Iron Work is represented — keys, locks, railings, and gratings, or «vizzyings» as they were called in England in the Middle Ages. We have, in addition, marvellously wrought caskets and sea chests of iron and steel, also coats of arms and panels of repouss^ work taken from the doors’ of castle and church.

The Connoisseur. Vol. XVIII. (MAY-AUGUST. 1907), LONDON p.129

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Monypenny Breviary (El Breviario Monypenny, manuscrito iluminado de principios del s. siglo XVI, procedente del un convento de Arcos de la Frontera). Sotheby’s july 2000  Private owner.

Manuscrito de 822 folios en pergamino, de los cuales 73 están iluminados por Jehan de Molisson and Jacquelin de Molisson, artistas de la escuela de Bourges. El códice se compuso en Berry,  pero su encuadernación en piel roja con arabescos grabados en púrpura y verde es de factura española. Habría sido compuesto por encargo de Alexander Monypenny, chambelán de Luis XII, y quizás para la hija del primer Lord Monypenny, abadesa de la orden franciscana. El manuscrito permaneció siglos en el Convento de la Encarnación de Arcos de la Frontera (Cádiz) donde Lionel Harris lo compró a las monjas franciscanas en 1922 y lo sacó del país sin permisos oficiales acreditados hasta el momento.

Considerado uno de los manuscritos iluminados más valiosos del mundo,en su última subasta en Sotheby’s, en Julio de 2000,  alcanzó un valor de £3 303 500.

“The Breviary, to judge from the cleanness of its pages, mostly of very fine vellum, has had an uneventful history. It contains not the least note or inscription relating to its subsequent ownership, nor as to how it found its way from Berry to a remote corner of Andalusia. That it was possibly in the Peninsula not so very long after its completion would appear from the binding, which is of dark red leather witharabesques and cartouche work inlaid in purple and dark green, and is sixteenth-century Spanish in its rich elaboration, if French in type. Los Arcos and its religious houses, including the Franciscan convent of La Encarnacion, whence the book passed into the hands of Mr Lionel Harris (of the Spanish Gallery, London), at Seville, are not even cited in Beer’s Handschriftenschatze Spaniens, the best guide to Spain’s collections of MSS., private and public.”
(Albert van de Put, “The Monypenny Breviary”, the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. VI, 1922 . pp. 72-110, p.98) (negritas mías)

“The Monypenny Breviary, in the possesion of Mr. Lionel Harris of the Spanish Art Gallery, is fortunate in having secured the interest of Mr. Albert Van de Put…” (Egerton Beck, “The Monypenny Breviary”. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs  Vol. 55, No. 321, Dec., 1929 , p. 272)

The Glasgow Herald – Dec 14, 1929: The Monypenny Breviary. Notable Art Treasure. Suggested Purchase for Scotland

***

Nao de Mataró. Rotterdam Maritime Museum.

    La Nao de Mataró, que procedía  de la ermita de San Simón, situada cerca de Mataró. «Es uno de los más antiguos del mundo y reproduce una nave mercante mediterránea de la baja Edad  Media. En referencia a su origen más probable, se le denomina modelo de Mataró. Aparentemente fue fabricado en el siglo XV, aunque durante mucho tiempo se ha ignorado su antigüedad exacta. No obstante, la madera de la quilla se ha analizado recientemente mediante carbono 14 y se ha establecido que el modelo fue fabricado entre 1456 y 1482.»

«Travels of the model It is thought that the model was purchased by an antique dealer from Barcelona in the first decade of the 20th century. He sold it to Tómas Harris, an art dealer from London specialising in Spanish art (hence his ’Spanish Art Gallery’). He in turn sold the model to antique dealer Julius Böhler of Munich. Böhler exhibited it in 1929 at the Reinhardt Galleries  in New York, but did not find a buyer. The model then returned to Europe.  Acquisition by the Rotterdam Maritime Museum In 1929 the Dutch art collector and dealer Frits Lugt purchased the Mataró model. He tried to sell it to the Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, but without success. The Rotterdam Maritime Museum showed an interest but had insufficient funds. Frits Lugt and the director of the Rotterdam Maritime Museum, Jan Willem van Nouhuys, found someone prepared to buy the model, namely harbour baron and art collector Daniël George van Beuningen. In 1930 it was lent to the Rotterdam museum. In 1981 it was finally purchased for the museum with thefull support of the G. Ph. Verhagen Foundation.”

Rotterdam Maritime Museum: La Nao de Mataró.pdf

***

Parc aux cerfs (Deer Park). Glasgow Museum
France/Flanders, late 15th or early 16th century
Material: Wool and silk
Dimensions: 11ft 3in x 13ft 1in
Acquisition: –
Reference: 46.132
Provenance Chilham Castle, Kent (see ’Country Life’ article, 1924); acquired by Burrell from the Spanish Art Gallery on or before 12 April 1933.
Questions in the operative period When did the Spanish Art Gallery acquire this, and from whom?

Spoliation Reports. Glasgow Museums

*** 

Pietà. Fitzwilliam Museum
Maker/s: Unknown
Category: sculpture
Description: Pietà, carved in boxwood, and polychromed. The seated Virgin on the left gazes upwards and Christ on the ground leans against her knees, his right arm stretched across them. His left arm is held by Mary Magdalene, who kneels beside the Virgin. The robe of the Virgin and the loin cloth of Christ still bear traces of the original blue paint.
Production Place: Spain (country)
Technique Description: carved in boxwood, and polychromed
Dimensions : height: (whole): 1 5/8 in; width: (whole): 1 3/4 in
Period: 16th century
Date: circa 1500 to 1600
Provenance: given: Harris, Lionel 1917 (Filtered for: Applied Arts collection)
Given by Lionel Harris M.6-1917 (Applied Arts) 

***

Retablo de Barbastro del Cuattrocento. Lionel Harris, 1922.

Localización actual desconocida.

“COMPLETE quattrocento retablos are rarely seen outside Spain. The one here reproduced by kind permission of Mr. Lionel Harris [Plate], is a typical and well -preserved example of this characteristic class of early Spanish Church furniture. Of considerable dimensions (2.29 m. bv 2.44 m.), the polyptych is in the first instance devoted to the glorification of two youthful Saints, one remembered as a warrior, the other a sportsman —SS. Sebastian and Julian Hospitator. Both of these are seen in the principal panel, at full length, dressed in rich modish costumes of the artist’s own time; St. Sebastian, on the left, holding a bow and three arrows, the emblems of his martyr- dom ; St. Julian Hospitator, on the right, with a falcon perched on his hand, in allusion to his exploits as a huntsman. On each side of this central compartment are two others, of smaller height, each containing two scenes from the legends of the same saints. On the left we see thus, in the upper compartment, St. Sebastian appearing before the judge and causing the mother and father of his two friends, Marcus and Marcellinus, to desist in their attempts to make their sons abandon the Christian faith — the upshot being the conversion of all the parties concerned ; while the lower compartment shows the martyrdom of St Sebastian. On the right again we have two scenes from the legend, which is familiar to  from the story in which Gustave Flaubert, out of the slight material of the mediaeval legend, has  fashioned a character study of such intense and  deeply moving power : in the lower compartment, St. Julian, having slain his father and mother in mistake, addresses outside the bedchamber his wife, the «rich widow of a castle» in Caxton’s tradition of the Golden Legend; while the scene at the top probably represents a later episode in the legend, St. Julian seated outside the hospital which he caused to be erected » for to harbour poor people,» and addressing a group of infirm men. The predella contains in the centre a representation of the Man of Sorrows between the Virgin and St. John, and in the other compartments figures of female saints in couples (including, in the first compartment on the left, St. Engracia, the character depicted in Bartolome Vermejo’s superb picture in the collection of Mrs. J. L. Gardiner). The present altarpiece, which originally was in a church at the little town of Barbastro, an episcopal see in «Eastern Aragon, displays clearly enough in a general way its af Snity to the work of the Catalan school of the end of the quattrocento. The nearest parallel to which I can point is, perhaps, Jaime Huguet’s Retablo de Santa Julita in San Quirse de Tarrassa  ; but the painter of Mr. Harris’s polyptych has individual characteristics of style, among which mav be mentioned the application of colours in fiat washes, a positive note of vermilion being frequently echoed in the scheme of colour.” Borenius, Tancred. “An Early Spanish Retablo”  

The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. Volume XLI Number CCXXXII- CCXXXVII. July December, 1922, p. 193

Atribuido a Espalargues o D’Espalarges , Pere, (El Viejo) (Elder)d. ca. 1500 or 1.
Title : SS. Sebastian and Julian the Hospitaler.
Dimensions      /Medium: 87 1/2 x 95 1/2 in tempera on panel.

Provenance:  (c) From the Church of Barbastro, Eastern Aragon;
(c) Lionel Harris;
(c) purchased from him in 1924 under the terms of the Marlay bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge;
(d) Julius Weitzner, New York;
(c) Sale, Sotheby’s, London, H.E. Ten Cate and Other Collections, February 25, 1959, lot 151 (£1,300 to Betts);
(d) John and Johanna Bass, New York;
(d) Sale, Parke-Bernet, October 24, 1962, lot 41 (,000);
(c) thought to be in an American Museum.

arcade.nyarc.org:80/record=b1077683~S1

***

Retablo bordado de Don Pedro de Montoya, Obispo de Osma. Art Institute of  Chicago.

Retable Depicting Madonna and Child, Nativity, and Adoration of the Magi; Altar Frontal Depicting the Resurrection and Six Apostles, c. 1468 Linen, plain weave; appliquéd with linen and silk, plain weaves and silk, plain weave with supplementary pile warps forming cut solid velvet; Retable: embroidered with silk floss and creped yarns, gilt- and-silvered-metal-strip-wrapped silk in brick, bullion, chain, outline, split, stem and a variety of satin stitches; laid work, couching, and padded couching; seed pearls and spangles; Altar Frontal: embroidered with linen, silk, gilt-metal-strip-wrapped silk in satin and split stitches; laid work, couching, and padded couching; spangles
Retable: 165.2 x 200.8 cm (65 x 79 in.)
Altar Frontal: 88.8 x 202.3 cm (35 x 79 5/8 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Chauncey McCormick and Mrs. Richard Ely Danielson, 1927.1779a-b

The need to wear and use cloth made from plant and animal fibers has proven fertile ground for the creative imagination, and various methods have evolved to produce or embellish fabrics. The Spanish Retable and Altar Frontal is a virtual encyclopedia of needlework techniques. This medieval masterpiece was created for the Bishop of Osma, Spain, about 1468, possibly as a traveling altar. The three scenes above, the Madonna and Child, the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Magi, have been embroidered to imitate painting. Below the altar appear six apostles and the scene of the Resurrection within an elaborate architectural structure. The relief effect of the figures and colonnade, achieved through padding and stuffing, imitates in appearance a Gothic sculpted altar. Gold and silver threads, seed pearls, and spangles enhance the jewel-like character of this sumptuous devotional work.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/725

«… It seems reasonable to suppose the work was done in Spain before 1916, at which time the altarpiece was sold to Lionel Harris, a London art dealer and collector”

Mildred Davison,  “An Altarpiece from Burgo de Osma”, Art Institute of Chicago Museum StudiesVol. 3, (1968), pp. 108-124

***

Sculpture, Bearded, seated grotesque figure (Altorrelieve medieval) Fitzwilliam Museum.

Maker/s: Unknown
Category: sculpture
Name: figure
School/Style: Medieval
Description: Stone, probably limestone. Bearded, seated grotesque figure, holding its knees. Positioned in a sector of a circle.
Production Place: Spain (country)
Spanish (nationality)
Technique Description: stone
Dimensions:
height: (whole): 42.0 cm;
width: (whole): 12.0 cm
depth: (whole): 30.0 cm
Date: circa 1300 to 1400
Provenance: given: Harris, Lionel 1910

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opacdirect/31243.html 

***

Sculpture (alabaster): Effigy of García de Osorio (Efigie de Don Garcia de Osorio en alabastro). Victoria&Albert Museum.

Physical description: Alabaster effigy of Don García de Osorio. The figure lies with closed eyes, grasping his sword. He is clean-shaven, but with stubble on his face shown. His woven straw hat is decorated with a tasselled cord, and the shell of the Order of Santiago. The mantle of the Order, with its badge on his left breast, is worn over his armour. The pommel of the sword and the hilt are inscribed. The effigy’s head rests on two cushions with laced edges and pointed ornaments at the corners, one is carved with a cover held together by fictive leather thongs. At the feet is a kneeling female figure on a much smaller scale. She appears to be sleeping, resting her right elbow on a helmet. She wears a loose tunic tied at the waist, and long hair bound with twisted cord. Distinctive knots on the belt and hairband of this figure are similar to those on the gloves and feet of the effigy, and resemble those knots on the companion effigy and attendant figure at her feet.

Place of Origin: Toledo (made)
Date: 1499-1505 (made)
Artist/maker: Unknown (production)
Material and Techniques: Carved alabaster
Marks and inscriptions: ’IESVS : [VICT half legible] ORIAM’ ’Jesus (give me) victory’  ’X DEO X BENEDICTVS’ ’The blessing of god’
Dimensions: Height: 40.5 cm, Width: 64 cm, Depth: 198 cm
Object history note   Like A.49-1910, this effigy was originally in a chapel of the church of S. Pedro at Ocaña, about fifty kilometres east of Toledo. The contents of the church were dispersed in about 1906, when the building was declared structurally unsafe (it was demolished in 1907). The effigies may have been acquired by a Madrid dealer, Boroondo, and were subsequently bought by the London dealer Lionel Harris, from whom the Museum purchased them. Two other effigies from the same church were bought by the Hispanic Society of America in New York at the same time.

Historical significance:

This effigy is courtly and chivalric, and at the same time is imbued with religious significance. At the feet of the knight a small mourning, or possibly sleeping female figure leans against his helmet, removed so that his face can be seen, but also suggesting he is no longer actively fighting. He wears chain mail and armour, and wears gauntlets, and holds a sword, but the inscriptions record his piety, and this complements the sentiment of the effigy of the deceased’s wife (A.48-1910). All of this is typical of the Order of Santiago, which was military, and dedicated to the cause of Christianity. Such an effigy would have also acted as memorial to the family of don García Osorio, and would have been revered by his descendants and local inhabitants. Although the author of the tomb is unknown, he is likely to have been a sculptor active in Toledo, and the skill with which the costume and portraits are rendered on both this effigy and that of doña María Perea (don García Osorio’s wife) suggests an experienced Castilian sculptor perhaps influenced by Netherlandish prototypes, in the tradition of Gil de Siloe.

Historical context note

The church of S. Pedro was closely associated with the military Order of Santiago, which owned Ocaña. The subject of this effigy, don García Osorio, was a knight of the Order of Santiago, and wears the mantle of the Order, with its badge on his left breast. The distinctive shell of the Order is worn on his woven straw hat. The pommel of the sword is inscribed (in Latin) ’Jesus give me victory’, and the hilt, ’The blessing of God’. The church was also used for meetings of the Castilian cortes (a local parliament), and for important ceremonial occasions until the the end of the fifteenth century.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70110/effigy-don-garcia-de-osorio/

***

Sculpture (alabaster): Alabaster effigy of Doña María de Perea ( Efigie de doña María de Pereda o Perea). Victoria&Albert Museum.

Toledo (made)
Date 1499-1505 (made)
Artist/maker: Unknown (production)
Material and Techniques: Carved alabaster
Dimensions: Height: 33.5 cm, Width: 66 cm, Length: 200 cm

Object history note

Like A.48-1910, this effigy was originally in a chapel of the church of S. Pedro at Ocaña, about fifty kilometres east of Toledo. The church was used for meetings of the Castilian cortes (the local parliament), and for important ceremonial occasions, until the the end of the fifteenth century. The contents of the church were dispersed in about 1906, when the building was declared structurally unsafe (it was demolished in 1907). The effigies may have been acquired by a Madrid dealer, Borondo, and were subsequently bought by the London dealer Lionel Harris, from whom the Museum purchased them. Two other effigies from the same church were bought by the Hispanic Society of America in New York at the same time.

Historical significance:

Doña María Perea is shown holding rosary beads, a symbol of her piety. At her feet a small mourning allegorical female figure leans against three books, which may well be intended to represent devotional volumes. Doña María’s simple dress, reminiscent of a nun, also implies her lack of ostentation and her religious devotion. Although the author of the tomb is unknown, he is likely to have been a sculptor active in Toledo, and the skill with which the dress and portraits are rendered on both this effigy and that of don García Osorio (doña María Perea’s husband) suggests an experienced Castilian sculptor perhaps influenced by Netherlandish prototypes, in the tradition of Gil de Siloe.

Historical context note

The church of S. Pedro was closely associated with the military Order of Santiago, which owned Ocaña. The subject of this effigy was doña María de Perea (d. after 1499), the wife of don García Osorio, a knight of the Order of Santiago, whose effigy is also in the collection (A.48-1910).

Descriptive line Effigy, alabaster, of Doña María de Perea, in the tradition of the work of Gil de Siloe, Spain (Castilian), perhaps Toledo, ca. 1499-1505

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70118/effigy-dona-maria-de-perea/

*** 

Sculpture: Head of kore. National Gallery Victoria.

1st century BC-1st century AD, Roman Period
Medium: marble
Measurements: 29.5 x 15.6 x 18.7 cm
Credit Line: Gift of Mr Tomas Harris, 1951
Additional Information
Accession Number: 1045B-D4
Sculpture (alabaster): The Visitation.  Fitzwilliam Museum
Description :The Visitation, alabaster, carved and painted.
Production Place Spain (maker) (country)
Technique Description
Dimensions
height: (alabaster): 80 cm
width: (alabaster): 32.2 cm
depth: (alabaster): height: (frame): 103.5 cm
width: (frame): 42.5 cm
depth: (frame): Period: 15th century
Provenance: given: Harris, Lionel 1925  The Spanish Art Gallery, 50 Conduit Street, London, W1; Lionel Harris 
Accession Number: M.2-1925 (Applied Arts)
(Reference Number: 31423; Input Date: 2001-07-03 / Last Edit: 2011-07-22)

***

St Anne with the Virgin and Child. Fitzwilliam Museum   

Maker/s Unknown
Category: sculpture
Name: figure group
Description: St Anne with the Virgin and Child, wood, carved in the round. The Virgin, holding an orange in her right hand, is seated on the right knee of St Anne, who is seated on a throne. The Child, in a long tunic, stands on the left knee of the Virgin and the left knee of St Anne, blessing with his right hand. The Virgin wears a crown over her veil. St Anne, in a wimple and veil, supports the Virgin with both hands. The faces and robes are heavily polychromed with traces of the original pattern and gilding. The back is hollowed out below the head of St Anne.

Production Notes: The dating and attribution are those of Mr Isepp, 1951.
Production Place: Spain (country)
Technique Description: wood, carved in the round, polychromed and gilded
Dimensions:
height: (whole): 24.0 in
width: (whole): 9.0 in
depth: (whole): 8.0 in
Period: 15th century
Date: circa 1400 to 1500

Provenance Given by Lionel Harris

Other Notes: Accession Number M.1-1911 (Applied Arts)

 ***

St John the Baptist brought before King Herod; the king seated at far l, St John at centre surrounded by soldiers. British Museum.

Pen and brown ink, on parchment
Height: 182.00mm
Width: 248.00mm
Registration number: 1947,1011.20
Exchanged with: Tomás Harris (for duplicates)
Previous owner/ex-collection: Count Moritz von Fries (L.2903)
Previous owner/ex-collection: J-B-F-G de Meryan, Marquis de Lagoy (L.1710)

British Museum provenance research of the Nazi period

***

Tapestry with scenes of the Passion of Christ : from left to right, Descent from the Cross, Entombment, and Resurrection. Victoria&Albert Museum.

Tapestry
Place of origin: Arras (probably, made)
Date: 1400-1425 (made)
Artist/Maker: Unknown (production)
Material and Techniques: Tapestry-woven in wool, silk, silver and gold thread
Credit Line: Purchased with the assistance of the Murray Bequest

Physical description: Tapestry with scenes of the Passion of Christ : from left to right, Descent from the Cross, Entombment, and Resurrection. These form a continuous scene divided by rocks, set against a background of sky and trees and a foreground of verdure. On the left the body of Christ rests in the lap of the Virgin. St John, kneeling, holds the right hand to his lips. Behind are the figures of Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and the Holy Women. In the centre scene the body of Christ rests on a cloth on the lid of the tomb, round three sides of which are grouped the other figures. On the right Christ, holding the banner of the Resurrection, steps out of the tomb; St Mary Magdalene kneels in front, the soldiers are grouped around and an angel stands behind the tomb. (from Wingfield-Digby catalogue).

15-16 warp threads per inch.
Place of Origin: Arras (probably, made)
Date: 1400-1425 (made)
Artist/maker: Unknown (production)
Material and Techniques: Tapestry-woven in wool, silk, silver and gold thread
Dimensions: Height: 105.5 cm, Width: 304 cm

Object history note

The tapestry was purchased for £3000 from the Spanish Art Gallery (Lionel Harris), Conduit Street, London, using funds from the bequest of Captain H B Murray. It had been in the collection of Lord Willoughby de Broke, at Compton Verney, and was sold at auction by Sothebys on 11 February 1921, lot 120.

The tapestry had previously been on loan to the museum, from 1 August 1913 to 15 June 1914.
Nothing more is known of its previous history.

Historical significance:

The tapestry is exquisitely and richly woven with gold thread used not only in the ornate haloes and garments but also in the foliage of trees and flowers. Other examples of tapestry-woven altar frontals of similar date (Cluny Museum, Thyssen-Bornemisza collection) show that tapestry-weaving of the highest quality was used for this purpose in the 15th century. It has been compared in style to a tapestry that was made for the Cathedral of Tournai in 1402, ordered from Pierre Fere of Arras, which shows the story of saints Piat and Eleutherius. It is also comparable with the Passion tapestries at St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, from the 1420s, and the Passion tapestry at La Seo, Saragossa, Spain.

From the late 14th century Arras was renowned for the quality of its tapestries, and many of the finest incorporated gold thread, the extensive use of which in figurative tapestry may have been an Arras innovation. From the 1390s most of the fine-quality tapestries purchased by the leading nobility appear to have been made in Arras.(References from Thomas Campbell, Tapestry in the Renaissance, New York, 2002, p.31).

Historical context note

Because of its subject matter, and quality, it seems likely that this tapestry was intended to hang in a great church or cathedral, although nothing is known of its provenance prior to an English private collection in the early 20th century.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O94161/tapestry/

***

Tapestry with the Annunciation. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Date:ca. 1410–20
Culture:South Netherlandish
Medium:Wool warp, wool with a few metallic wefts
Dimensions: Overall: 138 x 117in. (350.5 x 297.2cm)
Classification:Textiles: Tapestries
Credit Line: Gift of Harriet Barnes Pratt, in memory of her husband, Harold Irving Pratt (February 1, Although the tapestry was probably woven in Arras in the south Lowlands—the leading center of tapestry production following the decline of Paris during the Hundred Years War-it was found in Spain. The fame of weavers from this area extended throughout Europe, and was especially prized by Spaniards, who had established close diplomatic and commercial ties in the region.

Provenance:  Spanish Art Gallery, London; P. W. French & Co., New York (before 1922–1924); Mr. and Mrs. Harold Irving Pratt (1924–1949)

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/45.76

***

The Dishonest Miller. Glasgow Museum.
Switzerland, 3rd quarter of the 15th century.
Material: Wool and linen
Dimensions: 3ft x 3ft 61/2in
Acquisition: –
Reference: 46.43
Provenance None recorded; acquired by Burrell from the Spanish Art Gallery by November 1936.
Questions in the operative period Where was this before 1936?

http://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/viewimage.html

Spoliation Reports. Glasgow Museums

 ***

The Triumph of the Madonna. Glasgow Museum

Flanders (Brussels), early 16th century
Material: Wool and silk
Dimensions: 13ft 4in x 26ft 10in
Acquisition: –
Reference: 46.117
Provenance In the chapel at Bramshill, together with the upper half of another similar one; sold at Sotheby’s sale, March 1931; acquired by Burrell from the Spanish Art Gallery on or before 24 September 1936.
Questions in the operative period Did Spanish Art Gallery purchase this directly at 1931 sale? If not, who did and where was it?

Spoliation Reports. Glasgow Museums

***

 The Virgin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Artist Spanish (Catalan) Painter, second quarter 15th century
Tempera and oil on wood, gold ground
Overall 18 3/4 x 15 7/8 in. (47.6 x 40.3 cm)
Gift of Walter C. Baker, 1952
Accession Number 52.35
Provenance: [Tomás Harris, London]; [Adam Paff, New York, d. 1932]; [Joseph Brummer, New York, 1932]; Mr. and Mrs. Walter C. Baker (1932–her d. 1946); Walter C. Baker, New York (1946–52)

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/110001472

***

 The Virgin and Child . Victoria&Albert Museum

1390-1410
Material: Cream-coloured marble with traces of gilding
Dimensions: h. 70.6 cm
Acquisition: Bought by the V&A from Sotheby’s London, 12 June 1941, lot 157(£270)
Reference: A.17-1941
Provenance: The Spanish Art Gallery, London (purchased by the owner, Mr Tomas Harris in France). Sold at Sotheby’s sale in 1941
Questions in the operative period Date and details of Acquisition by Mr Tomas Harris

Lists of works with incomplete provenance during the period 1933-1945 Victoria & Albert Museum

***

The Virgin and Child (Mechelen). Victoria&Albert Museum

Place of Origin: Mechelen (made)
Date ca. 1500-1520 (made)
Artist/maker: Unknown (production)
Material and Techniques: Carved, painted and gilded walnut
Dimensions: Height: 36.7 cm, Width: 13.2 cm, Depth: 6 cm, Weight: 0.72 kg

Object history note
Bought from Lionel Harris and Co, Conduit Street, London, in 1907 for £8.

Historical context note:
Typical example of Malines figure sculpture, in its scale, positioning of the figures, carving style, Malines mark and subject matter. It is very similar to 637-1897, but with slightly different poses for the figures and in worse condition.

Descriptive line:
Statuette, walnut, of the Virgin and Child, Belgium (Mechelen), ca. 1500-1520

 ***

Tombs of Don Gutierre de la Cueva and Doña Mencia Enriquez de Toledo.  (Arcosolios sepulcrales de doña Mencia Enri­quez de Toledo, y de su her­mano don Gutierre de la Cue­va, obispo de Palencia procedentes del Convento de San Francisco de Cuéllar (Segovia) . Hispanic Society of America.

“Convento vinculado a la casa ducal de Alburquerque, se ini­cia su decadencia durante la dominación francesa y su práctica ruina a finales del si­glo XIX, sufriendo luego una sistemática desmembración entre 1906 y 1927, de la cual fue principal responsable José Isidro Osorio, XVI duque de Al­burquerque. El suntuoso tú­mulo funerario del duque fun­dador, con su primera esposa, doña Mencia de Mendoza, y la tercera, doña María de Velas­co, que se encontraba en el centro del crucero de la igle­sia, desapareció casi en su to­talidad con el hundimiento de las bóvedas, y hoy tan sólo quedan restos en la Casa de Cervantes, de Valladolid, y en la Hispanic Society de Nueva York, en tanto que los arcosolios sepulcrales de su segun­da esposa, doña Mencia Enri­quez de Toledo, y de su her­mano don Gutierre de la Cue­va, obispo de Palencia, fueron a parar a la Hispanic Society, a través de Lionel Harris & Co. de Londres.” Merino de Cáceres, J. Miguel, “Expolio de arte religioso”, Peripecias del Arte, p. 112

Vid. -Effigies of a knight of Santiago and his lady in the collection of the Hispanic society of America. Hispanic Society of America – 1927

     The tombs of Don Gutierre de la Cueva and Doña Mencia Enriquez de Toledo in the collection of the Hispanic Society of America. Hispanic Society of America – 1927

***Assereto, Gioacchino, (attributed to ): The Guardian Angel. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Assereto, Gioacchino (1600 – 1649) One of two works presented to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery by Tomas Harris through the Art Fund in 1948.
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 226 x 143 cm
ArtFunded in: 1948
Presented by Tomas Harris through The Art Fund
Provenance: From the collection of Mr T.Harris.

***

Bellano, Bartolommeo (attributed to): Lamentation of Christ. National Gallery Victoria 

(late 15th century)
Medium: stone
Measurements: 91.5 x 95.0 x 18.8 cm
Credit Line: Presented by Tomas Harris Esq., 1952
Additional Information
Accession Number: 1276-D4

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/3322

***

Bertani, Giovanni Battista Attributed to: Design for a triumphal arch. The Courtauld Gallery

Material: Graphite, chalk, pen and ink and watercolour
Dimensions: 36.2 x 25.4 cm
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Professor Anthony Blunt, via the National Art Collections Fund, 1984
Reference: D.1984.AB.22
Provenance Tomás Harris, London, from whom acquired as gift by Blunt in 1937
Questions in the operative period When did Harris acquire this drawing? Where was this drawing between 1933 and 1937?

The Courtauld Gallery Spoliation Report

***

Busati,  Andrea:  Saint Francis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

(Documented Venice 1503-1528)
Date: early 16th century
Medium: Red chalk (wetted in part)
Dimensions: 8 x 3 7/16 in. (20.3 x 8.7 cm)
Classification: Drawings & watercolors
Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number: 1975.1.273
Provenance: before 1930 not established; [Tomas Harris, Spanish Gallery, London]; [Durlacher Galleries, New York]. Acquired by Robert Lehman in 1956.

The Metropolitan Museum Art: Saint Francis

***

Carrillo,  Eduardo: The Mass of St. Gregory. The Fitzwilliam Museum

Technique Description tempera on panel
Dimensions height: 55.9 cm width: 38.7 cm
Provenance given: The Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum 1910 (Filtered for: Paintings, Drawings and Prints) Painted for Alonso Ruiz de Cavala, c. 1480, priest of the church of Torrico, Toledo province, Spain, where it hung from about this time; with the Spanish Art Gallery, London (Lionel Harris), 1910; on loan from them October 1910, and subsequently purchased by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum

The mas of St. Gregory. The FitzWilliam museum

***

Cleve, Joos van and Workshop: The Infants Christ and Saint John the Baptist Embracing. Art Institute of Chicago.

Netherlandish, Active by 1507–1540/41
Oil on panel
29 7/16 x 22 11/16 in. (74.7 x 57.6 cm)
Inscribed: Coats of arms of Occo (at top of arch, left) and Claes (at top of arch, right)
Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1975.136

Ownership History

Pompejus Occo (died 1537), Amsterdam. Spanish Art Gallery, London, 1949; sold to French and Co., New York, 1949 [according to Robert Samuels of French and Co., in conversation with Martha Wolff, March 31 and April 7, 1989]; sold to Ernest Joresco, Chicago, 1963 [according to Samuels, this took place on Dec. 21, 1963]; sold to the Art Institute, 1975.

Cleve, Jos van and Workshop. Art Institute of Chicago

***

Cornelisz, Jacob, van Oostsanen and Workshop: The Adoration of the Christ Child. The Art Institute of Chicago

c. 1515
Oil on panel
98.5 x 76.3 cm (38 3/4 x 30 1/16 in.)
Painted surface: 97 x 74.9 cm (38 3/16 x 29 1/2 in.)
George F. Harding Collection, 1983.375

Ownership History: Spanish Art Gallery, London, by 1914 to at least 1916 [Steinbart 1922, p. 72; and Conway 1921]. Dr. John E. Stillwell, New York, by 1922[Steinbart 1922, p. 72]; sold, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, Dec. 1–3, 1927, no. 217, to Clapp and Graham as agent for Harding, for ,250 [Art News 1927, p. 12]; George F. Harding, Jr. (d. 1939), Chicago; bequeathed to the George F. Harding Museum, Chicago; offered for sale, Sotheby’s, New York, Dec. 2, 1976, no. 210, withdrawn; ownership transferred to the Art Institute, 1982; accessioned, 1983.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/100345

***

Daddi, Bernardo: A Triptych with the Crucifixion, with the Nativity and the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints in the Wings, National Gallery of Scotland.

dated 1338
Material: Tempera, gold and silver on panel
Dimensions: 53.5 x 28 (centre panel); 58 x 15.5 (left wing); 57.5 x 15.2 (right wing)
Acquisition: Purchased from the Spanish Art Gallery, 1938
Reference: NG 1904
Provenance W. Fuller Maitland Collection, Stansted Hall, by 1854, by whom sold to R. Langton Douglas, c.1907 with Julius Böhler, Munich, by 1917 with the Spanish Art Gallery, London, by 1938 * from whom purchased by the Gallery in that year
Questions in the operative period No source or date of Acquisition by the Spanish Art Gallery

“(ii) Works which circumstantial evidence indicates may give cause for concern or prompts further questions to be asked (eg the Bernardo Daddi triptych, which was purchased from the Spanish Gallery in London in 1938, and for which the previous recorded location was with the Munich dealer Julius Böhler in 1917). Works in the latter category will be the first to be investigated in greater depth at the next stage of the review. Marked with ** in Appendix One”.  From Spoliation Reports:

Spoliations reports National Galleries of Scotland

***

Dante, Códice del siglo XV conteniendo la “Divina Comedia”, Yale University.  

“Códice del siglo XV conteniendo la “Divina Comedia” vendido en 20 000 pesetas a Lionel Harris. Catálogo de la Revista y el Boletín de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, enero de 1871-Diciembre de 1910, 3ª ép. T. 5º, p. 257, abril, 1901.

***

Dürer, Albrecht: Ownership of Durer drawings looted in war still debated

CLEVELAND (AP) – The ownership of drawings by the German renaissance master Albrecht Durer remain in dispute more than 50 years after the work was stolen by the Nazis. The 24 drawings were stolen in 1941 from the Lubomirski Museum in present-day Luiv, Ukraine. They were sold on the international art market after World War II ended and are owned by major museums and collections in Europe and the United States. In 1952, the Cleveland Museum of Art bought two of the drawings: «The Dead Christ»,  dated 1505, and «The Ascension,’’ dated circa 1515.

Ukraine and Poland both say they own the drawings and want them back, although neither has made an official claim, The Plain Dealer reported Sunday. Museum officials in both countries told the newspaper they have questions about whether the drawings were legally brought to the market. «Like each and every one in every country, we want our treasures returned,’’ Boris Voznitsky, director of the Lviv Art Gallery, told the newspaper.

But Dobroslawa Platt, vice director of the Ossolinski Library in Wroclaw, Poland, said her institution, not Lviv, owns the drawings. Questions about ownership involve the changing of national borders in Eastern Europe, conflicting evidence, the horrors of war and the policy by the Allies for returning looted pieces in postwar Germany. «The horror of World War II is pretty black and white,’’ said Robert P. Bergman, director of the Cleveland museum, which always acknowledged the origins of its Durers. «But the status of any given object legally and morally in the 1990s is not black and white. It’s a very complex question.’’ After the war, the military government gave the drawings to a descendant of the original owner, Prince Heinrich Lubomirski, a wealthy landowner. The descendant, Georg Lubomirski, sold the drawings and lived on the proceeds until his death, according to published reports. But both the Lviv Art Gallery and the Ossolinski Library say they have documents which bequeathed or deeded the prince’s drawings to them. Durer, who died in 1528, combined the discoveries of Italian painters with the tradition of his homeland in his works, which also included engravings and paintings. Owners of other Durer drawings include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Courtauld Institute Galleries in London. There should be no dispute over ownership, said Roger Ward, curator of European art at the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City, Mo., which owns one of the Lubomirski Durers. «The statute of limitations has long since run out», the said. «The drawings changed hands at least twice before they came to us.» The Nazis looted art museums and private collections throughout the war, and Hitler reserved more than 8,000 objects with hopes of establishing a museum after the war. Although the Allies tried to safeguard and return stolen art after the war, some were taken by the Soviets and by soldiers on both sides.

«This is such a gigantic issue»,  Bergman said. «We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of objects. I believe that for the rest of my professional career, this issue will face the museums of the world.’’

http://www.museum-security.org/reports/02098.html

  ***

The Last Supper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

1523
Block: 21.3 x 30.1 cm (8 3/8 x 11 7/8 in.)
Woodcut
Marks: Tomas Harris brown ink stamp
Classification: Prints
Catalogue: Bartsch (relief) 053; Meder 184e
Object is currently not on view
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bequest of Francis Bullard, by exchange, 1968
Accession number: 68.278

Provenance/Ownership History: Coll.: Tomás Harris

***

Last Supper (Large Passion) MFA Boston

1510
Dimensions Block: 39.5 x 28.4 cm (15 9/16 x 11 3/16 in.) Sheet: 39.7 x 28.8 cm (15 5/8 x 11 5/16 in.)
Medium or Technique Woodcut
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.241
Marks watermark: monogram of Mary
Provenance Coll.: Tomás Harris
Credit Line Stephen Bullard Memorial Fund, by exchange

***

Saint George on Horseback. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

Dimensions Block: 21.0 x 14.2 cm (8 1/4 x 5 9/16 in.)
Medium or Technique Woodcut
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.245
Marks no visible watermark
Provenance: Tomás Harris 
Credit Line Stephen Bullard Memorial Fund, by exchange

***

The Nativity. Museum of Fine Arts Boston
1504
Dimensions Platemark: 18.3 x 12.0 cm (7 3/16 x 4 3/4 in.)
Medium or Technique Engraving
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.270
Marks no visible watermark
Provenance Coll.: Tomás Harris
Credit Line Bequest of Frederick Keppel Memorial, by exchange 

 ***

The Prodigal Son amid the Swine Museum of Fine Arts Boston 
probably 1496
Dimensions Platemark: 24.8 x 19.0 cm (9 3/4 x 7 1/2 in.)
Medium or Technique Engraving
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.181
On view
Marks PDP Watermark Type: No visible watermark
Provenance Colls: Tomás Harris 
Credit Line Centennial Gift of Landon T. Clay 

***

Deposition of Christ (entombment) from the «Small Passion». 
On sale/ US Woodcut, c. 1509-1511  
« 3 3/4 in. by 5 in. tall.

Originally sold by a major auction gallery from the collection of Tomas Harris for the Katherine Eliot Bullard Fund. No visible water mark. N. B. Note on reverse «Examined unframed by Dr. Gilkey at the Portland. 11:00 AM PT – Mar 31st, 2003 offered by O’Gallerie, 228 Northeast Seventh Avenue Portland, OR 97232

***

Flagellation of Christ (Large Passion) Museum of Fine Arts Boston 
about 1497
Dimensions Block: 38.5 x 27.2 cm (15 3/16 x 10 11/16 in.)
Medium or Technique Woodcut
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.252
Signed lower center: [Dürer’s monogram]
Marks verso, collector’s stamp in black of an owl [H. Marx; Lugt 2816a]; collector’s stamp in brown: Tomás Harris [not in Lugt]; MFA stamp with accession number in graphite: 68.252
Provenance Colls.: H. Marx (Lugt 2816a), Tomás Harris
Credit Line Bequest of Mrs. Horatio Greenough Curtis, by exchange

***

Birth of the Virgin (Life of the Virgin) Museum of Fine Arts Boston 

probably 1503–04
Dimensions Block: 29.7 x 21.0 cm (11 11/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
Medium or Technique Woodcut
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.194
Inscription «68.194» within the MFA stamp, and «B. 89», LL corner, verso, both written in graphite.
Marks Thomas Harris collector’s stamp; MFA accession stamp
PDP Watermark Type: Watermark: Bull’s head
Provenance Coll.: Tomás Harris
Credit Line Centennial Gift of Landon T. Clay

***

The Madonna with the Pear  Museum of Fine Arts Boston 

1511
Dimensions Platemark: 15.8 x 10.6 cm (6 1/4 x 4 3/16 in.)
Medium or Technique Engraving
Classification Prints
Accession Number 68.204
Inscription Graphite on verso: 138/49; 6.
Marks Tomas Harris Collection brown ink stamp
Provenance Coll.: Tomás Harris
Credit Line
Katherine E. Bullard Fund in memory of Francis Bullard

***

Espalargues o D’Espalarges , Pere, (El Viejo)(Elder): SS. Sebastian and Julian the Hospitaler: vid. Retablo de Barbastro

***

Giordano, Luca:

 The Almighty with Angels. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Date: ca. 1650–69
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over black chalk sketch.
Dimensions: 18 3/8 x 13 3/4 in. (46.7 x 34.9 cm)
Classification: Drawings & watercolors
Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number: 1975.1.331
This artwork is not on display
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings
Inscription: Annotated in pen and brown ink at the bottom in a nineteenth-century hand: S[c]hizzo originale di Luca Giordano.
Provenance: Tomas Harris, Spanish Gallery, London. Acquired by Robert Lehman from Harris on September 12, 1929.

Giordano Luca: The Metropolitan Museum

***

A Glory of Angels. The Metropolitan Museum of Art  

Date: ca. 1650–69
Medium: Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over black chalk sketch.
Dimensions: 15 1/4 x 19 5/16 in. (38.7 x 49.1 cm)
Classification: Drawings & watercolors
Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number: 1975.1.332
This artwork is not on display
Inscription: Annotated at the bottom center in pen and brown ink in an eighteenth-century hand: Lucas Iordanus.
Provenance:  Tomas Harris, Spanish Gallery , London. Acquired by Robert Lehman from Harris on September 12, 1929.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Glory of Angels

***

Goya, Francisco de:  

Portrait of Don Juan López de Robredo. Christie´s 6 december 2011
Portrait of Don Juan López de Robredo, Embroiderer to King Carlos IV of Spain, seated, half-length, holding an embroidery design
Estimate  £4 000 000 – £6 000 000  
Sale Information:
Sale 8007
Old Master & British Paintings (Evening Sale)
6 December 2011
London, King Street
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by Juan López de Robredo, 1798-9.
Don Manuel Soler y Alarcón, Madrid, by 1900.
with Durand-Ruel Gallery, Paris.
Marczell von Nemes (1866-1930), Budapest, by 1912; sale, Manzi-Joyant, Paris, 17-18 June 1913, lot 40 (bought by the following).
with Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris.
Monsieur de Broux-Gilbert, Paris.
Docteur Georges Viau, Paris, by 1925.
with Messrs Alex Reid & Lefevre, Ltd, by 1928.
with Messrs Tomás Harris, London, by 1938 and until 1947.
Don Juan Gómez Acebo y Moret, Marqués de Zurgena, Madrid; thence by descent to the duques de Santo Buono, Madrid.
Private collection; Edmund Peel & Asociados, Madrid, 19 May 1992, lot 10.
Acquired by the present owner in Madrid in 1992.
Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE SPANISH COLLECTION.
Exhibited
Madrid, Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes, Obras de Goya, 1900, no. 100.
Madrid, Exposición Nacional de Retratos, 1902, no. 856.
Vienna, Miethke Galerie, Francisco José de Goya Lucientes 1746-1828, 1908, nº. 2.
Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, Katalog der aus der Sammlung des Kgl.rates Marczell von Nemes-Budapest: Ausgestellten Gemälde, 1912, no. 75.
Paris, Galerie Sedelmeyer, The Twelfth Hundred of Paintings by Old Masters Belonging to the Sedelmeyer Gallery, 1913, p. 70, no. 44.
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Exposition d’art Ancien Espagnol, 1925, no. 27.
London, Olympia, International Exhibition, 1928, no. 120.
London, The Spanish Art Gallery, From Greco to Goya, 1938, no. 23.
Madrid, Casón del Buen Retiro, Exposición Francisco de Goya. IV Centenario de la capitalidad, 1961, no. XL.
Hamburg, Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolution. 1789-1830, 1981, no. 288.
Madrid, Museo del Prado, Goya en las colecciones madrileñas, 1983, no. 25.
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Goya, 1985, no. 16.
Lugano, Villa Favorita, Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza, Goya nelle collezione private di Spagna, 1986, no. 26.
Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Goya, La Década de los Caprichos, Retratos 1792-1804, 1992-1993, no. 57.
Madrid, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, Goya en las colecciones españolas, 1995-1996, no. 23.
Mahón, Museo de Menorca, 1802 España entre dos siglos y la devolución de Menorca, 2002, no. 169.

Francisco de Goya’s painting, a 42 5/8 x 32 3/8 in. (108.3 x 82.3 cm.) oil on canvas depicting a Portrait of Don Juan López de Robredo, Embroiderer to King Carlos IV of Spain, seated, half-length, holding an embroidery design, was auctioned in yesterday’s Old Master & British Paintings (Evening Sale) at Christie’s London, King Street. However, the painting with an estimate price of £4 000 000 – £6 000 000 (,248 000 – ,372 000), did not find a buyer.

 ***

Portrait of Pedro Roldán. United kingdom, National collections, Allocation not yet decided
1798-1799
Red chalk – 27.2 x 19 cm
Several prints by Rembrandt (The Negress Lying Down, Christ Returning from the Temple with His Parents, The Windmill) and Goya (three work proofs for Los Caprichos) were acquired thanks to ‘Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections in February 2007 and have been temporarily entrusted to the British Museum while awaiting a permanent home. These were accompanied by an original plate by Rembrandt (for The Negress Lying Down) and a red chalk drawing by Goya (ill. 31), a portrait of the XVIIth C. Sevillian sculptor Pedro Roldan. This drawing is one in a series of portraits of Spanish artists by Goya commissioned to illustrate the Diccionario de los más ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes published in 1800-2-. The total of this ‘Acceptance in Lieu’ (from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, a Goya specialist who passed away in 2006 at the age of 95) was estimated at £521 500.

http://www.thearttribune.com/Acceptance-in-Lieu-for-British.html 

***

Three work proofs for Los Caprichos. Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections, from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, 2007 
Print made by Felipe IV.  British Museum
Department: Prints & Drawings
Registration number: 1975,1025.17
Object types print
Title (object) Felipe IV
Material paper
Techniques etching
Production person Print made by Francisco Goya
After Diego Velázquez
Date 1778
Dimensions
Height: 374 millimetres
Width: 315 millimetres
Description: whole-length portrait to left, on rearing horse in landscape; c.1815-20 impression. 1778
Etching, printed on paper with watermark ’Santo Serra’
Acquisition date: 1975
Acquisition name: Previous owner/ex-collection Tomás Harris 

*** 

Greco, El  (Domenikos Theotokopoulos):  

Saint Catherine. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  

1610–14 
Dimensions 100.5 x 63.8 cm (39 9/16 x 25 1/8 in.)
Medium or Technique Oil on canvas
Accession Number 1993.38
Provenance From 1908 to 1936, Marqués de Alós, Barcelona. By 1958, Tomás Harris; 1958, sold by Harris to M. Knoedler & Co., New York [see note 1]; February 1959, sold by Knoedler’s to Mrs. Charles S. Payson, Manhasset, New York; January 1960, returned by Payson to Knoedler’s [see note 2]; 1960, sold by Knoedler’s to William A. Coolidge, Topsfield and Cambridge, MA (died 1992) [see note 3]; 1993, bequest of William A. Coolidge. (Accession Date: January 27, … 
More
Credit Line
Bequest of William A. Coolidge

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/saint-catherine-35482

***

 Greco /Studio of El Greco:  St. Thomas. Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Estate

Date: c. 1610-20.
Dimensions/Medium 43 x 31 in.; 110 x 77 cm.
oil on canvas.
Provenance: (f) Lionel Harris, London; (f) Julius Böhler, Munich;(f) Mme. Jean Chrissoveloni, London;(f) Sale, New York, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc., Notable British Portraits, November 16, 1933, lot 18 (sold by order of Hambros Bank, London) (,000, to H.G. Morgan);(g) O.M. Greene, London;(g and h) Sale, Sotheby’s, London, Important Paintings and Drawings, July 9, 1936, lot 44 (£240, to Marshall Spink);(g) Marshall Spink, London;(f) Walter P. Chrysler, New York;(f) his estate, New York.

Current repository Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Estate, New York, New York, United States, private.

 ***

El Greco/Studio of El Greco: Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. National Gallery   

1590s
Medium and support Oil on canvas
Dimensions 102 x 131 cm
Acquisition credit Bought, 1919
Inventory number NG3476

“Lionel Harris sold El Greco’s Agony in the Garden to the National Gallery: he was the pre-eminent London dealer in Spanish Art with a spectacular, changing stock of paintings, sculpture and woodwork. In 1913, for example, he had on show two Grecos which inspired one of Roger Fry’s finest appreciations.” Harris, Enriqueta, Estudios completos sobre Velázquez, p. 43

*** 

Hemessen, Caterina van & Jan van Hemessen: Altarpiece with Scenes from the Old and New Testaments, aka, Retablo El Monasterio de Santa Ana de Tendilla (Guadalajara). Cincinnati Art Museum

Retablo El Monasterio de Santa Ana de Tendilla, (Guadalajara):

«El retablo desapareció, pues, antes de 1845. Desconocemos las manos por las que pudo pasar hasta nuestro siglo. Los datos conocidos por el Art Museum de Cincinnatti (Ohio, USA) son que en 1915 estaba en la Spanish Art Gallery de Harris en Londres, lo poseía French and Co. de Nueva York en 1935, fue vendido al americano Charles Deering, industrial y aficcionado al arte quien lo instaló en su palacio de Maricel (Tarragona) hasta que se fuera en 1921. Deering lo revendió de nuevo a French and Co.  y en 1953 fue adquirido definitivamente por el Museo.
En 1935 se había exhibido en el Brooklyn Museum de Nueva York. Max J. Friedlander lo cita dentro de los 14 volúmenes de su «Early Netherlandish Painting» editados inicialmente en 1935. Friedlander no proporciona foto alguna pero describe exactamente el retablo con el número 173 del catálogo de Jan Sanders van Hemessen «an altarpiece with many panels, in the centre Christ on the Cross» and Saint Jerome» pero no indica más datos acerca de su origen (salvo expuesto en Art Market, Londres, Th. Harris) o paradero («desconocido» en su opinión).»

Problemas de procedencia según el Cincinnati Art Museum

***

Jan van Hemessen (ca. 1500-1556)
Caterina van Hemessen (1528-1587)
Flanders
Altarpiece with Scenes from the Old and New Testaments, 1550s
Oil on panel
139 3/4 x 180 in. (355 x 457.2 cm)
Fanny Bryce Lehmer and John L. Emery Endowments, 1953.219

Description:
Large winged altarpiece with thirteen panels set in an elaborate wooden frame. When closed, the wings display grisaille images of the Virgin, the Angel of the Annunciation, and God the Father. When opened, the wings’ panels depict Adam and Eve and the Sacrifice of Isaac. The central panels depict the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Baptism of Christ, the Lamentation, Saint Jerome Penitent, and the Ascension. The predella panels illustrate Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, the Visitation, and Saint Sebastian. The entire altarpiece is surmounted by two wooden coats of arms and a finial.

Former Attributions:
Castilian School, 16th Century
Spanish, 16th Century
Alternate Titles:
Tendilla Retablo [1]
Spanish Altar
Polyptych
Provenance:
Mid-16th century: Possibly Sotomayor and Arellano lineage [1] Ca. 1915: Lionel Harris, Spanish Art Gallery, London  (French & Co., New York [2]) Reportedly Charles Deering [1852-1927], Spain [3]  1929: (Kleinberger & Co., New York, sold to [4]) November 6, 1929-1953: (French and Co., New York, sold to [2]) 1953-present: Cincinnati Art Museum

Notes:

[1] When the CAM acquired the retablo it was believed that the Count of Tendilla, Iñigo López de Mendoza y Figueroa, commissioned it as a memorial to Juana the Mad, mother of Emperor Charles V, and Ignatious Loyola. Two wooden coats of arms, initially thought to be of the lineage Tendilla and Loyola, surmount the wooden frame; however, research provided by the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, in 1985, identifies the coat-of-arms to be of Sotomayor and Arellano lineage. This family does have sixteenth-century ties to the town of Tendilla, but the retablo is no longer believed to have been commissioned by the Count. See Mary Ann Scott, Dutch, Flemish, and German Paintings in the Cincinnati Art Museum, 1984, pp. 69-73.

[2] Although the provenance of the retablo appears to not have changed ownership during the years 1933-1945, the specific dates of French & Co.’s ownership of the retablo are still being researched. Thus, the altarpiece has been included in the CAM provenance research project. The French & Co. stock number for the retablo is recorded as 39896 on a photograph in the Photo Study Collection, Getty Research Institute. French & Co. loaned the altarpiece to the Brooklyn Museum, Exhibition of Spanish Painting, October 4 to 31, 1935, no. 20. All previous provenance publications for the retablo have listed French & Co., 1935, before Charles Deering; however, considering the collector’s life dates and the history of his collection (see fn. 3), it seems more accurate to write the provenance as above.

[3] In a letter to the CAM on July 3, 1953, French & Co. commented on their Acquisition of the retablo: «We acquired the altar many years ago, and it was sold to Mr. Charles Deering for his palace in Spain. It came back to this country and we repurchased it.» Deering built Maricel, a palace in Sitges, Spain, and also restored Tamarit castle in Tarragon, Spain. Both of these, as well as several other Spanish homes in Sitges, were used to house his art collection. Deering left Maricel in 1921, and the palace was emptied. It is not known in which Spanish home the retablo was housed, nor when it left Deering’s collection.

[4] According to information on a photograph of the painting in the Photo Study Collection, Getty Research Institute, Kleinberger & Co. sold the painting to French & Co. on 11-6-29.

***

Jordán, Esteban: Effigy of Juan Ruiz de Vergara. St. John Priory de Clerckenwell.

A WORK BY ESTEBAN JORDAN: AN EFFIGY OF A SPANISH KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF ST JOHN*

Days before the outbreak of First World War, a fine alabaster effigy of a Knight of the Order of St John in Jerusalem was presented to the Most Venerable Order of St John in Clerkenwell, just outside the boundaries of the City of London. The donor was Sir Guy Francis Laking, Bart., Keeper of the London Museum, an eminent scholar, best known for bis catalogues of the arms and armour in the Wallace Collection, at Windsor, and the Armoury in Malta. He had «always had the greatest interest in anything relating to the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, more especially since (his) work at Malta’’. He offered to buy the effigy for the Order, having seen it on exhibition at the Spanish Galleries of the dealer Lionel Harris in Conduit Street’, where it had been imported from Spain, «in one consignment together with 24 other cases of stonework”_³. After some discussion as to where exactly it should be housed, the effigy was placed against the North wall of the twelfth-centuty crypt in the Priory Church of St John in Clerkenwell, of which the Order of St John was Patron. The church is a few yards from the Order’s headquarters, S t John’s Gate, in which the Museum and Library of the Order are today situated. Described by Pevsner as «of a quality unsurpassed in London or England» 4, the figure is a magnificent example of sixteenth-century Castilian sculpture. The recumbent, lifesize effigy represents a Knight of the Order of S t John…

³ Letter from Lionel Harris to H. W. Fincham Esq ofJuly lst, 1914. Two tomb-figures from Ocaña in Spain, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. A.48 and A.49-1910) were bought from the same dealer in 1910.

(Trusted, Marjorie. “A Work By Stephen Jordan: An Effigy of a Spanish Knight of the Order of St John.” Varia de Arte (1987): 351-359., p. 351

 ***

Leonardo, Jusepe: St. John the Baptist. National Gallery of Canada   

Oil on canvas; 152.4 x 112 cm; 148.5 x 109 cm (painted surface)
Purchased in 1937
No. 4292
Provenance: Count Pedro Daupias (label on back), Lisbon and Paris (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris 16-17 May, 1892, lot 24. Unidentified private collection, England. Tomás Harris, London, before 1937. Purchased from Tomás Harris in 1937.

En investigación por posible origen de expolio nazi: National Post 2000-12-29:

«St.John the Baptist, by Spanish 17th-century painter Jusepe Leonardo, one of the paintings bought from Tomas Harris in London, may have been looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Nude Woman with a Staff, by Albrecht Durer OTTAWA – Officials at the National Gallery of Canada were working feverishly yesterday to prepare a list of works that may have been looted by the Nazis during the Second World War. Joanne Charette, a gallery spokeswoman, said the list will include more than 100 pieces about which there are questions between 1933 and 1945, the era when the… more»

 Spooks Who loot

 ***

 Maestro de Torralba:

Ascensión de Cristo.  Museo de Pontevedra
Pentecostés. Museo de Pontevedra 

     Las primeras obras que debemos considerar, por ser cronológicamente las más antiguas, son dos tablas de mediano formato (80’5 x 48’5 cm.), procedentes de la predela de un retablo, en las que se representan la Ascensión de Cristo y Pentecostés. Fueron donadas al Museo en 1966 por uno de sus más generosos mecenas, Antonio Pastor de la Meden, quien se las había comprado a Mr. Tomas Harris. Vienen siendo atribuidas al denominado por Ch. R. Post, a partir de la presencia de obras suyas en la iglesia zaragozana de Torralba de Ribota, Maestro de Torralba , pudiendo fecharse su ejecución, a tenor de sus particularidades formales, muy en consonancia con las pautas del «estilo internacional» (figuras elegantes, de perfiles muy cuidados; cromatismo muy vivo, de gran efectismo; rostros uniformes, escasamente expresivos, etc.), en torno a 1420-1430 (Valle Pérez, J.C y Tilve Jar, M.A., “Patrimonio aragonés en el Museo de Pontevedra” Artigrama, nº 20, 2005, p. 124)

***

Massys/ Matsys/ Metsys, Quentin:

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, The Worcester Art Museum  

about 1509-13   Oil on panel
Museum purchase 1937.4
Provenance: The monastery of Our Lady («Mosteiro da Madre de Deus»), Xabregas (now part of Lisbon); removed from the monastery prior to 1874; by 1874 in Collection José Maria Fidié, Portugal; presented or sold by him to King Ferdinand of Portugal (after 1882); transferred by him before 1885 to the Countess of Edla, his second wife; sold by her ca. 1910 to an art dealer or collector in Madrid; bought by Lionel Harris, London, ca. 1922; bought by Worcester Art Museum from Tomas Harris (Hispanic Art Gallery), London_¹⁶, through Durlacher Bros., New York, where it was exhibited, 1936.

Exhibitions: Tomas Harris Ltd., London, 1935 (see Reference 0; Dur­lacher Bros., New York, apparently without catalogue, 1936; at the Worces­ter Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1939 (see Reference 00); and at Chicago, 1954 . (Worcester Art Museum

European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, pp. 193 sigs)

 ***

«Virgin and Child with Angels,» Lionel Harris, 1926. Unknown location

Box 265, Folder  DUVEEN RECORDS Matsys [aka Massys]: «Virgin and Child with Angels,» Lionel Harris, 1926 
“Fig.41   METSYS  Madonna and Child with Two Angels. Lionel Harris Collection” citado por Fry, Roger. French, Flemish and British Arts, p. ix

 ***  

Master of Hoogstraeten, Mary with infant and an angel playing the lute before a landscape with a castle in the background. Private collection
Oil on panel. 92.5 x 74.3 cm.
Provenance:
Frederick Lippmann.
Lepke auction, Berlin 1912, No. 39.
Thomas Harris, London 1937.
Christie’s, London, 8. July 1988, Lot 29.
Private collection Brussels. 

Sin documentación de propietario en el período 1912-1937

 ***

Morales, Luis: Madonna and Child. Hispanish Art Gallery ante 1922. Unknown location  

 Two pictures by Morales, [a] Madonna and Child, by Luis Morales. Panel, 54.6 cm. by 40 cm. (Messrs. The Spanish Art Gallery), THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, LIMITED .July December, 1922

En el año 1922, R. R. Tatlock, en el Burlington Magazine’ publica una tabla de Morales con el tema de la Virgen enseñando a escribir al Niño. En ese momento cita la tabla en la Spanish Art Gallery y sus medidas eran 54,7 x 40 cm. Angulo en 1954 cita una tabla de Morales con este mismo tema en colección inglesa y Gaya Nuño en 1961 2, la vuelve a citar localizándola en la colección Harris de Londres.

133. R. Tatlock, Two pictures by Morales, Burlington Magazine, 1922, vol XLI, Sept. p. 133.

 ***

Mostaert , Jan Jansz: Portrait of an African man. Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam

Inventory no. SK-A-4986
Date c. 1525-30
Material Oil on panel
Size 30.8 x 21.2 cm
Provenance dealer Tomas Harris, London, 1920;1 Note #1Note Friedländer on photo, RKD, no. 27581. …; Dr Hans Wendland, Lugano, 1924;2Note #2Note Friedländer on photo, RKD, no. 27581. …; dealer Galerie Fischer, Luzern, 1924;3Note #3Note Friedländer on photo, RKD, no. 27581. from whom to Sir Thomas D. Barlow G.B.F. (1883-1964), London, 1934;4Note #4Manchester 1968, p. 20, no. 8. his son, Basil Stephen Barlow (1918-91), London;5Note #5Manchester 1968, p. 20, no. 8. from his heirs on loan to Kenwood House, London, 1998-2003;6Note #6Filedt Kok/De Winkel 2005, p. 406. from whom, through Simon C. Dickinson Ltd, London, to the dealer Rob Noortman, Maastricht, 2004;7Note #7Filedt Kok/De Winkel 2005, p. 406. from whom, € 600,000, to the museum, with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Mondriaan Stichting, the VSB-fonds, the Stichting Rijksmuseum and the BankGiro Loterij, June 2005; on loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2005-10 

 ***

 Orley,  Bernard van Workshop of, The Third Three Ages of Man (36-54), or Autumn. The Metropolitan Museum of Arts 

Possibly after a design by the Workshop of Bernard van Orley  (Netherlandish, Brussels ca. 1488–1541 Brussesls)

Patron: Possibly commissioned by Margaret of Austria
Author: Author of inscriptions possibly Jerome van Busleyden (Hieronymus Buslidius) (ca. 1470–1517)
Date: ca. 1525–28
Medium: Wool, silk (16-20 warps per inch, 6-8 per cm.)
Dimensions: H. 175 x W. 286 inches (444.5 x 726.4 cm)
Classification: Textiles-Tapestries
Credit Line:Gift of The Hearst Foundation in memory of William Randolph Hearst, 1953
Accession Number: 53.221.3
Provenance: Apolinar Sánchez ; sold to Lionel Harris, 1930 ; [ Spanish Art Gallery, London ; sold to French & Co., 1933] ; [ French and Co., New York ; sold to William Randolph Hearst, 1934] ; William Randolph Hearst (1930–1951) ; [ Saks Fifth Avenue with Gimbel Bros./Hammer Galleries, 1941] ; The Hearst Foundation (until 1953; to MMA).

The Twelve Ages of Man. MMA

Possibly after a design by the Workshop of Bernard van Orley  (Netherlandish, Brussels ca. 1488–1541 Brussesls)
Patron: Possibly commissioned by Margaret of Austria.
Date: ca. 1525-28.
Medium: Wool, silk (16-20 warps per inch, 6-8 per cm.) 

Dimensions: See individual records for measurements.
Classification: Textiles-Tapestries
Credit Line:
Gift of The Hearst Foundation in memory of William Randolph Hearst, 1953
Accession Number: 53.221.1–.4

Provenance: Raimundo Ruiz ; sold to French & Co.] (53.221.2,4) ; [ French and Co., New York ; sold to William R. Hearst, 1930] (53.221.2,4) ; A. Sanchez ; sold to Lionel Harris, 1930 (53.221.1,3) ; [ Spanish Art Gallery, London ; sold to French & Co., 1933] (53.221.1,3) ; [ French and Co., New York ; sold to William R. Hearst, 1934] (53.221.1,3) ; William Randolph Hearst (1930–1951) ; [ Saks Fifth Avenue with Gimbel Bros./Hammer Galleries, 1941] ; The Hearst Foundation (until 1953; to MMA)

 ***

Orley, Nicolas van, design attributed to:  A Brussels Historical tapestry. Christie`s, 10 November 2005 
Price Realized £36 000 (,712)
Fine European Furniture, Sculpture, Tapestries and Carpets Including Property from a European Noble Family
10 November 2005
London, King Street

Lot Description A BRUSSELS HISTORICAL TAPESTRY
LATE 16TH CENTURY, THE DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO NICOLAS VAN ORLEY, CIRCA 1560-1580, POSSIBLY BY JOOST VAN HERSEELE
Woven in wools and silks, depicting the Rape of the Sabines from the History of Rome, with Roman soldiers and Sabine women in the foreground and a city in the background, within an elaborate scrolling foliate and fruiting border decorated with grotesques and vases and with flower-head decorated red inner and outer slips, possibly reduced in size, lacking blue guard borders, minor losses, areas of restoration and reweaving
5 ft. 7 in. x 8 ft. 5 in. (169 cm. x 255 cm.)

Lot Condition Report Some losses to wools and silks exposing the warps. Some areas of restoration and reweaving, some now discoloured, probably including sections of the left border and a central section of the right border. Top and bottom border are off-centre, suggesting that the tapestry might have been reduced in size, although there are no obvious signs of cuts between the borders and the main field.

Provenance: Lionel Harris.
Auction Title: Fine European Furniture, Sculpture, Tapestries and Carpets Including Property from A European Noble Family

Notes:

This tapestry forms part of a series that must have comprised at least five panels. Two with differing borders and depicting The Romans with Their Sabine Wives and The Sabine Women stop fighting between the Romans and the Sabines are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The battle panel is marked with a monogram ’NvO’ on a shield in a tree, which Edith Standen convincingly argues to be that of Nicolas van Orley (’Romans and Sabines: A Sixteenth-Century Set of Flemish Tapestries’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 1974). Nicolas van Orley’s father was Gomar, who was the brother of the famous Bernard van Orley (d. 1541). The dynasty was prolific in designing tapestries in Brussels until the 1560s when religious persecution broke up the family. Nicolas fled to Stuttgart in 1566 and supplied cartoons to Jacob van Carmes for the Duke of Württemberg. He continued to Strasbourg in 1570 and died between 1586 – 1591.
Interestingly that tapestry is also signed with the initials ’IVH’, which Standen believes to be that of Joost van Herzeele, while they also bear coat-of-arms that are almost certainly those of Pope Sixtus V (d. 1590), who became cardinal in 1570. The arms post-date the elevation to cardinal as they bear insignias that he only adopted after that date. The MET tapestries thus must have been designed before 1566 when Nicolas emigrated to Stuttgart and would have been woven after 1570 when the coat-of-arms are adjusted.
Standen believed that the series may only have included four panels, the fourth one being The Romans Admiring the Sabine Maidens. However, other panels of the set that include The Rape of the Sabines are almost certainly The Sabine Women stop fighting between the Romans and the Sabines, which was purchased by French & Co from the Spanish Art Galleries and sold to Maurice Harris in 1937. Also of identical height and not recorded by Standen is The Battle between the Romans and the Sabines which was also in the Lionel Harris collection as the offered lot, then with French & Co and which was finally sold to the Charles Cudlip Association in 1966.

(E. Standen, ’Romans and Sabines: A Sixteenth-Century Set of Flemish Tapestries’, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 1974).

***

Osona, Rodrigo de , the Elder (El Viejo): Adoration of the Magi. Memorial Museum of San Francisco. Legion of Honor

“Rodrigo de Osona (The Elder): The Adoration of the Magi.

Provenance: Lionel Harris, London; Samuel H. Kress, New York; M. H. de Young. Memorial Museum, San Francisco” Secrest, Meryle, Duveen: A Life in Art.,p.482

***

Procaccini, Giulio Cesare: The Capture of Christ. Sotheby’s /Jan 29, 2009 

ca. 1612-1620
Oil on canvas, 210,8 x 142,2 cm
Signed lower left: G.C.P.
Provenance: Possibly Abraham Darby sale, Christie’s, London, 8 June 1867, lot 99, as Giulio Cesare Procaccini Christ Led to Calvary, bought Cox; Tomás Harris, London, 1937 (photo in Witt Library, London); Private collection, Barcelona, by 1945 (see Literature); Piero Corsini & Maison d’Art, Monaco, by 1997, and with Agnew’s, London, (Millenium Exhibition, 2000, no. 6).En subasta en Sotheby’s  «N08282»*, Important Old Master Paintings, New York, Thursday, January 25, 2007 Estimate : 900 000 USD – 1 100 000 USD
Sotheby’s /Jan 29, 2009
Estimate: €457 631 00 – €610 174 66
Price: €734 098 75 

 ***

Ranieri di Leonardo da Pisa: Sacra conversazione: Madonna and child with Saint Bartholomew and Michael.  Sotheby’s London: December 17, 1998. Private owner  

A ’SACRA CONVERSAZIONE’: THE MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINT BARTHOLOMEW AND MICHAEL, WITHIN AN ARCHITECTURAL SETTING, AN EXTENSIVE RIVER LANDSCAPE BEYOND oil on panel, within a carved and gilt wood tabernacle frame 63A by 50ain. 161.9 by 128.3cm. Ranieri di Leonardo da Pisa, has recently been identified as the artist formerly called the «Master of the Crocifisso dei Bianchi», whose «namepiece» is the pala for the Church of the Crocifisso dei Bianchi, documented in 1507, formerly in the Palazzo Arcivescovile, Lucca. The identification of that Master with Ranieri was first put forward by Baracchini (for which see Pisa, nos. 2, vol. XVI, 1986, pp. 769-772, 813-4). In the present altarpiece, as in that for the Church of the Crocifisso dei Bianchi, the group of Saint Anne, the Madonna and Child are placed before three arches. The style of both works, along with the Madonna and Child with Saints Stephen and Jerome in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, reveal Ranieri’s training in the workshop of Vincenzo Frediani. Based on photographs, Everett Fahy has suggested the present attribution.
Provenance: Thomas Harris Ltd., London from whom acquired for the school chapel as Filippino Lippi in 1935 Saint Felix School, Southwold, England. NY7481»*, Old Master Paintings, New York, Thursday, May 25, 2000 sotheby`s

Artist   Ranieri di Leonardo da Pisa Title   A Sacra Conversazione; The Madonna and Child with Saint Anne, flanked by Saints Bartholomew and Michael Medium   Oil on Panel Size   60.8 x 50.6 in. / 154.5 x 128.4 cm. Sale Of   Sotheby’s London: Thursday, December 17, 1998
[Lot 55]
Old Master Paintings Estimate   50 000 – 70 000 GBP (USD 84 217 – 117 904) Sold For Girls at Saint Felix made headlines in 1998 when they staged a «sing-in» in the chapel in an attempt to stop the school selling a Madonna and Child painting by Ranieri di Leonardo da Pisa, which they regarded as a vital part of the school fabric.

The governors eventually sold the Renaissance painting at auction where it was bought by Rod Stewart, the singer, for £84 000.

***

Raphael, Head of a young woman in profile and drapery. British Museum 

Pen and brown ink over faint traces of black chalk (the head); black chalk (the drapery), the sheet extended on the left side in the 19thC
Verso: Drapery study
Black chalk
Height: 221.00mm
Width: 324.00mm
Registration number: 1947,1011.19
Purchased from: Tomás Harris
Previous owner/ex-collection: William Young Ottley (T Philipe, 13.iv.1804/335)
Previous owner/ex-collection: Thomas Banks (L.2423 by descent to Lavinia Forster)
Previous owner/ex-collection: Lavinia Forster (by descent to Baron Henri de Triqueti)
Previous owner/ex-collection: Baron Henri de Triqueti (L.1304)

British Museum provenance research of the Nazi period (Lista de dibujos de maestros antiguos adquiridos entre 1933 y 2006, que carecen de documentos o evidencias de propiedad para el período 1933-1945. Esta ordenada según el número de registro. La primera parte del numero de registro indica el año de adquisición)

 ***

Rembrandt,  Harmenszoon van Rijn:

“Several prints by Rembrandt (The Negress Lying Down, Christ Returning from the Temple with His Parents, The Windmill) and Goya (three work proofs for Los Caprichos) were acquired thanks to ‘Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections in February 2007 and have been temporarily entrusted to the British Museum while awaiting a permanent home. These were accompanied by an original plate by Rembrandt (for The Negress Lying Down) and a red chalk drawing by Goya (ill. 31), a portrait of the XVIIth C. Sevillian sculptor Pedro Roldan. This drawing is one in a series of portraits of Spanish artists by Goya commissioned to illustrate the Diccionario de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes published in 1800-2-. The total of this ‘Acceptance in Lieu’ (from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, a Goya specialist who passed away in 2006 at the age of 95) was estimated at £521,500.”

The Negress Lying Down, Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections. from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, 2007 Allocation not yet decided

 *** 

Christ Returning from the Temple with His Parents, Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections. from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, 2007 Allocation not yet decided.

***

The Windmill. Acceptance in Lieu’ payments for the British collections. from the estate of Enriqueta Harris, 2007. Allocation not yet decided

***

Ecce homo. National Gallery of Scotland    

Accepted in lieu of tax and allocated through the Art Fund 1992 
National Gallery of Scotland
Medium: etching & drypoint
Dimensions: 38 x 46 cm
ArtFunded in: 1992
Credit Accepted in lieu of tax and allocated through the Art Fund 1992
Provenance: Tomas Harris, OBE; his sister Miss Violeta Harris.

***

The Virgin and Child with the Cat and Snake. Christie’s 4 december 2007   

Sale 7534 / Lot 215
Price Realized : £14 900 (,783)
Sale Information
Sale 7534
Old Master Prints
4 December 2007
London, King Street

Lot Description

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn  The Virgin and Child with the Cat and Snake (B., Holl. 63; H. 275) etching, 1654, first state (of two), a good impression, with the vertical polishing scratches in the foreground, watermark Foolscap with seven-pointed collar (cf. Hinterding Q-a-b, dated 1654), with narrow margins, window-mounted (with minor associated staining at the sheet edges where adhered to the support sheet), generally in good condition
P. 94 x 144 mm., S. 98 x 147 mm.
Provenance: Tomás Harris

***

Sánchez, Juan y Diego Sánchez : The Road to Calvary. Fitzwilliam Museum  
15^th cent.
oil on panel
Dimensions height: 100.3 cm; width: 129.0 cm
Provenance: bought: Spanish Art Gallery 1925.  From a religious house in the province of Cordova; with the Spanish Art Gallery, London (Lionel Harris), by 1913, whence it was bought

From the Marlay Fund. 

“Muy grato nos es aumentar hoy estos datos con los relativos a una notabilísima tabla de los albores de la xviª centuria, procedente de Belalcázar, provincia de Cordoba, que posee el afortunado coleccionista londinense Mr. Leonel Harris, que ofrece la particularidad de estar firmada por Juan y Diego Sanchez, pintores sevillanos que florecieron en aquellos dias. Es esta obra de singular importancia, pues, además de pertenecer al grupo o seno de primitivos, que tanto interés despiertan actualmente, su técnica es de indiscutiblc mérito y además la rareza de las dos firmas, son todas circunstancias de tal valía, que por ellas la consideramos como una de las páginas mas estimables de la gloriosa escuela sevillana. ,¿Cómo no lamentar, pues, en esta ocasion, como lo hemos hecho en tantas otras, la funestísima apatía, hija de la supina ignorancia que en materias artisticas demuestran las personas que rigen los destines públicos, al mirar indiferentes cuanto se relaciona con nuestros monumentos históricos. arqueológicos y artisticos? Hace años vimos pasar a manos de un principe ruso el famoso grupo escultórico de barro cocido. formado por el insigne imaginero Pedro Millán, representando una Piedad: poco después paso a poder de extraños la bellísima imagen de San Miguel o San Jorge, obra también del mismo eximio escultor, que formó parte de la coleccion Goyena; así como al Museo de Budapest la inapreciable tabla firmada por nuestro paisano Pedro Sánchez, con el asunto del Enterramiento de Cristo, obras todas de fines del siglo xv o de los principios del xvi, y asi podriamos hacer larga enumeracion de los espolios verificados en nuestro tesoro artistico durante los últimos cuarenta años: esto no obstante, que en ocasiones fueron advertidas las autoridades, de que se iban a efectuar las enagenaciones, a fin de que impidiesen el despojo, que entonces pudo evitarse sin grandes sacrificios pecuniarios para las areas municipales o provinciales; requerimientos y consejos que fueron desoidos. perdiendo Sevilla para siempre tan inapreciables objetos.” Gestoso y Pérez, J.,  “Juan y Diego Sánchez, Una de las Caídas de Nuestro Señor en el camino del Calvario. Pintores sevillanos primitivos” .En Revista Mensual de Arte Español Antiguo y Moderno. Vol.VI., pp. 134-139. Juan o Antón son dos lecturas paleográficas (Lafuente Ferrari lee Antón)  a la primera firma que está muy borrada, como puede observarse en las imágenes del Fizwilliam Museum

 ***

Soria, Martin de Soria: Présentation de la Vierge. Galerie d’art Beaverbrook ( ?)   

v.1475
tempéra et huile sur panneau
116,8 x 47cm
#1996.05

On sait que cette oeuvre a fait partie des collections (dans cet ordre) de H. Daguerre de Paris, de Thomas Harris de Londres et d’Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Co., Inc., de New York. Elle a été vendue par Seligmann à un collectionneur privé en mars 1937.

Galerie d’art Beaverbrook (1er novembre 1996); La succession de David H.M. Vaughan; Elwood B. Hosmer (31 mars 1937); Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Co., Inc., New York; Thomas Harris, Londres, H. Daguerre, Paris; provenance antérieure inconnue.

***

Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista:

 Holy Family with Saint Joseph reading. The Courtauld Gallery   

Material: Pen and ink & wash
Dimensions: 28.5 x 21.5
Acquisition: Bequeathed as part of the Princes Gate Collection, 1978
Reference: D.1978.PG.159
Provenance Anon. sale, Sotheby’s, 31 May 1932 (16) Tomás Harris, London C.R. and A.P.Rudolf, sale, Sotheby’s, 2 November 1949 (39) where acquired through Colnaghi by Seilern

Questions in the operative period: Where was this drawing between 1933-45?

 ***

Anuntiation
Material: Pen and ink & watercolour & graphite
Dimensions: 25.9 x 17.2
Acquisition: Bequeathed as part of the Princes Gate Collection, 1978
Reference: D.1978.PG.387
Provenance Prince Alexis Orloff, sale, Georges Petit, Paris, 29-30 April 1920 (76) 
bought by Paulme Tomás Harris, sale, Sotheby’s, 25 March 1965 (151)where acquired through Colnaghi by Seilern

Questions in the operative period Where was this drawing between 1933-45? 

Dossier spoliation: Courtauld 

 ***

After Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Aeneas Recognizes his Mother Venus as She Departs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Date: 1772–73
Medium: Etching
Dimensions: plate: 9 1/16 x 6 7/8 in. (23 x 17.4 cm) sheet: 9 1/4 x 7 1/16 in. (23.5 x 18 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of Hill-Stone Inc., 2004
Accession Number: 2004.156
This artwork is not on display
Inscription: Verso, lower left, inscription in brown ink: Tomas Harris

Provenance: Donor: Hill-Stone, Inc., Fine Prints and Drawings

***

Tiepolo, Giovanni Domenico:  Bagpiper with a Bear. Location unknown 

Pen and wash 298×421
Location:UnknownSigned: Domº Tiepolo
Provenance: Tomas Harris. London;  Paris. Wertheimer 1960-1964; New York, Robert Lehman; not in bequest exhibition London 1953,  Domenico Tiepolo, master draftsman

Adelheid M. Gealt,Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,George Knox,Indiana University, Bloomington. Art Museum, p.240

***

Tintoretto, Jacopo (Jacopo Robusti):

Study for an angel in ’The Resurrection’. The Courtauld Gallery 

Material: Graphite
Dimensions: 27.2 x 18.2
Acquisition: Bequeathed as part of the Princes Gate Collection, 1978
Reference: D.1978.PG.101
Provenance  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Tomás Harris, by whom sold to Savile Gallery, London; Alfred Scharf, London from whom acquired by Seilern in 1949.                   Questions in the operative period Where was this drawing between 1933-45?

Dossier Spoliations =Courtauld 

*** 

Studio A Venetian Family Presented to the Virgin and Child by St Lawrence and an  Unidentified Bishop Saint, National Gallery of Scotland
Material: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 233.7 x 173.2
Acquisition: Purchased from Tomás Harris, 1952
Reference: NG 2161
Provenance: 1st Lord Clive, Powis Castle, by 1771 by descent to the 4th Earl of Powis and Viscount Clive,  at Walcot; sold from there by Harrods, 24 July 1929, Walcot Sale, lot 753 where bought by Tomás Harris,  who owned it until at least 1935 *[possibly: Luzern, Kunsthandel A.G. (F. Steinmeyer)] *Tomás Harris, b y 1952 *from whom purchased by the Gallery in that year
Questions in the operative period Did Tomás Harris indeed sell the painting to Kunsthandel A.G.  (F. Steinmeyer) in Luzern only to reacquire it later? It is catalogued as the property of the latter in Erich  von der Bercken, Die Gemälde des Jacopo Tintoretto, Munich, 1942, p.114. 

Report spoliations. National Gallery of Scotland 

***

Valdés Leal,  Juan de: A Jesuit Conversion, also called An Allegory of the Crown of Life, An Allegory of Salvation and An Allegory of Repentance.  York Art Gallery   
Material: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 127 x 95.3
Reference: 810
Provenance: Provenance uncertain before 1938; Spanish Art Gallery (Tomas Harris), 1938, bought FDLG.
Questions in the operative period Where was the work between 1933 and 1938? 

Report spoliations/York Art Gallery

***

Velázquez,  Diego Rodríguez de Silva y, A portrait of Gongora,  Museum of Fine Arts,  Boston

Dimensions Height x width: 19 3/4 x 16 in. (50.2 x 40.6 cm) Framed: 71.1 x 51.4 cm (28 x 20 1/4 in.)
Medium or Technique: Oil on canvas
Provenance: 1622, painted in Madrid, probably at the request of Francisco Pacheco (b. 1564 – d. 1644) [see note 1]. 1660, probably with the artist [see note 2]. By 1677, Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán (b. 1629 – d. 1687), 7th Marqués del Carpio, Madrid [see note 3]; 1690s, sold from the Carpio estate to Nicolás Nepata [see note 4]. Marqués Benigno de la Vega Inclán y Flaquer (b. 1858 – d. 1942), Madrid. Private collection, Paris [see note 5]. By 1931, Tomas Harris Ltd., London; 1932, sold by Harris to the MFA for ,000. (Accession Date: March 3, 1932)

NOTES:

[1] Velázquez began his career in the studio of Pacheco, a painter and writer, and eventually married his daughter, Juana. Although Pacheco asked Velázquez to paint the portrait, its early history has not been established. It is not known whether Velázquez took it back with him to Seville; this painting or a copy after it must have remained in Madrid, where it served as the basis for several copies.

[2] A portrait of Gongora is listed, without the artist’s name, in the inventory of Velázquez’s property made at his death in 1660 (no. 179).

[3] A portrait of Gongora by Velázquez appears in the 1677 inventory of the Marqués del Carpio (no. 102); see Enriqueta Harris, » ’Las Meninas’ at Kingston Lacy,» Burlington Magazine 132 (1990): 130, as well as the posthumous inventory drawn up at his residence at the Jardín de San Joaquin in 1689; see Marcus B. Burke and Peter Cherry, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601-1755 (Los Angeles: Getty Provenance Index, 1997), part 1, doc. 115, p. 837 (no. 106).

[4] According to José López-Rey, Velazquez: The Artist as a Maker (Lausanne and Paris: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1979), p. 235, cat. no. 25, the portrait continued to appear in Carpio’s posthumous inventories (1692 and 1693) as «sold» and the buyer was Nepata, who bought a number of paintings from the estate.

[5] August L. Meyer, «Einige unbekannte Arbeiten des Velazquez,» Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 56 (1921): p. 36, fig. 3, first published the work as being in a private collection. Whether the Vega Inclan collection was intended is not known. When the painting was included in «An Exhibtion of Old Masters by Spanish Artists» (Tomas Harris, Ltd., London, June, 1931), p. 1, it was said to have come the collection of the Marques de la Vega Inclan and «a private collection in Paris.»

*** 

 Vigée-Lebrun, Elisabeth-Louise, Portrait of Mrs. Chinnery. Indiana University Art Museum

1803
Oil on canvas
36 x 28 in. (91.4 x 71.1 cm)
Signed lower right: L. E. Vigée Lebrun
75.68
Provenance: 1803–?, Collection of Mrs. William Chinnery (Margaret Chinnery), Gillwell Park, Waltham Abbey, Essex (1803-12); and London ?–1899, Collection of Algernon Greene, London. (probably by inheritance from his aunt, Margaret Chinnery’s heir). March 8, 1899, Algernon Greene sold to Thomas Agnew & Sons, London
1899–1900, at Thomas Agnew & Sons, London (stock no. 8808)
April 5, 1900, Charles S. Routh purchased from Thomas Agnew & Sons
1905, Sale, «100 Paintings by Old Masters,» Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris (no. 72)
May 16, 1907, Sale, «Vente Sedelmeyer,» Galerie Georges Petit, Paris (no. 251). Purchased by A. C. Dufayel
1907–?, Collection of A. C. Dufayel
ca. 1915–ca. 1919, Collection of Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris
ca. 1939, Collection of Tomás Harris, Spanish Art Gallery, London
ca. 1947–1975, Wildenstein Gallery, New York
1975, IU Art Museum purchased from Wildenstein

Questions in the operative period Where was this drawing between 1919 and 1939?

https://www.indiana.edu/~iuam/provenance/view.php?id=196

***

Weyden,  Roger van der: Tríptico de Miraflores, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.      

“The panel reproduced on page 77 was formerly in the possession of Mr. Lionel Harris, of the Spanish Art Gallery, from whom it passed to Messrs. Duveen Brothers.”  (A. J. Wauters “Roger van der Weyden, II” p.230, The Burlington Magazine, Volume XXII—October 1912 to March 1913 p.230

 ***

Weyden Roger van der, Escuela de: Retablo. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter with a Donor; The Legend of Saint Anthony Abbot with a Donor; The Annunciation. MMA      

Northern French Painter, about 1450 Medium: Oil on wood
Dimensions: Each 45 x 31 in. (114.3 x 78.7 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931
Accession Number: 32.100.108–11

This artwork is not on display

These two imposing panels would have flanked a central painting or sculptural shrine. This northern French painter derives his style and certain figural quotations from Rogier van der Weyden, whose works were widely known and appreciated at the time.

Provenance :possibly Monasterio de Santa María La Real de Las Huelgas, Burgos; Sicilia family, Spain (until 1905; sold to Lionel Harris of Spanish Gallery); [Spanish Gallery, London, 1905–12; sold to Barbazanges]; [Galerie Barbazanges, Paris, 1912–?at least 1924; as by Froment]; Yves Perdoux, Paris (until 1927; as Northern French School; sold to Kleinberger); [Kleinberger, Paris and New York, 1927; sold for ,000 to Aldred]; John E. Aldred, Lattingtown, N.Y. (1927–29; sold to Kleinberger); [Kleinberger, New York, 1929; sold for ,500 to Friedsam]; Michael Friedsam, New York (1929–d. 1931)

*Tomás Harris. Letter to Margaretta Salinger. December 1, 1932, discusses the provenance of these panels, stating that they were purchased in Spain by his father Lionel Harris in 1905 and sold in 1912 to P. W. Turner of the Barbazanges Galleries, Paris; further states that the panels must have been in the Convent of Huelgas since the early 16th century, but does not know how long they were owned by the Cecilla [Sicilia] family.

** Juan Carlos de la Mata González. Letter to Josephine Dobkin. August 8, 2003, states that he has shown transparencies of these panels to the curatorial department and that they find no evidence of their presence at Las Huelgas; in their opinion, they never belonged to the monastery.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Rogier van der Weyden

***

Zurbarán, Francisco de,

 A Cup of Water and a Rose. National Gallery UK

Date made about 1630
Medium and support: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 21.2 x 30.1 cm
Provenance: With Linares (D), Madrid;* from whom acquired by Tomás Harris (D), London, in the early 1930s;* Sir Kenneth Clark KCB (later Lord Clark of Saltwood) by 1937;* the Saltwood Heritage Foundation;  bought for The National Gallery by the George Beaumont Group, 1997.

Questions 1933-1945

Confirmation of date of Acquisition by Tomás Harris; if necessary, earlier provenance including date and details of Acquisition by Linares.

 *Early provenances for pictures are not given.

*** 

Saint Francis.  Museum of Fine Arts,  Boston
about 1640–45
207.0 x 106.7 cm (81 1/2 x 42 in.)
Oil on canvas
Object is currently not on view
Zurbarán was renowned as a painter of large-scale religious images, greatly in demand for churches and monasteries throughout Spain and the New World. Zurbarán’s colors are restrained and his compositions rigorously simple; this austerity, combined with precise detail and strong, theatrical lighting, gives his sacred figures an intense, almost mystical presence. This image may, in fact, represent a vision reportedly seen by Pope Nicholas V two hundred years after Saint Francis’s death in 1226: the undecayed body of the saint standing in his burial crypt as though living.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Herbert James Pratt Fund, 1938
Accession number: 38.1617

Provenance/Ownership History.1823, acquired in Madrid by William à Court (b. 1779 – d. 1860), 1st Baron Heytesbury, Heytesbury House, Wiltshire [see note 1]; by descent within the family to Margaret Anna (d. 1920), Lady Heytesbury; April 27, 1926, Lady Heytesbury estate sale, Hampton and Sons, Heytesbury, lot 1358, sold for £21. 1931, with Tomás Harris, Ltd., London [see note 2]. By 1935, Julius Böhler, Böhler and Steinmeyer, Lucerne [see note 3]; 1938, sold by Böhler and Steinmeyer to the MFA for 02.50. (Accession Date: November 10, 1938)

NOTES:
[1] See Martin S. Soria, The Paintings of Zurbarán: Complete Edition (London: Phaidon, 1953), p. 179, cat. no. 184. William à Court was ambassador to Spain from 1822 to 1824.

[2] The MFA painting was exhibited at Tomás Harris, Ltd., London, in 1931 («Old Masters by Spanish Artists,» June 1931), though whether Harris owned it, or it was on loan from Böhler (see below, n. 3), has not been determined.

[3] Julius Böhler lent the painting to the exhibition «Alte und neue spanische Kunst» (Kunstverein, Hamburg, August-September, 1935), cat. no. 27. When asked about its provenance, Fritz Steinmeyer wrote (letter to the MFA; November 25, 1938) that the firm had bought it in 1927 from an English dealer, who had acquired it from a French private collection. Two other paintings by Zurbarán, also included in the Heytesbury sale of 1926, are documented as being owned by Böhler in 1927. However, because the MFA painting is not known ever to have been in a French collection, Steinmeyer’s information is, at least in part, erroneous. According to Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, La Pintura Española fuera de España (Madrid, 1958), p. 344, cat. no. 3107, the MFA painting was purchased at the Heytesbury sale in 1926 by Tomás Harris, who sold it in 1931 to Böhler and Steinmeyer. This has not been substantiated, however, and the painting’s provenance between 1926 and 1935 remains unclarified.

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/saint-francis-32662

***

Tomb Effigy of Alonso de Mera (died May 22. 1553)
Kneeling Knight
Juan de Montejo (Spanish, died 1601)
Unidentified artist, Spanish
Spanish
1592-1594
Object Place: Spain

Medium/Technique Stone; alabaster
Dimensions Overall: 152.4 x 63.5 x 77.5 cm, 491.7 kg (60 x 25 x 30 1/2 in., 1084 lb.)
Mounted (rolling steel base/2 removal slots ontop for inserting straps): 133.4 x 99.1 x 64.8 cm, 90.72 kg (52 1/2 x 39 x 25 1/2 in., 200 lb.)
Credit Line 1939 Purchase Fund
Accession Number 44.813 Gothic Gallery (Gallery 218)
Collections Europe
Classifications Sculpture
Alonso de Mera, dressed in armor, kneels in prayer. This statue comes from his home town of Zamora, Spain, where it once decorated his tomb in the now-destroyed monastery church of S. Pablo and S. Ildefonso. De Mera (d. 1533) founded the monastery upon his return from Peru, where he made his fortune. He wears a dagger at his back, and the sculpture once also included a full sword, likely made in metal. A helmet and gauntlets, now lost, were originally set humbly near his feet, carved together in alabaster with a little page boy asleep, a sign of grief for the dead knight. Research published in 2016 allowed us to identify the subject, the artist, and the original location of the sculpture—which had been incorrectly identified when the MFA acquired the work more than seventy years ago. Most recently, the statue was called simply a “Kneeling Knight.”
Description Alabaster. Full-round figure of bearded nobleman kneeling on tasseled cushion on rectangular stepped plinth, hands in prayer. Full armor, ruff at neck and cuffs, scabbard (sword broken) at left, sheathed dagger at back. Said to be from Zamorra, Spain. Now identified as Alonso de Mera, from the Monastery of S. Pablo and S. Ildefonso, Zamora, Spain
Provenance Between 1592 and 1594, installed in the church of the monastery of S. Pablo and S. Ildefonso, Zamora, Spain [see note 1]; between 1895 and 1901, the sculpture was removed and sold [see note 2]. Probably early 20th century, Spanish Art Gallery, London; sold by the Spanish Art Gallery to William Randolph Hearst (b. 1863 – d. 1951), New York; November 28, 1940, sold by Hearst to the Brummer Gallery, New York (stock no. N4831) [see note 3]; 1944, sold by Brummer to the MFA for $26,000. (Accession Date: November 9, 1944)

NOTES:

[1] Part of the funerary monument to Alonso de Mera (d. 1553), founder of the monastery, which was installed in the main chapel of the church. On the identification and early history of the sculpture, see Sergio Pérez-Martín and Luis Vasallo-Toranzo, «A Renaissance Spanish knight in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,» Burlington Magazine 158 (November 2016), pp. 864-869.

[2] Pérez-Martín and Vasallo-Toranzo (as above, n. 1), p. 867. Following the suppression of monasteries after the Napoleonic wars, the government sold the property of S. Pedro and S. Ildefonso in the nineteenth century.

[3] When this sculpture was acquired from Brummer Gallery, it was said to have come from a monastery in Zamora, and to represent Don Monzo Averesque, who was believed to be the monastery’s founder.

PS año 2019: DE ZAMORA A BOSTON: EL MONUMENTO FUNERARIO DE DON ALONSO DE MERA.pdf* por Sergio Pérez Martín.

Eliah Meyer, fragmento de «Smog in the eyes«: Informes inclasificables del espionaje inglés.

Más información:

* IN MEMORIAM: TOMÁS HARRIS, ESPÍA, INGLÉS, PERISTA, TRAFICANTE, EXPOLIADOR DE OBRAS DE ARTE, COMPINCHE DE ANTHONY BLUNT Y TUTOR DE JUAN PUJOL, GARBO

*   LA MUERTE DE TOMÁS HARRIS RODRÍGUEZ, EL NICHO Nº 47, Y EL JUEGO DE LOS ESPEJOS

*  TOMÁS HARRIS O LOS PELIGROS DE INVOCAR A LOS ESPÍRITUS

Otros artículos del autor en Gatopardo:

*EXPERIMENTOS CON ARMAS QUÍMICAS Y BACTERIOLÓGICAS. PORTON DOWN: GASEADOS POR LA PATRIA

* DIARIOS DE GUY LIDDELL, DIRECTOR DE CONTRAINTELIGENCIA DEL MI5 DURANTE LA 2ª GUERRA MUNDIAL

Foto de portada: National Archives

Publicado el 12/01/2012 19:47. Archivado en Wayback Machine

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