Manuel Castellano. Death of Villamediana Count

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Lot: 997

Manuel Castellano. Death of Villamediana Count

"Muerte del Conde de Villamediana". Oil on canvas. Signed and dated (1867) in the lower left corner. Sketch. Canvas with some damage.

The original canvas was painted in 1868 and presented by the painter to the National Exhibition of 1871, where he was awarded a second medal outside the regulations. The subject chosen by Castellano is part of one of the most legendary episodes of the court of the Spanish Austrias, woven around the nobleman Don Juan de Tassis y Peralta (1582-1622), Count of Villamediana and one of the most picturesque characters of the reign of Philip IV, a knight with a turbulent and dissipated life, a good horseman and skilled in the art of spearing bulls. He was, in addition to being a good and biting poet, a flirt and arrogant womanizer, who for this reason had to leave Spain for Naples and Lombardy. On his return to Madrid, he even became a rival in love with Philip IV, and was said to have had an affair with Queen Isabella of Bourbon herself, whom the poet referred to in his verses with the nickname of Francelisa, although it seems that the real reason for this dispute was another lady of the Court, Doña Francisca de Tavora, whom both knights were courting. There are many versions about the provocation that supposedly triggered the king's jealousy against the count. The truth is that he died on 21 August 1622, when Villamediana was travelling in his carriage with his friend Don Luis Méndez de Haro, after being pierced by the blade of a Valencian crossbow, aimed by a cloaked man, next to the church of San Ginés. The scene chosen by Castellano is the moment when the lifeless body has been taken to the portal of the palace of the Count of Oñate, residence of Villamediana's father, where the entire Court gathered to see the wound, a phrase with which the painting was illustrated in the catalogue of the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1871, belonging to Francisco de Quevedo's work Grandes anales de quinces días (Text extracted from Díez, JL: "La muerte del Conde de Villamediana de Manuel Castellano (1826-1880) y susdibujos preparatorios", Boletín del Museo del Prado, 1988, pp. 96-109).

|. 102 x 77 cm

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Author

CASTELLANO, MANUEL (1828 - 1880)

Title

Death of the Count of Villamediana

Measures

102 x 77 cm

Support

Canvas

Painting technique

Oil

Signed

Yes

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