1560 in Spain

Transcription

This small head, measuring 22cm high, depicts Philip II. It has an inscription on the original pedestal that reads “Phelipe II” in old handwriting, with the “ph” of the spelling indicating that the pedestal is old. The head is made of alabaster, which can normally be identified by the small cracks of the type to be seen in this head, while the base is made of coloured marble, formerly known as jasper. It is not definitely known but it is very likely that the artist is Pompeo Leoni, the son of Leone Leoni. Pempeo was an Italian artist who was appointed Sculptor to the King in 1570 and who would subsequently execute the sculptures for El Escorial with his father. At this date Pompeo had his studio in Madrid and in 1574 he was working on the funerary sculpture of Doña Juana de Austria for the Descalzas Reales, which is closely comparable to the overall style of this marble and the way the subject is depicted. We know that this work was in the collection of Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. Born in 1507, Mendoza was ambassador to the Spanish court in London, Venice and Rome and was an important humanist and a poet who is now considered to have been the author of "Lazarillo de Tormes". In 1568 he fell from grace in Brussels and was firstly exiled then sent to Granada to fight the Muslims. In 1574 he was pardoned but died a year later. Mendoza also collected works of art while he was in Italy and this head was in his collection, which indicates that it must date from before the year of his death in 1575. With regard to comparisons with painted images of the king, there is a beautiful portrait in the collection of the Prado by the Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola who was lady-in-waiting to Isabel de Valois, the third wife of Philip II. Sofonisba arrived in Madrid with the Queen and painted various portraits, including one of Philip II in 1565 but it was re-painted in 1573, so that in 1565 Philip was aged 38 and in 1573 he was 46. X-radiographs have allowed experts at the Museum to see that the hat was originally much wider but was changed to a brimless silk one, and that a rosary was added to the left hand, which was previously empty and was slightly higher. The rosary signifies not just Philip II’s extreme, Catholic piety but also that in 1573 Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Feast of the Rosary in memory of the Battle of Lepanto, so the painting was also modified for that reason. I think that the head of this sculpture is very similar to the one in the painting, which may mean that it was executed when Hurtado de Mendoza was pardoned in 1574, given that Philip’s features are those of an old man, with half-closed eyes and a serene appearance. This is a beautiful, small work. It was created for a domestic space and my theory is that after he was pardoned, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza had a small portrait of the King made so that he could show to friends and visitors that he once again enjoyed the monarch’s favour, perhaps keeping it in his library or study.