Fernando Marías disputes the authorship of the sculpture attributed to El Greco.
January 17, 2011 by Gajenjo
Filed under Education & Research
Toledo (Spain) – The professor of Art History at the Autonomous says that carving is unconnected a the world of El Greco and the gallery stands in the lower back bears a signature little-known painter.
The Spanish art historian specializing in El Greco Fernando Marías has disputed the authorship of the sculpture Ecce Homo, which has been attributed to the Spanish painter and will go on sale for 6 million euros in the next edition of the Dutch fair TEFAF.
Maríassaid after seeing the picture of polychrome wood sculpture Ecce Homo that “at all is a work that leaves the head of Greco.“
- “Ecce Homo”
The gallery owner Deborah Elvira announced yesterday that the sculpture Ecce Homo has been attributed to El Greco by specialists in the painter’s work consulted by her and approved by the Committee of Experts of the TEFAF 2011, to be held from 18 to 27 March in Maastricht (Netherlands).
That carving of 35.5 centimeters in height is a work “outside the world of Greco,” said Professor of Art History at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In the sculpture “no elements which would justify any attribution”“El Greco: The apostles. Saints and madmen of God” El Greco, said Marias, who curated the exhibition exhibited at the Convent of La Merced, Ciudad Real to on 28 January.
About life and work of El Greco are kept about 500 documents, which included “not a single reference to ‘Ecce homo‘” or an altarpiece consisting of an ‘ecce homo’ created by the painter, recalled.
El Greco (Candia, Crete, 1541-Toledo, Spain, 1614) was not a sculptor but an artist “who drew a picture for a sculptor for the altar do,” said the expert.
The “Ecce Homo” attributed to Domenico Theotolopoulos, popularly known as El Greco, according to Valencian antiquarian Deborah Elvira, had not seen before or was aware of its existence until a Spanish collector, who wants to remain anonymous, has decided sell.
The sculpture will go on sale next TEFAF, the most important exhibition of ancient art and antiquities for 6 million euros. A “overpriced,” said the expert.
The peculiarity of sculpture, according to the gallerist, is that it looks back at the bottom of a little-known signature of El Greco: for monograms the initial Greek delta and theta.
These symbols are also on the Spanish painter’s oil The Virgin and Child with St. Agnes and St. Martina which sets out the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
But that kind of heading is not a justification for attributing the work to Greco, according to Marias. In his opinion, the style of the carving is typical of Berruguete School, Spanish mannerist sculptor, said the expert.
The carving could have been done by a follower of Berruguete in the first half of the sixteenth century in Valladolid, Avila or Toledo said. Although “in the market, the work can achieve a higher price if it is a Greco that a Berruguete’s follower,” he said.
From the aesthetic point of view, the son of the philosopher Julián Marías, said that the work is “a good fit” but that is far from the criterion that El Greco held religious representation. The carving, explained, “does not even have a charge longer,” meaning that the figure is slender and the head of the Ecce homo lacks the characteristic angle of El Greco. Moreover, this Ecce Homo attributed to El Greco is provided “tortured and beaten, his face ugly and an anatomy that has nothing to do with El Greco,” the historian concluded.
