Attributed to Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

Attributed to JUAN BAUTISTA MARTÍNEZ DEL MAZO (Cuenca, 1611-Madrid, 1667).
"Three majas".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Work reproduced in; A. L. Mayer, Velazquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures and Drawings, London 1936, p. 34, cat. no. 144, reproduced p. 56.
-J. López-Rey, Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of his Oeuvre, London 1963, p. 165, cat no. 129, reproduced p. 132, pl. 221.
With repainting.
Provenance: Arthur Kay.
Size: 19 x 14 cm; 28 x 22.5 cm (frame).
Both Mayer and López-Rey have tentatively attributed this painting to Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo and have pointed out that the treatment of the figures in this work is very similar to that which can be seen in the artist's painting Queen Street in Aranjuez. in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the foreground on the right is a group of three women, although with their backs to the viewer, unlike the ones here. This work was in the private collection of Arthur Kay (c.1862-1939), a Glasgow magnate who amassed one of the largest art collections in Scotland in the late 19th century. His collection included Degas's famous L'Absinthe of 1875-6 now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

A Baroque painter and disciple of Velázquez, with whose hand his work is sometimes confused, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo first appears in documents in 1633, on the occasion of his marriage to his master's daughter, a fact that demonstrates Velázquez's appreciation and confidence in his pupil's art. Under the protection of his father-in-law, Mazo then began his career at Court, being particularly close to Prince Baltasar Carlos, to whom he was a drawing teacher and whom he accompanied to Saragossa, where the prince died at the age of sixteen (1648), painting the last known portrait of the royal heir. He subsequently travelled to Italy in 1657 and visited Rome and Naples, probably on the advice of his master. His work at court set Mazo apart from other contemporary artists, who were mainly employed in religious painting. He, on the other hand, developed a singular, sometimes very personal, secular vein. He also made abundant copies of the masters required for the decoration of the Royal Sites. As a portraitist he was so close to Velázquez's style, both in the iconography of the official models and in technique, that the task of attributing some of his works has been a particularly arduous one. In fact, it was thought that it was Mazo who, on Velázquez's death, finished and retouched the portrait of the Infanta Margarita of Austria, although the latest research carried out at the Prado tends to attribute the painting entirely to Mazo, who in 1661 was appointed painter of the chamber on the death of his father-in-law. On the other hand, it was in landscapes that Mazo was truly original, a genre in which he excelled among his Hispanic colleagues. In his canvases he depicted classical ruins that he had seen in Italy, imaginary landscapes with ancient buildings populated by mythological figures on a small scale, views of cities of a more veristic type and landscapes in which he recreated the gardens of royal palaces. Although he undoubtedly had in mind the Roman classicism that had been so deeply rooted in this genre, Mazo adopted a freer attitude towards nature, closer to the atmospheric capture of his master in works such as those of the Villa Medici. Mazo is now widely represented in the Museo del Prado, which has a total of thirty-two canvases by his hand, as well as in the Kunsthistorisches in Vienna, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Metropolitan in New York, the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Municipal de San Telmo and the Palacio de Ayete in San Sebastián, the Museo de Zaragoza, the Municipal de Játiva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central University of Barcelona.