Attributed to Cornelius Schut

Attributed to CORNELIO SCHUT (Antwerp, 1629 - Seville, 1685).
"Immaculate Conception".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Presents wear, restorations and faults.
Measurements: 168 x 105 cm; 172 x 108 cm (frame).

The theme of the Immaculate Conception, very frequent in the Spanish art of the XVII century, came to constitute one of the signs of national identity of Spain as a Catholic country. It is one of the most genuinely local themes of Spanish Baroque painting, since our country was the main defender of this mystery, and the one that fought most insistently to make it a dogma of faith. In this context, numerous artists and intellectuals worked to build a clear iconography that would help the diffusion of the Immaculate Conception, bringing together symbolism and popular fervor. The image of this particular Immaculate clearly derives in its composition from the Inmaculada de los Venerables by Murillo, although it is not an exact copy but presents personal contributions in the arrangement of the white tunic and the blue mantle. However, when it came to depicting the numerous angels surrounding Mary, Schut leaned towards expressions and models closer to Valdés. It can be suggested that this work was made around 1680 since the faces of both the Immaculate Virgin and the angels surrounding her are aesthetically close to the representation he made. Schut de Santa Teresa de Jesús.
Due to its stylistic characteristics this work can be inscribed within the Sevillian school of the late seventeenth century, specifically in relation to the style of Cornelius Schut, a painter of Flemish origin who settled in Seville around 1645. In the style of this artist we can observe stylistic features of the Flemish school inherited from his homeland and the teachings he received from his father, who was also a painter, and from other artistic trends such as the painting of Murillo and Valdés Leal. Antonio Palomino emphasized his gifts as a portraitist and draftsman, which would have been due to his election as president of the Academy, and the drawings by his hand that have been preserved indeed show a fluency and liveliness of stroke close to that of Murillo, to whom they have sometimes been attributed. Among his clients were the chapter of the cathedral of Seville, which commissioned him to paint the effigies of the venerable Contreras and Sister Francisca Dorotea for the engravings that were made of them during the canonization process promoted by the chapter, as well as the Portrait of Don Antonio Paíno, who died in 1669, for the gallery of the Sevillian archbishops of the Biblioteca Colombina.