Estimate

15.000 - 35.000

Session 1

6 June 2023

Hammer Price

Description

High-relief sculpture
Carved, polychrome and gilt sculpture depicted Christ crucified in the center flanked by Cherubim, Angels and Archangels
Portugal, 17th century (1st-half)

174x170x19 cm

Category

Sculpture

Additional Information

Provenance: Colecção Comandante Ernesto Vilhena


Ernesto de Vilhena collection

A man of broad interests, Commander Ernesto Jardim de Vilhena (1876-1967) dedicated part of his life to collecting works of art and to amassing one of the largest, and most relevant, private art collections in Portugal.
The son of Júlio Marques de Vilhena (1845-1928), a major character that excelled in various fields, having been Secretary of State for Justice and the Ecclesiastical Affairs between 1881 and 1883, and Bank of Portugal Governor between 1895 and 1907, and of Maria da Piedade Leite Pereira Jardim (1848-1930), the sister of Luís Leite Pereira Jardim, 1st Count of Valenças, Ernesto de Vilhena dedicated himself to art collecting from the 1920s onwards.
Vilhena was a methodical, rational, and precise collector that surrounded himself with art experts and dealers, maintaining through his collecting, as highlighted by the researcher Maria João Vilhena de Carvalho, a constant search for the “representation of the national identity in the arts”. In his lifetime, the collection, amounting to 60,515 objects and embracing the decorative and the fine arts as well as a library, was stored at Vilhena’s house in Lisbon’s Rua de São Bento, which was often referred to as the “Vilhena Museum”. A part of this vast collection, bequeathed to the nation by his heirs, is now safekept at the National Museum of Ancient Art in the Portuguese capital.
From amongst Ernesto de Vilhena’s large estate stand out his religious sculpture acquisitions, praised by the Art Historian Reynaldo dos Santos (1880-1970) in the foreword to his monograph Oito Séculos de Arte Portuguesa:
“Two renewing insights enable us to currently outline, for the first time ever, the history of sculpture in Portugal. We owe the first insight to the “Inventário Artístico” revelations, the inventory that this National Academy [of Fine Arts] was appointed to organize, and which presently encompasses the districts of Braga, Santarém, Portalegre and Coimbra, the latter one particularly abundant in sculpture. The second is owed to the research developed on the notable collection of the distinguished Commander Ernesto de Vilhena, counting over one thousand objects mostly dating from the gothic period, and in which are represented not just some of the essential artworks of 14th and 15th centuries imaginary, but numerous regional replicas that reveal the influence and irradiation of prototypes.”
The Ernesto de Vilhena sculpture collection is of such importance to our country that, also according to Reynaldo dos Santos, “The country owes him the rescue of a large part of its medieval imaginary…”, upon the 1911 Separation Law. In 1969 two vast exhibitions of Vilhena’s bequest, summing up to 1490 sculptures from various historical periods, took place at the National Library of Portugal.
The important altarpiece that we are bringing up for auction, characterised by a structure of three carved, polychrome, and gilt wood panels with sculpture, features scenography allusive to the salvation of the “Purgatory Souls”.
The lateral panels are ornamented with foliage motifs and an angel holding lilies, symbols of purity in the Christian tradition. The scene depicted on the central panel, develops over two plans. A lower section defined by the purgatory flames, in which can be seen the praying souls asking for mercy for their terrestrial sins, and the liberating Angels that carry the souls destined to ascending to Paradise. In the upper segment, centrally placed, a sculptural wood depiction of the Crucified Christ, with the inscription “INRI”. The acronym for Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews, framed by angels and cherubs.
Although images of Purgatory have been known in Portugal since the 15th century, most extant Purgatory altarpieces date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The origin of this subject in the collective popular imaginary can be traced back to the Middle Ages, via Final Judgement iconographies.

João Belo

Literature:
CARVALHO, Maria João Vilhena de – A Constituição de uma Coleção Nacional. As Esculturas de Ernesto Vilhena. Vol. 10. Coleção Estudos de Museus. Casal de Cambra: Caleidoscópio e Direção-Geral do Património Cultural, 2017.
MARIZ, Vera - «Maria João Vilhena de Carvalho – A Constituição de uma Coleção Nacional. As Esculturas de Ernesto Vilhena», MIDAS, 2020.
SANTOS, Reynaldo dos. A Escultura em Portugal. Lisboa. 1948-1950.
LAMEIRA, Francisco; LOPES, Inês Afonso; del Rio João, Martina. Retábulos das Almas no Purgatório, Promotoria Monográfica História da Arte 26, Faro, 2021