ZURBARÁN
CATALOGUE
$45
Edited by
Susan Grace Galassi, Edward Payne, Mark A. Roglán
Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH)
Center for Spain in America (CSA)
Meadows Museum, SMU
The Frick Collection. Auckland Castle Trust
The impressive series of paintings known as Jacob and His Twelve Sons portrays thirteen life-size figures by Spanish master Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664).
Painted between about 1640 and 1645, the series depicts figures named in Chapter 49 of the Book of Genesis in which Jacob bestows his deathbed blessings to his sons, each of whom go on to found the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
Co-edited by Susan Grace Galassi, senior curator at The Frick Collection; Edward Payne, senior curator of Spanish art at Auckland Castle; and Mark Roglán, director of the Meadows Museum; this publication chronicles the scientific analysis of the series Jacob and His Twelve Sons led by Claire Barry at the Kimbell Art Museum’s Conservation Department and also provides focused art historical studies of the works.
Essays cover the iconography of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the history of the canvases, and Zurbarán’s artistic practices and visual sources. With this comprehensive and varied approach, the book constitutes the most extensive contribution to the scholarship on one of the most ambitious series by this Golden Age master.
Link to The eponymous exhibition article on Patrons
Contents
Forewords and Acknowledgments
11 Jonathan Ruffer
13 Mark A. Roglán and Ian Wardropper
17 José Luis Colomer
I. Context
21 Francisco de Zurbarán, Master Painter of Seville. Jonathan Brown
31 Theological Context of the Series. Jacob and His Twelve Sons. John Barton
43 Auckland Castle and the Purchase of Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons. Christopher Ferguson
II. Reception
55 “A Terrifying Object”: The Invention of Zurbarán. Alexandra Letvin
75 Zurbaranesque Tribes of Israel in the New World. Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink
89 Paintings Cut Loose: Zurbarán’s Work in Museums in the United States. Susan Grace Galassi
III. Objects
107 Introducing Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons. Edward Payne
110 Catalogue of Works
165 Revisiting an Old Testament Subject for the New World:
Uncovering the Artist’s Process in Zurbarán’s Patriarch Series. Claire Barry
189 Appendix I: Print Sources. Rafael Barrientos Martinez and Claire Barry
203 Appendix II: Canvas Weave Analysis. Don H. Johnson and Claire Barry
212 A Zurbarán Postscript. Gabriele Finaldi
215 Bibliography
221 Index
224 Photographic Credits