Angel with the Instruments of the Flagellation of Christ (1665-1668) is from the collection of the famous Sevillian canon López Cepero, who built up a fabulous collection of paintings, particularly from Seville, after the 1836 Ecclesiastical Confiscation, part of which he sold during the second half of the 19^th century. During the 20^th century, his descendants auctioned off the rest of the collection in their possession, though the work by Valdés Leal came into the hands of the Banco de España in 1975 via the Solís and Romero de Solís collections.

According to the purchase documents in the Historical Archive of the Banco de España, the figure in the painting was formerly identified as Archangel Jegudiel, perhaps because the whips were considered to be those with which the archangel was often depicted.  In reality, it is merely an angel with the instruments used for the flagellation of Christ, depicted in the background in a scene that is barely outlined. Interestingly enough, Christ appears tied to a tall-shafted column in that barely visible group of the flagellation. However, Valdés Leal used a short shaft column for the angel. This became more widespread in the Baroque period, emulating the smaller relic that was worshipped at both the Roman Basilica of Saint Praxedes (which actually has a dished base, as depicted by Valdés Leal) and at Pilate’s House in Seville, which the painter most likely had the chance to see.

The work was certainly part of a larger series. When the Solis Collection was still in Seville, where Elizabeth du Gué Trapier studied it, it was paired with another painting where the angel held a shroud and the scene of the burial of Christ was in the background.  These series of angels with the instruments of Christ’s Suffering were very frequent in the second half of the 17^th century. The sculptures by Bernini and his workshop that flanked the Ponte Sant’Angelo bridge in Rome are the best known series on this theme outside Spain, but Murillo must have painted, or at least prepared, one in Spain, given the series of ten drawings in the Louvre. Another series on the same subject is kept in Seville Cathedral and consists of six canvases that might have belonged to the collection of López Cepero (the owner several times removed of this work), who donated them to the cathedral. That series was attributed to Valdés Leal, but the canvases are now considered the work of unknown artists and of unknown imitators or followers of Murillo. Their virtually identical dimensions and the fact that Seville cathedral precisely lacks the scene with the attributes of the flagellation suggests that this work may have belonged to the same series and that López Cepero kept for himself the ones of better quality and more certain attribution, as is the case of the work in question.

The Banco de España canvas therefore seems to be indisputably a work by Valdés from a relatively early period of his career in which he maintained a certain, rigorous sense of form and rotundity in the modelling, before his style gradually became increasingly freer and looser. As Trapier points out, the strictest parallels can be established with the angels with St. Francis in the canvas that belonged to the Durlacher Brothers of New York. There is also a very close connection with the angelic figures in the Placing of the Chasuble on St. Ildephonsus in the March Collection (circa 1665) and with the earlier version, dated around 1661 and held at the National Art Museum of Catalonia. The canvas in question must therefore be from between 1658 and 1668, in his early maturity, when the artist was aged between thirty-five and forty-five. Duncan Kinkead is even more precise, and dates it between 1664 and 1669, even though seems not to have any direct proof.

The quality of the work is extraordinary, with a wealth of subject and colour on a par with the best we know he produced. The refined colour of the garments and the general effect of the work stress the skilful use of colour that distinguishes the work of Valdés Leal. 

Commentary updated by Carlos Martín.

Alfonso Pérez Sánchez