Painter and priest Vicente Giner was born in Castellón, but subsequently moved to Italy. For many decades, the two pictures in the Banco de España Collection were the only known Baroque examples of any significance from the artist's oeuvre. They belonged to the Murcian collection of the Marquises of Villamantilla de Perales (the González Conde family), who were related to the D'Estoup family, which at the time owned other similar works by the artist. Acquired in the 1980s, they were for a long time the only clear guide to the artistic legacy of this enigmatic painter and were used for further research and to attribute other works, including a painting recently acquired for a public collection: Basilica Interior with Musicians in Concert around a Table (undated, Valencia Museum of Fine Art), from the D'Estoup Collection. Some other signed works have now been identified, enabling us to sketch out a brief catalogue of Giner's work. However, as Javier Portús rightly notes, the life and artistic personality of Vicente Giner remain largely unknown. Research by Ángel Aterido Fernández ('De Castellón a Roma: el canónigo Vicente Giner (ca. 1683- 1681)', Archivo español de arte, No. 294, 2001, pp. 179- 183), has shed new light on the artist's career. His studies confirm the status of the two paintings in the Banco de España collection as key works to our understanding of Giner's work (by virtue of being early examples that are representative of a specific genre). As Aterido writes, 'The artistic climate of the papal court, allowed "whimsies" of this kind to be made, viewed as mere decoration in the house of a priest with some education. An example of these merely anecdotal paintings is the "princely couple" from Giner's architectures, the first to be attributed to him, which are now preserved in the Banco de España'. The style, composition, colouring and technique reflect the artist's Italian formation. Although we know little of his time there, the proof is in the works themselves, which show evidence that he was influenced by the work of the Bergamo painter Viviano Codazzi (1604-1670), a recognised master of architectural perspective (or what were known as the 'capricci architettonici') and, in particular, his vistas with classical ruins. The link between the two is evident and one can safely assume that they enjoyed a direct and perhaps personal acquaintance, since Codazzi lived and worked in Rome from 1647 and some of his works were soon acquired by Spanish collections, including the royal collection. This hypothesis has been further supported by scholars such as Aterido, although no documentary confirmation has yet come to light of the relationship between Codazzi and Giner. Other scholars believe that Giner may have been the figure painter for some of Codazzi's workshop compositions.

Although the date of Giner's arrival in Italy is not known, the evidence of one document places him in Rome as early as 1672. A later manuscript, dating from 1680, connected to the petition to King Charles II for the creation of a Spanish academy in Rome, mentions that the signatories had been 'for some years now, residents at the court of Rome', which might suggest that there was a direct contact. In any case, the Spanish artist's stylistic dependence on his contemporary is clear and specific in works such as the two paintings in the Banco de España Collection. His taste for austere, precisely drawn porticoes and his intelligent use of light, with a remarkable feeling for atmosphere, are borrowed directly from Codazzi and his colleague and close collaborator Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660). Giner took the symmetry of the composition to even greater extremes than the Italian artists. He experimented with the effects of a strict balance of masses, accentuating the frontal arrangement of the porticoes which the Italian painters sometimes foreshortened.

The lively, graceful characters in the pictures are of a type that was also frequent in the Roman art scene, and are similar to those used by Nordic painters specialising in aspects of popular life — the so-called bamboccianti. However, a certain rigidity, verticality and composure of attitudes reveal the artist's devotion to classicism. Giner would no doubt have seen and carefully studied, the works of Poussin's circle, based in Rome.

The inscription 'VAL' in the signature may indicate that the canvas was painted in Valencia. However, it is also perfectly possible that it merely indicates that he was 'Valentianus' or 'Valentinus' (from Valencia), and that the works were painted in Rome, as has traditionally been believed.

• Alfonso Pérez Sánchez
• Carlos Martín