The Antequera City Museum (MVCA) adds to its permanent exhibition a canvas attributed to Francisco de Zurbarán, titled The Virgin with the Child holding the cross, a piece from his last stage that arrives in the city within the depot of the Delgado Collection and that reinforces the baroque profile the museum.
The mayor was present at the official presentation. Manolo Barón, the deputy mayor for Tourism, Commerce and World Heritage, Ana Cebrian, the director of the MVCA José Escalante, Adriana Ferrín on behalf of the depositor family and the restorer Rafael Romero, responsible for the intervention and the study that has supported the attribution.
A late canvas that illuminates Zurbarán's Madrid period
Acquired in Germany, and never before exhibited in Spain, the painting is stylistically situated in the artist's later years, when he moved to Madrid and oriented his production towards devotional works of a more restrained format, close in style to creations such as the Virgin with Child and Saint John the Baptist Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao.
The specialists highlight features characteristic of that final phase: a sober composition, a restrained atmosphere, and a blue cloak in which the use of lapis lazuli has been identified, a high-cost pigment that reinforces the material quality of the whole and its proximity to court circles.
The existence of the work has already been mentioned by Ignacio Cano Rivero in the Ars Magazine, which clearly placed it in Zurbarán's later production due to its compositional and technical affinity with other devotional panels and canvases.
Research, restoration and attribution
The restoration and study process, led by Rafael Romero (ICONO Study), has allowed the attribution to be consolidated thanks to material analysis and stylistic comparison with contemporary examples. The work, in excellent state of conservationIt retains pictorial qualities that match the master's hand in its final section.
The sources consulted place the canvas around 1658–1662These dates are consistent with his time in Madrid. It is estimated that during this period the painter produced around thirty works, of which approximately twenty are preserved, which underlines the exceptional interest of this addition.
The Delgado Collection and the boost to the MVCA
The piece enters The MVCA Gallery as a repository for the Delgado Collection, which already exhibits works by masters such as VelázquezJuan de Pareja, MurilloValdés Leal, Goya or Herrera the Elder, expanding a first-rate baroque narrative in the Andalusian scene.
The set in storage reaches 42 works and it is planned to remain in the museum until June of 2029According to the director, José EscalanteA new room will be made available for future additions, and there is a plan to add up to ten additional pieces.
During the event, the deputy mayor Ana Cebrian highlighted the remarkable increase in visits Linked to these integrations, he pointed out that the museum has been able to offer the appropriate space for a deposit of this kind and consolidate its projection as a cultural reference.
Recovered heritage and public access
Originating from a private German collection dating back to the 19th century and with no prior documentary references, the work represents a return to Spanish heritage after more than two centuries abroad, as he explained Adriana Ferrín on behalf of the depositing family.
The canvas can now be viewed in The MVCA Galleryintegrated into an expository discourse that facilitates the reading of the Hispanic Baroque and brings to the general public a significant testimony of the Zurbarán's maturity.
With this integration, Antequera consolidates a high-level museum offering and reinforces its cultural appeal: the new Unpublished ZurbaránThe expansion of the rooms and the growth of the Delgado Collection storage facility align to project the MVCA as a benchmark in the dissemination of Baroque heritage in Spain.
