The Entombment of Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Commissioned from the artist by the Order of the Barefoot Mercedarians for the Chapel of Saint Catherine, Church of San José, Seville, Spain, 1637–at least 1800 [1];

Alcázar, Seville, 1810 [2];

Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, 1st Duke of Dalmatia (1769-1851), Paris and Saint-Amans-la-Bastide, France, probably by 1814-1851 [3];

Inherited by his wife, Jeanne Louise Elisabeth Berg (d. 1852), Paris and Saint-Amans-la-Bastide, France, 1851-1852;

By descent to her son, Napoléon-Hector Soult, Duc of Dalmatia (1801-1857), Paris and Saint-Amans-la-Bastide, France, 1852-1857;

Descended through the Soult family, Saint-Amans-la-Bastide, France, 1857-at least 1950 [4];

Prince Michel de Bourbon-Parma (b. 1926), Paris and Palm Beach;

With Didier Aaron, Paris, by October 26, 1959;

With Didier Aaron, on joint account with Rosenberg & Stiebel, Inc., New York, stock no. 3901A, and Frederick Mont, Inc., New York, October 26, 1959-November 30, 1960 [5];

With Didier Aaron, on joint account with V. Moser, Zurich and Frederick Mont, Inc., New York, November 30, 1960-1961 [6];

Purchased from Mont by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1961.

NOTES:

[1] There has been some confusion among scholars as to whether the NAMA painting, or one of the four other versions, was the original commission for the Church of San José and subsequent Alcazar ownership. According to Jeannine Baticle, Zurbarán (1987), and other scholars, Marshal Soult was known to have acquired a number of paintings from the Church of San José, so it is probable that the NAMA painting was the version originally displayed in the chapel in Seville. However, a very similar version in the collection of the Count of Ibarra, Seville, was given to the Count’s grandfather prior to 1921 by the mother superior of the Convent of San José, which was near the Church of San José and of the same religious order. Odile Delenda, in her 2009 catalogue raisonné, suggests the version in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, is the original from the Church of San José based on a study of the dimensions of the different versions and their variations from Cort’s engraving. Paul Guinard’s catalogue raisonné of Zurbarán’s monastic paintings favors the Nelson-Atkins picture as the original from the Church of San José, as does Ralph Coe’s article on the painting in Apollo, December 1972.

[2] The Alcázar is a government building which was sometimes used as a royal residence. This painting was probably removed from the Church of San José by Napoléon Bonaparte’s older brother Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte (1768-1844), whom Napoléon had declared King of Spain. Joseph, commonly referred to as the ‘Government Intruder’, and his French military forces occupied Seville in February 1810. They confiscated approximately 1,200 religious paintings (including 16 Zurbaráns) from collections in the conquered areas and gathered them in the Alcázar in anticipation of opening a national museum that never came to fruition. See Françoise Magny, “Soult: le voleur de tableaux,” Beaux Arts no. 47 (June 1987): 53 ff.

[3] Marshal Soult, one of Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte’s generals during the Peninsular War in Spain, obtained a large collection of Spanish paintings during the war (1808-1814), some from Joseph Bonaparte himself, others by looting monasteries in Seville. See Peter Hayman, Soult: Napoléon’s Maligned Marshal (London: Peter Hayman, 1990), 268-269.

[4] Ralph T. Coe describes the rediscovery of the painting in the Soult home in the “1950s” in his article, “Zurbarán and Mannerism,” Apollo (December 1972): 494.

[5] Each dealer bought a 1/3 share in the painting. Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.065 Rosenberg & Stiebel Archive, Sales and Inventory Records – Card Files, copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

[6] Rosenberg & Stiebel sold their 1/3 share in the painting to V. Moser on November 30, 1960. Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.065 Rosenberg & Stiebel Archive, Sales and Inventory Records, Purchases and Sales, 1959-1970.