The Angel appearing to Saint Francis, oil on panel, New...

The Angel appearing to Saint Francis, oil on panel, New Spain Colonial school of New Spain, 17th century, attributed to Baltasar Echave Orio (Zumaya, Guipúzcoa, 1548 - Mexico, c. 1620)

Oil on panel, with a 17th century frame, panel measurements: 97 x 72 cm, framed measurements: 122 x 94 cm. Baltasar de Echave Orio or the Elder (Zumaya, Guipúzcoa, 1548-Mexico, c. 1620) was a Spanish painter and writer established in New Spain at least since 1582. A prominent figure in colonial art and head of a dynasty of painters, his self-portrait printed on the front of his Discourses on the Antiquity of the Bascongada Cantabrian Language, carrying a brush and a pen in his hand, is illustrated with the inscription Patriæ et penicillum et calamum, utroque æque artifex dedicavit, which could be translated as «A the country, the brush and the pen, the artist dedicated equally. Born in the ancestral home of Aizarnazábal, near Zumaya, he was able to travel to New Spain as early as 1573. Among his most notable works is the main altarpiece of the church of Santiago de Tlatelolco, originally made up of fourteen oil paintings of which only the Visitation and the Porziuncula. A Virgin of Guadalupe is preserved signed in 1606 and in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, where two portraits of bishops have been attributed to him, a Christ tied to the column with Saint Peter and a donor, oil painting signed in 1618. Bibliography of reference: Guadalupe Victoria, José, A painter in his time. Baltasar de Echave Orio, Mexico, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Institute of Aesthetic Research, 1994, ISBN 9683631029. Provenance: important private collection in Madrid.