JoséCamarón Bonanat (or Boronat) (Spanish, 1731–1803), “Cartouches for the Map of the Archbishopric of Valencia [recto]/Models for various bookplates and a small sketch for a scene with a sword shop [verso],” 1761. Black chalk and ink on laid paper [recto]/pen with gray‐brown and black ink on laid paper [verso], 10 x 16 3/8 in. (25 x 42 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Museum purchase with funds from The Meadows Foundation, MM.2020.06.A-B. Photo by Kevin Todora.
Alonso Cano (Spanish, 1601–1667), “The Death of Mary Magdalene,” c. 1645–50. Pen and gray‐brown ink on laid paper, 3 ½ x 7 ½ in. (9 x 19 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Museum purchase with funds from The Meadows Foundation, MM.2020.05. Photo by Kevin Todora.
Works by Alonso Cano, Mariano Salvador Maella (1739–1819), and José Camarón Bonanat (1731–1803) are already part of the Meadows collection, and the acquisition of additional works, one from each of these artists, offers new perspectives to their drawings. The two other drawings, from Francisco de Herrera the Elder (c. 1590–1654) and Pedro Duque Cornejo (1678–1757) are the first by these artists to enter the Meadows’ collection.
Earlier this year, the Meadows acquired two paintings, one by Josep de Togores i Llach (1893–1970), a Catalan artist, and a painting by Santiago Rusiñol i Prats (1861–1931). Those acquisitions, and the newly purchased sculpture by Agustín Querol y Subirats, adds to the Meadows’ collection of Catalan art.
Agustín Querol y Subirats (Spanish, 1864–1909), “A Baby Rolling Over,” 1884–87. Terracotta, 15 ¾ x 25 ¼ x 8 ¾ in. (40 x 64 x 22 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Given by Michael P. Mezzatesta in honor of William B. Jordan, MM.2020.02. Photo by Kevin Todora.
“We are looking forward to the scholarship that will result from studying these newly acquired works alongside those already in our collection,” says Mark Roglán, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum. “It is important to have a drawing by Alonso Cano, one of the Golden Age’s masters of the Spanish School and a colleague of Velázquez, in addition to the Cano painting already in the collection. The significant addition of the other four sheets to our Spanish drawings collection — including a beautifully rendered head by Francisco de Herrera the Elder — is likely to spur new research and perhaps even result in publications and exhibitions that further deepen our understanding of Spanish draftsmanship and its influence on the built environment and culture of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Spain. Meanwhile, the acquisition of the Querol work is a milestone in the growth of holdings that represent both modernist and Catalan art, areas of the collection that the Meadows is committed to developing further.”
For more information, please visit the SMU Meadows Museum website here.
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The Meadows Museum is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to Southern Methodist University. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’s vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters.
