Spanish Baroque Art
Peter Paul Rubens Portrait Head of Don Diego Messía (Mexía) Felípez de Guzmán, Marquis of Leganés; September–December 1627 Study for a painting. Black and red chalk, traces of white chalk Albertina, Vienna (source) “Diego Mexía (or Messía) Felípez de...

Peter Paul Rubens

Portrait Head of Don Diego Messía (Mexía) Felípez de Guzmán, Marquis of Leganés; September–December 1627

Study for a painting. Black and red chalk, traces of white chalk

Albertina, Vienna (source)

Diego Mexía (or Messía) Felípez de Guzmán y Dávila (1580?–1655) “was a special envoy from King Philip IV of Spain to Archduchess Isabella [Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, was daughter of King Philip II, and Philip IV’s aunt].  In June 1622 he was named to the council of war, and in 1625 he was appointed General Field Marshal of the King of Spain (Leganés commanded the Spanish artillery and cavalry in the Southern Netherlands). He was elevated to Marquis of Leganés in 1627, at which time he also adopted the surname of Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, Spain’s all-powerful Count-Duke of Olivares [Leganés’s mother, Leonor de Guzmán, was Olivares’s aunt]. Rubens first referred to Leganés in a letter to the Infanta Isabella from Paris on March 15, 1625. Three years later, on January 27, 1628, the artist wrote to Pierre Dupuy (1582–1651), a royal librarian in Paris and Rubens’s regular correspondent, that he counted Leganés "among the greatest connoisseurs of … art in the world.”

Over a faint grid, Rubens first sketched the marquis’s head in outline, then in more detail. The ruff collar framing the face is indicated only summarily. Despite this methodical approach, the portrait is lively and personal. The Vienna drawing served as study for the three-quarter-length portrait of the Marquis of Leganés, now in a private collection. Rubens followed it carefully, not just for the position of the head, but also for the gaze of the eyes, the ruff collar, and even the curls of the hair.”

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  • Portrait of the Marquis of Leganés by Rubens, 1627. Private collection. 

“Rubens most likely encountered the Marquis of Leganés when the latter stayed in Brussels from September 9, 1627, until January 3, 1628. As a special envoy of the Spanish king, the marquis came to inform the Archduchess Isabella that Philip IV had just signed a treaty between Spain and France against England, which was contrary to Rubens’s fervent hopes for peace between Spain and England. Due to this turn of events, the artist made repeated trips to the Brussels court to assist in negotiations during Leganés’s stay. As Don Diego Messía became 1st Marquis of Leganés in 1627, he may have commissioned his portrait from Rubens to commemorate this honor; at about the same time, he was also to marry the daughter of Ambrogio Spinola, the victor in the Battle of Breda. The dating of the painting to September–October 1627 by Michael Jaffé is likely for the drawing as well, although one might extend this to December to include all the months of negotiations in Brussels in which Rubens also participated.

According to the painter Francisco Pacheco (1564–1644), the father-in-law of Velázquez, Don Diego was a great admirer of Rubens ("grande aficionado suyo”) and responsible of the few non-portrait commissions that Rubens received in Spain, namely an Immaculate Conception in the Prado, Madrid. When Messía died in 1655, his inventory listed 1,333 paintings, with many works by Flemish artists, including at least 30 by Rubens.”

—  Source: Anne Marie Logan, Michiel C. Plomp. Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings. Exh. cat.: January 15 - April 3, 2005; also Albertina, Vienna, 2004. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, pp. 231-233, cat. no. 78. (MetPublications · Download full catalogue on PDF)

Tags: #art #history #painting #art history #rubens #peter paul rubens #portrait #baroque #baroque art #baroque painting #flemish art #flemish painting #flemish baroque painting #drawing #illustration #sketch #17th century #1620s #17th century art #spain #aristocracry #marquis of leganes #albertina #rubens in spain
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