A Velazquez and a memory

We did not expect it. Not so much the the worldwide press repercussion to the discovery of The Education of the Virgin by Velazquez that we published in our previous isssue, which has been enormous: After all, a new Velázquez is a Velázquez. The most pleasant surprise has been the investigators and scholars' reaction. Up to now I count to five the number of the most important experts in the world that have travelled to Yale (United States) to examine and study the work on site. I am also pleased that the initial reaction of doubt expressed by some of them has led way, after having studied the painting more closely, to more favorable judgments, even enthusiastic, to its adscription to the master.  

This controversy over a work by Velázquez reminded me of others, more distant in time that featured, among others, Alfonso E. Pérez S,anchez. His recent passing requires a space and approach impossible to encompass in these lines. His instruction, prestige and dedication to Art History and to the Prado museum will continue to be a cause and subject worthy of examination, as Jonathan Brown remarked in an article upon the occasion of his death. Alfonso would have taken an immense pleasure in this painting, especially because its course of becoming included in the corpus of the master has only just began.   

But life goes on and so does our magazine and in this issue we provide a new scoop: Still life number seven by Juan Sánchez Cotán. I say seven because only that number of works remain in the world not that the Carthusian genius ever numbered them. The authorship of the work, of indubitable beauty, is defended by Peter Cherry, possibly the greatest scholar of Spanish Still lifes. Its recent 'unveiling' in a Lisbon exhibit has led the historian to write this very interesting article, of which not even the footnotes should remain unread. I know why I say it. And also do not miss the portfolio that Valerio Adami has made exclusively for Ars; or the considerations made by Xavier Bray about the modernity of our seventeenth century polycromed sculpture. After all as Bill Viola used to say all art is contemporary.