Alonso Miguel de Tovar

ALONSO MIGUEL DE TOVAR (Higuera de la Sierra, Huelva, 1678-Madrid, 1752).
"Divina Pastora".
Oil on canvas.
It has slight damage to the pictorial surface.
It preserves its original canvas.
It has a period frame, with faults in the carving.
Measurements: 88.5 x 65.5 cm; 98.5 x 74.5 cm (frame).
The way in which the Virgin's clothing is conceived, the two flowers that she holds in her hand, and how they fall slightly under her weight, the lamb that looks at Mary, while in her mouth she holds a flower, the presence of the archangel in the background, are characteristics that adapt to the aesthetic pattern established by Tovar, in the work he carried out in 1732, for Don José María Téllez-Girón y Benavides, VII Duke of Osuna. The piece is kept in the chapel of La Divina Pastora", which is located in the old Hospital de San Bernardo in Seville. The origins of the devotion to the Divina Pastora are unclear until the 18th century. Although its widespread dissemination is due to a Capuchin priest of great Marian devotion, Fray Isidoro de Sevilla, who in 1703 commissioned a canvas with this theme from Alonso Miguel de Tovar, today we can see a similar work by Tovar in the Museo Carmen Thyssen in Malaga. In 1705 he also wrote "La Pastora Coronada" ("The Crowned Shepherdess"), a work in which he set out his predictable idea of the Virgin as a shepherdess. The father describes her as follows: "in the centre and under the shade of a tree, the Blessed Virgin seated on a rock, radiating divine love and tenderness from her face, her red tunic but her bust covered up to her knees with white pellicle tight around her waist, a blue cloak draped over her left shoulder, she will wrap around her shepherdess and next to her right hand will appear the staff of her power. In her left hand she will hold the Child, and her right hand will rest on a lamb which she is holding in her lap. Some sheep will surround the Virgin, forming her flock, and all of them will carry roses in their mouths, symbolic of the Hail Mary with which they venerate her. In the distance, a lost sheep was pursued by the wolf, but by pronouncing the Hail Mary, Saint Michael appeared with the arrow which he plunged into the testicle of the accursed wolf".
Alonso Miguel Tovar most probably trained in the workshop of the painter Juan Antonio Osorio, a great admirer of the work of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, as was Tovar. Because of his detailed knowledge of Murillo's technique, the Cathedral Chapter commissioned him to restore the painting of the Nativity of the Virgin in the chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Seville cathedral. Around 1723 he painted an Immaculate Conception for the chapel of the Casa de Contratación, which was then in Cadiz. This work is currently kept in the cathedral of Cadiz. Isabella of Farnese, the wife of Philip V and a fan of Murillo, called Tovar to the Court between late 1723 and early 1724. Tovar's arrival in Madrid coincided with the hiring of many artists to decorate the palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso. In 1726 Teodoro Ardemans died and Alonso Miguel Tovar was appointed painter to Philip V's chamber. Tovar's work is currently housed in the most important Spanish and international art galleries: the Prado Museum, the National Gallery in London, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, the Museum of Cadiz, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon and the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy, among many others.