Pedro Núñez de Villavicencio

PEDRO NÚÑEZ DE VILLAVICENCIO (Seville, 1644 - Madrid, 1695).
"Courtesan with client".
Oil on canvas.
Attached report of Alessandro Nesi (21/09/2024).
Measurements: 87 x 79 cm.

We are in front of a painting of high quality, in which the author treats a genre theme that was frequent during the Baroque of Caraveggesque heritage: a prostitution scene in which a courtesan speaks with a client. The woman holds a bag with money, indicating that she has already been paid for her work. However, the man seems to demand something else and she responds with the sacrilegious gesture of sending him to hell, placing her thumb between her index and middle finger. In the painting of the time we can see this same gesture in the soldiers who mock Jesus when he is about to be crucified. In the present context, it adds mischievousness to the scene, of which, on the other hand, it is worth highlighting the high quality of the pictorial execution: the weathered face of the man with the grizzled beard in contrast with the young woman's fresh skin, the foreshortened hand of the client and the detail of the dirty nails, the successful plastic effects that emulate velvet, the skillful draping of the sleeves, the stitching of the suede shoulder? The pictorial handling and the chromatic relationships denote the influence of Murillo, of whom Núñez de Villavicencio was a friend and disciple, as well as the dense stroke of Velázquez. There are also echoes of Caravaggio filtered by Mattia Preti, with whom Núñez de Villavicencio collaborated. It is also worth comparing our painting with "Boys playing dice" by Núñez preserved in the Prado Museum to compare the figures with the clear and vibrant flesh tones of the courtesan, as well as the similarity of the draperies that camouflage the different types of fabric, and even the general palette of pinks, browns, light blue and pure white. The same can be said of the "Aguador" of the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville, to which the historian Alessandro Nesi also relates it in his report.

Born in Seville, Pedro Núñez participated in the founding of the Academy of Fine Arts of Seville, founded by Murillo and Herrera el Mozo. Murillo directed this workshop with numerous assistants and apprentices whose main objective was to complete the training of young painters, considered insufficient in drawing. The participation of Pedro Núñez was, for his age, certainly exceptional, making some of the additions in the market hall of Seville where the artistic institution is based. He himself became a member of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 1661, and had to settle in Malta, alternating with trips to Seville, possibly Rome, and southern Italy, where he worked as a painter and met the Calabrian Mattia Preti. In 1675, due to the plague that broke out in Malta, he returned definitively to Seville, where he became the Order's point of reference in administrative matters for the Priory of his Order in Castile.In 1693 and 1694 he went to Madrid to participate in the commission that was to appoint the Order's ambassador to the Court of Madrid. It was on this occasion that he offered the painting Juegos infantiles a Carlos II (Children's Games to Charles II) on his return from one of his trips to Seville. He is known for being a friend and executor of Murillo at the death of the master of Seville in 1682.