Madrid school; c. 1700.

Madrid school; c. 1700.
"Santiago apostle".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It has frame of the nineteenth century.
Measurements: 40 x 29 cm; 50 x 40 cm (frame).
James of Zebedee or James the Greater was one of the first disciples to shed his blood and die for Jesus. Member of a family of fishermen, brother of John the Evangelist -both nicknamed Boanerges ('Sons of Thunder'), because of their impulsive temperaments- and one of the three disciples closest to Jesus Christ, the apostle James was not only present at two of the most important moments in the life of the Christian Messiah - the transfiguration on Mount Tabor and the prayer in the Garden of Olives - but was also part of the restricted group that witnessed his last miracle, his resurrected appearance on the shores of Lake Tiberias.
Due to its formal characteristics it could be attributed to one of the most outstanding painters of the Sevillian school of the first half of the 18th century, Domingo Martínez. This artist was trained in his native city, Lucas Valdés being one of his teachers. The sources indicate that he was appreciated in his time, given that we find important commissions such as those received from the archbishop of Seville, for whom he made several paintings destined for the cathedral of the Andalusian capital and the church of Nuestra Señora de la Consolación in Umbrete. Likewise, during the stay of Philip V's court in Seville (1729-33) he maintained a relationship with French painters in the service of the king, such as Jean Ranc and Louis-Michel van Loo, whose influence will be evident in his work, combined with the direct inheritance of Murillo. On the other hand, it was precisely Ranc who proposed Martínez as court painter, an offer that the painter, however, rejected, since he did not wish to move to Madrid with the king. He had several disciples, and we know that his workshop trained Andrés de Rubira, Pedro Tortolero and Juan de Espinal, the latter painter who would eventually become his son-in-law and heir to the family workshop. His first important work was the decorative set of the church of the Colegio de San Telmo, with paintings on the life of Christ and his relationship with the sea, made in 1724. Six years later he painted two large paintings for the Convent of Santa Paula in Seville. In this same decade of 1730 he also produced individual works and sets for churches in Seville and its province, always with religious themes, as well as the portrait of Archbishop Luis de Salcedo y Azcona for the Archbishop's Palace of Seville (1739). He was equally prolific in the last decade of his life, when he created tempera decorations for the churches of Santa Ana and San Luis de los Franceses in Seville, as well as several canvases. His last work, executed around 1748, was a set of eight canvases representing the great masquerade held in Seville in June of the previous year on the occasion of the accession to the throne of Fernando VI. Works by Martínez are currently preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville.