JUAN DE JUANES Valencia? (c. 1510) / Bocairente, Valencia (

Oil on panel. On the reverse, a label of the Delegate Board for Seizure, Protection and Salvage of the Artistic Treasure (Inventory No. 8484/Provenance: Muguiro/Collection No. 12) and of the estate of Mª Ángeles López-Roberts Muguiro (No. 9-12). Provenance: Madrid, former collection of the Count of Muguiro; Madrid, María de los Ángeles López-Roberts and Muguiro (until 1974); Madrid, private collection. The quality of its execution and the formal characteristics of the painting allow it to be attributed to Juan de Juanes, and it must be a work made around 1542-1550, in the first years in which the painter took over the direction of the family workshop; dates in which Vicente Macip was still active. The profusion of the gold background connects it with other works of close chronology, such as the Immaculate Conception of the Santander Central Hispano collection, although this image already possesses a soft and gentle character that distances it from the models of his first period, much indebted to those of the old Macip, and brings it closer to paintings such as the delicate Monstrance with the Immaculate Conception of the convent of the Poor Clares of Villareal. The type of brushstroke and the chromatic palette used are typically his, the painter showing a special virtuosity in the delicacy of the Virgin's face and the detailed treatment given to her forms and hair. Nothing is known of its original provenance, but it is evident that, by its tondo form, it must have been placed on the right column of a dismantled altarpiece of which we now have no record, forming a pair in the past with the archangel Saint Gabriel, who would have appeared on the opposite side. It must have followed the same model that Juanes set out in the parish of San Agustín in Valencia, of which a design is preserved in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. At the beginning of the last century, we have been able to confirm that it belonged to the Count of Muguiro, being one of the oldest testimonies of a collection dedicated to the great masters of Spanish painting with works by Goya, Mengs, Alonso Cano, Bayeu or Vicente López, among others. An old photograph of it is preserved in the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (Archivo Moreno 03283_B_P). The technical analyzes carried out on the painting reveal a series of technical aspects that also reinforce the attribution to Juan de Juanes. Apart from the formal aspects mentioned above, also characteristic is the use of pine wood with a tow preparation, showing special care in the assembly of the two panels, in which the presence of a strip of fabric adhered in order to isolate that join from the preparatory and pictorial layers, favoring its conservation, is observed. The radiographic study reveals a series of corrections made by the painter, who modified the position of the fingers of both hands.The infrared light study allows us to appreciate the subtlety of the underlying drawing characteristic of the works of Juan de Juanes, showing fine and precise lines, made with a thin brush and a black paint or ink rich in carbon. They are difficult to perceive on the face, being appreciable on the chin and the corner of the lips, but they are much more evident on the hands, the contours of the fingers and the position of the nails being well defined. This infrared light study has also allowed us to see two pentimenti: one in the position of the collar of the tunic (initially drawn lower) and another in the contour of the right cheek, which initially descended straighter. Likewise, it seems to indicate the existence of an underlying model made with wash to lay out the shadows and volumes, as can be observed in the sleeves of the tunic, another technical characteristic that is also documented in other works by the painter. Measurements: 36.5 cm in diameter