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Artist or Maker: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Seville 1618-1682)
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Provenance: Sir John H. Brackenbury, British Consul at Cadiz, by 1842,
from whom purchased in 1844 through the dealer, William Buchanan, by Samuel Jones Loyd, later 1st Lord Overstone (1796-1883), letter of 11 September 1844 (Crawford Mss.), and placed at 2 Carlton Gardens, London, where recorded in Lady Overstone's Morning Room (Waagen, 1857), by whom bequeathed to his daughter,
Harriet, Lady Wantage (1837-1920), wife of Robert Loyd-Lindsay, 1st Lord Wantage, V.C., K.C.B. (1832-1901) and by inheritance at Lockinge House, Berkshire, through her cousin, A.T. Loyd.
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Exhibited: London, British Institution, 1835, presumably no. 161, as 'The Virgin of the Conception', lent by Sir John Brackenbury.
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM THE LOYD COLLECTION (LOTS 39 AND 60)
Angulo (loc. cit.), notes that this is an autograph preparatory sketch for the Immaculate Conception in the Institute of Fine Arts, Detroit: a view with which (private communication 2007, on the basis of photographs) Professor Enrique Valdivieso concurs, adding that it is of 'muy buena calidad'. This sketch shows minor variations from the Detroit picture, which includes an extra angel in the lower left of the composition and another on the right, as well as other angels in the upper corners, that are not present in the sketch. Although Angulo and others have not accepted the fully autograph status of the Detroit picture, the attribution of the present lot has not been in doubt; in his text Angulo refers to it thus: 'debemos pensar en algunas pinturas tan bellas como la Inmaculada de la colección Loyd, de Lockinge...' (op. cit., II, p. 415).
Samuel Jones Loyd (1796-1883) succeeded his father as the chairman of the banking house of Jones, Loyd and Co. in 1844. He was one of the most influential bankers of his generation and was created Lord Overstone in 1850. His interest in pictures developed in the early 1830s. Among his earlier acquisitions of 1831 was a Virgin and Child by Murillo. He had a predilection for the master. At the sale of Richard Ford, author of the Handbook for Travellers to Spain, in 1836, Loyd bought Murillo's Holy Face. In 1838 this was followed by the central portion of Murillo's La Vierge Coupée, and the modello for this from the collector Edward Gray of Harringay. The remainder of the picture was secured in 1862: the reconstructed altarpiece is now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
