"For my house I don't need a lot of furniture, because it seems to me that with a picture of Our Lady of Pilar, a table, five chairs, a frying pan, a boot and a tiple and grill and oil lamp, everything else is superfluous," Goya wrote in 1780 in a letter to Martín Zapater. As a good Aragonese, the Virgen del Pilar was a familiar subject for the painter, who addressed it in various canvases and drawings. The most disputed of all, and the one that has caused the most talk in recent years, is The appearance of the Virgen del Pilar (1775-1785), a work that was part of the legacy left by the industrialist Muñoz Ramonet to the city of Barcelona. and that finally, after years of litigation with his descendants, it was deposited in 2017 in the MNAC by court order. The work was valued together with The Annunciation by El Greco at 7.5 million euros.
Now, a canvas of similar dimensions (107 x 80 cm) and also dated around 1775, Apparition of the Virgin of Pilar to the Apostle Santiago and his disciples, will go up for auction on the 23rd for a starting price of two million euros. This same work was already on the market in 2011, then in charge of the Caylus antiques house in Madrid, which put it up for sale at the TEFAF fair in Maastricht for 4.5 million euros.
The work, which hung for five years in the painter's museum in Zaragoza on loan, was part of the old Rosillo collection in Madrid and years ago was declared "inexportable" by the Ministry of Culture. According to the Alcalá Subastas house, where it will be exhibited to the public from June 10, the canvas is in a perfect state of conservation and in 2012 it was part of the exhibition Goya and the Infante don Luis: exile and kingdom. Art and Science in the Age of the Spanish Enlightenment, at the Royal Palace of Madrid, curated by Francisco Calvo Serraller, after its restoration at the Prado Museum. Subsequently, between 2013 and 2018, it has been part of the permanent exhibition of the Goya Museum in Zaragoza.
Although it does not bear a signature, it is a well-known work by specialists and is perfectly documented. It was made known in 1951 by the Marquis of Lozoya in his article Two unpublished Goyas on a religious theme. It was later published by scholars Gassier-Wilson (1970), José Gudiol (1970), José Camón Aznar (1980-1982), José Luis Morales y Marín (1990 and 1994).
In addition to the canvas that is currently deposited in the MNAC, the Virgen del Pilar appears in a pencil drawing on one of the pages of the Italian Notebook and in a small canvas, 56 x 42 cm, that he painted around 1771-1775, preserved in the Saragossa Museum. The latter was acquired together with was acquired together with La muerte de San Francisco Javier in 1926, for 6,000 pesetas, and it is believed that the painter made it for his family. Also in the Goya Museum you can see a Virgen del Pilar with Santiago and one of the converted Zaragozans.
