Le Départ de saint Pierre Nolasque pour Barcelone

Peter Nolasco was made a saint in 1628, and the Mercedarian friars of Seville marked it the way a wealthy order did. That August they signed a contract with Zurbaran for 22 canvases on the life of the founder, to hang in the cloister of their convent. He was 30, newly invited to settle in the city, and the job made his name there. For this early episode, the young Nolasco setting out from Languedoc for Barcelona, he took his composition straight from a print, the ordinary working method of the time, and then gave the standing youth a density the engraving never had. The series was broken up long ago and its panels are scattered. This one crossed the Atlantic to Mexico City, into the collection a stockbroker named Franz Mayer spent 50 years assembling and left in trust for the public.