Portraits
Maíno was outstandingly skilled as a portraitist, as noted by Jusepe Martínez, a contemporary Aragonese portraitist and writer on art: “Maíno was particularly gifted in painting portraits, which, rather than making them close resemblances, he endowed with great love, sweetness and beauty so that, even if the sitter were ugly, he added a certain beauty without deceiving with regard to the appearance.” The highly individualised, lively nature of some of the male figures in his religious compositions suggests that, like other artists of his day, Maíno included portraits in these works. Saint Dominic from the Saint Peter Martyr Altarpiece and Saint Agabus from the Bowes Museum have such forceful, emphatic expressions that it seems likely they were based on contemporaries of the artist. The portrait of Fray Alonso de Tomás, one of Maíno’s last works, is more restrained, probably because it depicts a friar of the Dominican Order who was also a natural son of Philip IV.
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Saint Dominic Juan Bautista Maíno. Oil on panel, 118 x 92 cm. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
