Ordination of Saint Augustine
1663 - 1711. Oil on canvas.Not on display
This work is part of a set of 27 paintings on the ‘Life of Saint Augustine’, which decorated the lower main cloister of the Convent of Saint Philip the Royal (Madrid). It was commissioned to José García Hidalgo who painted it, in an apparently in a not very well-defined collaboration with Alonso del Arco, between 1663 and 1711. The works in the Museo del Prado’s collection which are related to these series are to date: P003268, P003770 (sketch), P004096, P004754, P004755, P005055, P005117, P005508, P005862 (and its sketch P003514), P006124, P006126, P006135, P006971, P007490. The main iconographic source for García Hidalgo´s work was the prints by the Flemish engraver Schelte Adams Bolswert. These prints have helped to correctly identify many of the scenes in the series, the iconographic themes of lay forgotten and unclear since the time of the Spanish Confiscation.
Iturbe Sáiz, Antonio, Patrimonio artístico de tres conventos agustinos en Madrid antes y después de la desamortización de Mendizábal. Actas del Simposium La desamortización: el expolio del patrimonio artístico y cultural de la Iglesia en España, San Lorenzo del Escorial, Madrid, R.C.U. Escorial-Mª Cristina, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2007, p.335-368
