View of El Campillo, the El Escorial Monks' country home
Third quarter of the XVII century. Oil on canvas. On display elsewhereThis work could be defined as a descriptive landscape combined with a genre scene of everyday life. Small figures inhabit a canvas that presents the buildings at El Campillo—a rest and recreation spot for monks and royalty—in the foreground, where it stands out against a light-colored sky with the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains in the distance.
El Campillo, now a private estate along the road linking San Lorenzo de El Escorial to Guadarrama, was originally a hamlet whose 120 inhabitants were expelled when it became a hunting ground. In 1596, Phillip II paid the Duke of Maqueda 40,000 ducats for its municipal terrains, which were subsequently absorbed by the recently completed Royal Monastery. The Estate and the Monastery were joined by two avenues, and the palace-fortress that stands in the middle ground at the center of the present composition was remodeled with stonework and masonry when it was purchased. Later, under Philip IV, it was expanded to include a new roof with outbuildings for the palace´s lodgings and services. These included the farm that appears on the left, where people are shown carrying out domestic chores, and this may have been the period when Agüero was commissioned to paint the present work.
The church in shadows to the right, alongside whose portico a Hieronymite monk converses with a man in period clothing, still exists and maintains its traditional devotion to the Holy Trinity.
This painting´s particularly elongated format suggests it would have hung over a doorway. It entered the Museo del Prado via the Royal Collection with an attribution to Martínez del Mazo, which was maintained until Tormo proposed its generally accepted attribution to Mazo´s disciple, Benito Manuel de Agüero.