Bonay, Francisco
act. 1702, act. 1702 - act. 1743, act. 1743Bonay, Francisco or Vicente (active between 1702 and 1743) was a Spanish painter. Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez dedicated a few brief lines to him in his ‘Dictionary of History of the Most Illustrious Professors of the Fine Arts.’ These words were based on the reports offered by the local scholar Marcos Antonio Orellana in his ‘Valencian pictorial biography’ In them, he underlines the detailedness of his brushstrokes and highlights Bonay as a landscape artist inspired by Nicolaes Berchem and Nicolas Perelle’s prints. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez gave prominence to the fact that Bonay’s name might not be Francisco, as the aforementioned enlightened scholars had written, but rather Vicente, as the documentation suggests. There are certain references to the person named Vicente Bonay who worked with Antonio Palomino at the beginning of the century on some of the several commissions entrusted to the Cordoba native painter and theorist during his stay in Valencia. During this time, this enigmatic Vicente also worked for the Prince of Campoflorido, Captain General of Valencia. In addition, in 1732, he appears appraising works in Madrid, which coincides with the stay in Madrid to which Orellana and Ceán Bermúdez refer to. A series of landscapes preserved in the Museo del Prado, donated by the dowager Duchess of Pastrana, traditionally attributed to Bonay, are practically all that can be considered done from his hand. They are landscapes that reveal the influence of the French and Dutch engravings by Nicolaes Berchem and Nicolas Perelle, widely disseminated in contemporary Europe. The Museo Diocesano in Valencia preserves some landscapes that could be related to those of the Museo del Prado. Moreover, a canvas from the collections of the heirs of Santa Marca has traditionally been attributed to Bonay (Crespo Delgado, D., Encyclopedia M. N. P., 2006, v. 2, p. 524).