Rare Painting Offers Rare Opportunity for Oakland University Students

A news release:

A chance visit to Meadow Brook Hall by a curator from the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has led to the rediscovery of a significant work by a 17th-century Spanish artist and a unique learning opportunity for Oakland University art students.

Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA executive director of Collection Strategies and Information, and curator of European paintings, was at Meadow Brook Hall in February presenting a lecture when a painting in a dark corner of the room caught his eye; it turned out to be a work by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo titled The Infant Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness. Murillo, who was known for his genre scenes and religious works, created the painting around 1670.

“Murillo is considered one of the five pillars of Spanish Golden age art. He produced this sentimental masterpiece with his characteristic delicate and loose brushstrokes when he was at the height of his powers,” Salort-Pons said. “In Spain and other European countries, he became a famous artist among collectors who coveted paintings like the one. 

"Murillo was, in fact, the first internationally known Spanish artist, and this Infant Saint John is one of the first Murillos to enter a U.S. collection. Its rediscovery was an unexpected and exciting turn of events during my visit to Meadow Brook.”

Because the painting belongs to the Meadow Brook collection, the DIA has entered into an agreement with OU to allow a group of undergraduate art history and studio art students to witness the conservation and technical and scientific analysis that DIA specialists are undertaking. The next conservation and study session will take place at the DIA on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 10 a.m.

“In a series of sessions in our conservation lab, students will learn how we employ our sophisticated equipment and expertise to analyze, research and conserve a work of art before it will be exhibited in the galleries with all the honors,” said Salort-Pons. “This is a rare opportunity for them to see the DIA staff at work and to have at hand unique information produced only in the top museums in the world. We are looking forward to sharing the process and our expertise with them.”

Once the conservation treatment to the painting and frame is completed, the work will be on loan to the DIA for five years, beginning in February 2014, before returning to Meadow Brook Hall.

The painting belonged in the 1600s to the Italian merchant Giovanni Bielato, who donated it to Capuchin Convent of Genova. During the 1800s, it was sold to the family of the Duke of Westminster in London and in 1926 entered the collection of Alfred G. Wilson, who kept it at Meadow Brook Hall. This Murillo was exhibited in the Royal Academy in London in 1883, and this will be the first time it will go on view in a U.S. museum.

Salort-Pons said the DIA owns two other painting by Murillo, The Flight into Egypt and the Immaculate Conception, which will be displayed together with Meadow Brook’s The Infant Saint John in the museum’s main European Paintings gallery.

About the Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the  United States, is home to more than 60,000 works that comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from ancient times through the 21st century. From the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera's world-renowned Detroit Industry murals (1932–33), the DIA’s collection is known for its quality, range, and depth. The DIA’s mission is to create opportunities for all visitors to find personal meaning in art.

Programs are made possible with support from residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.