Colnaghi Madrid is pleased to announce its participation in FERIARTE 2026, presenting paintings and sculpture from the sixteenth to early twentieth centuries.
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo’s portraits of Philip IV and his brother Don Fernando, each nearly two metres high, bring together two figures central to Habsburg history. Philip IV was a major patron of the arts; Fernando became governor of the Spanish Netherlands and entered Brussels carrying the sword of Charles V. Mazo, Velázquez’s son-in-law and assistant, adapted the master’s hunting compositions. A royal inventory of 1734 records the pair as originals by Mazo.
In Landscape with Birds (The Fable of the Raven), Melchior d’Hondecoeter reinterprets the story of a raven in borrowed feathers. Here, a cock attacks the raven while the peacock watches. D’Hondecoeter’s bird paintings were made for Amsterdam’s wealthy households and for William III; his estate inventory records both a device for posing birds and paintings by Frans Snyders.
José Cortés de Alcocer’s 1784 copper panel was a farewell gift from Quito to its regent and president, García de León y Pizarro. It presents him before Charles III, accompanied by six military commanders. The reverse inscription and Pizarro’s son’s memoir record the gift and its original silver frame, preserving an unusually full account of the painting’s history.
