JOAQUÍN JUNCOSA (Cornudella, Tarragona, 1631-Rome, 1708)."Composition on the miraculous vision of

JOAQUÍN JUNCOSA (Cornudella, Tarragona, 1631-Rome, 1708).
"Composition on the miraculous vision of Scala Dei".
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
Attached study by Dr. Joan-Ramon Triadó.
Measurements: 64 x 50 cm; 75 x 61 cm (frame).
Provenance: At the end of the 16th century, the Marquis of Castellbell, Manuel de Amat y Juniet, returns to Barcelona with the fortune that he had made during the period that he was, first, governor of Chile (1755 -1761) and, later, Viceroy of Peru (1761 - 1776). He had the Palacio de la Virreina built between 1772 and 1778. The building, located on La Rambla Sant Josep, is one of the finest examples of Catalan civil Baroque architecture. The Palau de la Virreina remained linked to the Amat family until 1835 when it was acquired by its administrator, Josep Carreras de Argerich. The Palace belonged to the Carreras family until 1944 when it was bought by Barcelona City Council.
After this sale, the work was transferred from this building to the new residence of the heirs of Josep Carreras d'Argerich, in the Maresme area, and was deposited and exhibited in the chapel of the estate, later being acquired by the current owner.
Doctor Joan-Ramón Triadó, in his study of this work, notes that its quality is related to the compositions of the best Spanish painters of the last third of the 16th century, such as Carreño de Miranda, Claudio Coello and Herrera the Younger. It should be noted that the angels in the upper part are linked to those of Claudio Coello in The Holy Family (El Escorial, Monasterio de San Lorenzo) and those of Herrera the Younger in The Apotheosis of Saint Hermenegild (Madrid, Museo del Prado). The present canvas depicts a pope, identifiable by his tiara with three crowns, showing a hermit the way to heaven. This is the so-called "scala dei", along which, according to mystical legend, angels descend and ascend. Tradition has it that when the commissioners of King Alfonso the Chaste arrived at the foot of Montsant in search of a place to found the Charterhouse, a shepherd informed them, pointing out a thick pine tree, up and down which winged figures climbed and descended. From an iconographic point of view, this would be one of the pictures that Brother Juncosa painted in a hermitage near Rome that was assigned to him by the Pope. The Pope could be Innocent XII and the pilgrim the painter himself. It would then be a painting of thanks to the Pope for his pardon. Joaquín Juncosa was a prolific Baroque painter, especially remembered for his depictions of devotional and biblical themes. He was a Spanish Baroque painter, specialising in painting mythological subjects until he entered the Carthusian monastery of Scala Dei in 1660 as a lay brother. He belonged to a family of painters headed by his father, Juan Juncosa, a painter active in the Tarragona region in the early decades of the 17th century. Before entering religion, according to Antonio Palomino, "he painted many pictures of different fables, in which he was very knowledgeable and erudite, for private homes", including four canvases commissioned by the Marquis de la Guardia, governor of Sardinia. On 21 September 1660 he was professed as a layman at the charterhouse of Scala Dei, where he painted, among others, the paintings in its chapterhouse, with portraits of Carthusian monks. From there he moved on to the monastery of Montealegre, where he left eight paintings in the tabernacle with motifs alluding to the Blessed Sacrament and the frescoes on the vault of the same room. At an undetermined date he travelled to Rome, where he improved his technique in contact with Roman classicism. Having reformed his taste in contact with Roman art, on his return to the charterhouse of Scala Dei, says Ceán Bermúdez, he scorned everything he had painted before. In 1680, with his cousin, the priest José Juncosa, he painted the vault and main chapel of the Misericordia sanctuary in Reus, which burnt down in 1936. His work was largely lost as a result of the confiscation, with the exclaustration.