Among some items that were recently brought to the National Museum of Fine Arts from the Church of Our Lady of Pilar was a fine full-length portrait of one of the two main benefactors of the church, that of Balí Raymond Soler of Majorca, and Commendatore of Barcelona, identifiable by the coat-of-arms at the bottom right of the painting. These items were retrieved from the convent store in order to ensure their safekeeping. As holdings of the Tal-Pilar church, they form part of the national inventory and thus fall under the direct responsibility of the museum.

The Tal-Pilar church and convent, adjacent to the Auberge d’Aragon, were the main recipients of the munificence of Balí Soler, one of the dignitaries of the Langue of Aragon. He was born in 1603 and died on 20 March 1680, aged 77, as testified by his tombstone located behind the altar of the oratory at St John’s Church. Apart from Soler’s substantial role as a benefactor of the church, little else is known about him.

This full-length portrait of Balí Soler was executed in the formal style established by Velasquez, with the inclusion of elements intended to act as a supporting narrative to the main item, demonstrating an austere lack of decorative features. In a schema that borrows largely from 16th century idiom in portraiture, the inclusion of a column metaphorically hints at Soler’s nobility and lineage; the gloved left hand holding another glove and the drapery in the background are subtle statements about his status, reinforcing the message about his noble lineage. Also, the use of symbolism and studied casualness of appearance informs the viewer of Soler’s meditative personality – the books and hourglass to the right serve as memento mori, representing the vanity of earthly pleasures. Unusually for a high-ranking personage of a military order, Balí Soler is not depicted in armour but in the standard daily uniform of a Knight Hospitaller of the 17th century.

Seemingly to complete the contemporary requisites for an appropriate full-length portrait, the artist has included a balcony to the left that reveals a landscape with snow-capped mountains in the background, against a red sunset sky. This type of portrait, with its anecdotal inclusion of a handful of elements, may appear somewhat austere to modern day viewers familiar with the charged portraits of the later Baroque years typified by the standards set by Hyacinthe Rigaud with his famous portraits of Louis XIV and French aristocrats.

However, on attempting a deeper reading of the portrait, one grows sensitive to a metaphysical quality inherent in this work, primarily in the still life with hourglass and books that, in its bareness, demands to be searched more closely than simply for its didactic worth. In an attempt to understand the person who sat for the portrait, clues were sought elsewhere, that is, by studying Soler’s tombstone in St John’s Oratory. The result was that the inscription and a solitary decorative element reinforced the reading offered by the portrait. The sitter’s preoccupation with the element of time happens to be present in the inscription, with a seemingly incidental inclusion of the hourglass as a compositional device, translated as “While living in death’s shadow, I made my bed in the gloom of night; and yet, after the darkness, I hope for the light when the time has come for my transformation on the Last Day”, bears comparison with the portrait painting. The artist’s use of chiaroscuro, with Soler’s figure half-lit by the light from the exterior and half engulfed by the shadows of the interior space, complements the textual reference to light and darkness in the inscription. Even Soler’s posture, seemingly in preparation for walking out of the interior space and yet with his shadow clearly defined against the ground, reflects the message on the tombstone, showing us a man contemplating the inevitable transition that was beckoning so powerfully to him.

The tombstone also contains an intriguing, second inscription further down: “DIES MEI BREVIA BUNTUR SI LARENA DON LOS DIAS Y ASI PASANDO SE VAN POCO TIEMPO DURARAN”, an odd combination of Spanish and Latin that appears to refer to the brevity of time. Cryptic messages, whether in verbal or visual form, were not uncommon in the early Baroque period, an age when one’s command of language, knowledge of texts and understanding of imagery defined the extent of one’s learning and erudition, contributing to one’s status in a clearly determined hierarchical society. In portraiture, the use of emblems served not only to help the viewer with identifying the personage, but was also intended to mystify the uninformed viewer about the sitter. This period also saw the development of the genre of still life painting, with the depiction of elements that held strong presences within a composition, demanding a deeper reading than the mere appreciation of aesthetic worth and yet defying any codification of significance.

The inscription on the tombstone indicated that Balí Soler purchased his burial space in 1674, the same year we now know that he sat for the portrait. This confirms that the painting is no simple matter of recording the sitter’s physical appearance or his public image, but also bears witness to the more vulnerable facets of his character, that is, his private worries and preoccupations. In sitting for the portrait, and in composing his own epitaph, Balí Soler not only openly expressed these fears and hopes, but did so through the medium of art, perpetuating the thought and idea across the centuries.

Such a portrait with its sublime treatment of the sitter’s personality, naturally leads to some curiosity about the artist. Until recently, this work could only be attributed to a “follower of Mattia Preti, late 17th century”, on account of the artist’s brushwork (particularly through the application of highlights), the realism of the work and its tenebrist quality. However, in the course of a recent cleaning operation, the true artist’s name was discovered. Some months after arriving at the Museum of Fine Arts, this painting was scheduled for conservation treatment, with plans for cleaning it from the top layers of dust that had accumulated over the years it had spent in storage. Prior to any intervention, however, George Farrugia – restorer with the Museum – drew the curator’s attention and mine to the rudimentary brushwork that was to be seen at the back of the canvas. This was the outline of another standing figure, with words written to the left of the composition – all these years unseen by the numerous viewers who had admired the proper painting on the front.

f.D.PO ÑZ

D.villaviçêçio 1674 fbt

This writing was identified as the name of the Sevillian artist Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio, including the year in which he executed the portrait. The figure appears to be done with a confident, expert hand, with an ability to match the execution of the finished portrait on the front, implying that this may have been intended as the artist’s self-portrait. This rudimentary figure portrays a bearded man in his early middle years, well dressed and of proud bearing. Beneath his left arm, the sitter holds what appears to be rolled fabric, while grasping a staff (or paintbrush) with his right hand. George Farrugia has pointed out that this drawing was certainly executed after the Soler portrait because the latter lines were drawn over the preparatory ground of the finished work, which had seeped through the canvas threads from the other side. In what may be a strong statement about his authorship of the Soler portrait, Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio appears to have felt compelled to make this fact absolutely unquestionable, using both verbal and visual means. In later years, this canvas underwent a number of traumas, one of which was a perforation right through the face painted on the rear, possibly the result of the painting falling against a sharp object. This tear was covered from behind with a sizeable patch which obliterated any trace of the upper part of the face. This damage, and the corrective measures taken to preserve the painting on the front, have deprived us of a well executed portrait, possibly a rare self-portrait.

The name Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio evokes, at best, an artist about whom the little that is known resembles seemingly unrelated pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Born in Seville around 1635, he was already sufficiently established as an artist by 1660 to serve as a founding member of the Accademia del Dibuyo in Seville. He arrived in Malta in 1663, to start his noviciate with the Order of St John. His oeuvre was cogently written into Maltese art history by Antonio Espinosa-Rodriguez in his paper Three Artistic Links between Malta and Seville (Malta, 1985), wherein the author discussed the two Maltese paintings known to be by Nuñez de Villavicencio, Madonna and Child at Zejtun parish church and the St Philip Neri altarpiece at Our Lady of Porto Salvo Church, Senglea. This has served to highlight how much still awaits to be learnt about Nuñez de Villavicencio, the works he painted or even the true extent of his artistic talent. The discovery of his execution of the Portrait of Balí Soler does, however, start to shed more light on this artist.

Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio had been described by a compatriot, the Spanish Antonio Palomino, as a student of Mattia Preti, in his Las Vidas de Los Pintore y Estatuario Eminente Espanoles (London, 1742). However, from the artist’s known works in Malta and at the Prado in Madrid, none appeared even remotely influenced by Preti, such that the art historian John Gash states in Hospitaller Malta (Malta, 1993), that “(his works have]) little to do with Preti”. While revealing other new archival information about the Sevillian in his study on the pupils of Mattia Preti in Dal Segno al Colore (Rome, 1995), Dominic Cutajar too dismisses the possibility of an influence by the master, from a study of the paintings attributed to Nuñez de Villavicencio known up until then.

Attempts to trace the original contract between sitter and artist of this portrait have so far proved futile. Although Balí Soler scrupulously recorded his contracts that concerned affairs with the Tal-Pilar Church through Notary Giovanni Callus between the years 1673 and 1675, research at the notarial archives has proved unrewarding, in part owing to documents being made illegible by the ravages of time. On the other hand, one must not dismiss the possibility that Nuñez de Villavicencio may have executed the painting outside the norms of an artist-client relationship, thereby suggesting that his activity as a painter was mainly for his satisfaction, without making any earnings from his works.

Therefore, if one accepts the writing on the back of the canvas as being the signature of Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio, two useful bits of information about this artist may be ascertained. One may thereby conclude that the artist returned to Malta once more between his Rome sojourn in 1673 and his arrival in Seville in 1675; also, that the Sevillian may now be included with other “Maltese” followers of Mattia Preti. With this in mind, the number of named candidates for other anonymous works in the style of Preti has increased.

More significantly, however, we now know more about the breadth and scope of the artistic activity of Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio. On the one hand, this work confirms the eclectic nature of the artist’s oeuvre, with paintings that draw reference directly to sources and stylistic influences spanning from 15th century art to Guido Reni, Murillo and now, to Mattia Preti. On the other hand, this portrait also suggests that his secular works may carry a more personal imprint. Indeed, Antonio Palomino had stated that portraiture was a field in which Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio excelled. This painting is the result of the artist’s perceptive observation of his subject, offering a compassionate insight into the character and personality of Balí Soler, who carried his role as dignitary of the Order with retiring grace, yet whose humanity, underpinned by an acute awareness of the preciousness of time, hovers on the surface of this work of art. Beyond these conclusions, the lives of both sitter and artist remain elusive, tantalisingly awaiting the patient endeavours of the art historian.

Theresa M. Vella B.A. is Senior Curator

of Fine Arts and Palaces.

This article first appeared in the Summer 1998 issue of ‘Treasures of Malta, which is published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti. Treasures of Malta is a magazine about art and culture that is

published three times a year, and is available from all

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