Title
Frey Martín de Duero Monroy
Jordán, Esteban [attributed to] (León, ca. 1530 - Valladolid, 1598)
Generic classification
SculptureObject
SculptureDate
ca. 1575Century
Last quarter of the 16th c.Cultural context / style
RenaissanceDimensions
79,5 x 27,16 inMaterial
AlabasterTechnique
CarvedIconography / Theme
YacenteProvenance
Convent of Saint Paul, Valladolid (Valladolid, Spain)Current location
The Museum of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell (London, United Kingdom)Inventory Number in Current Collection
5493Object history
Through the construction of funerary monuments, the deceased could leave a memory of their person. Several hypotheses have been proposed regarding the identity of the recumbent: Trusted (1987) was the first researcher who dared to propose a name; she considered that it was Juan Ruiz de Vergara, a San Juan knight and general receiver. However, Urrea (2009) questioned the identification and, instead, affirmed that the recumbent was frey Martín de Duero, knight of the habit of San Juan. To support this hypothesis, this researcher resorted to the works of Manuel Canesi and the diaries of travelers who had passed through Valladolid:
In 1745 Manuel Canesi had noted that in the convent of San Pablo de Valladolid were the "two sons of D. Pedro de Duero and Dña. Catalina Miranda: one was Fr. Fr. Clemente and [the other] Fr. Martín Duero knight of the habit of San Juan" (Canesi, 1750). 700 ducats were offered to the convent in 1573/1575 for "the work, building, grille, altarpiece and crucifix and part of the esconce...that is under the balcony of the oratory of Navarrete so that on the wall he could put his arms, bundles, signs and arches for sepulcher so long as he did not enter more than two feet in the wall and in the lower part he could put his sepulchers, platforms and whatever he liked" (Urrea, 2009).
During his trip through Valladolid Isidoro Bosarte mentions that on one of the walls of the transept of the church of San Pablo there was:
"[...] a lump of military personage dressed in all weapons, lying on an inclined plane... whose execution is by a very frank, very masterful, and very expeditious hand. The morrion is on one side, so that the head can be seen. It has no inscription, something that should not have been left like that... The bulk is made of marble, natural size" (Bosarte, 1804).
Nothing was heard again of this alabaster bundle until in the 70s of the twentieth century were discovered on the wall of the chapel "some paintings, imitating the architectural framing of a card without any inscription, with the story of St. John the Baptist, the emblem of the Maltese cross and the coats of arms of the Duero Monroy family, located precisely in the esconce" (Urrea, 2009). Although there are no documents to confirm it, the monument was probably moved from its original location following the disentailment, like so many other pieces:"orders and counter-orders abound to move the most coveted pieces, claims of the patrons, from San Pablo to churches and museums [...]" (Paz, 1897).
We do not know if the tomb was in another place before, but it ended up in the cathedral of Valladolid. It was precisely the canons of the temple who sold it in 1912 to Lionel Harris (Trusted, 1987). The latter had founded in 1898 The Spanish Art Gallery, a firm dedicated to the sale of works of art (Martínez Ruiz, 2018). It was not the only tomb he acquired, but he also bought those of Don García de Osorio and Doña María de Perea (Pérez Martín, 2017) around the same time, today preserved in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Shortly thereafter Harris exhibited the piece in his gallery in Conduit Street (London), where Sir Guy Francis Laking, curator of the Museum of London, bought it in 1914 (Trusted, 1987) with the aim of giving it to the Venerable Order of St. John in Clerkenwell (London), where it is located today.
Description
This sculpture represents a recumbent knight belonging to the Order of St. John. In the lower part of the tomb there are three coats of arms that allude to the family of the deceased (Urrea, 2009). In the right hand he holds a rosary, as well as a dagger sheathed in his waist. Except for some cracks, the tomb is in a good state of preservation.
Locations
ca. 1575 - XIXth c.
XIXth c. - ca. 1912
ca. 1912 - ca. 1914
dealer/antiquarian
The Spanish Art Gallery, London, London (United Kingdom) *
ca. 1914 - 1914
private collection
Sir Guy Francis Laking, London (United Kingdom) *
ca. 1914 - present
Bibliography
- BOSARTE, Isidoro (1804): Viage artístico a varios pueblos de España, con eljuicio de las obras de las tres nobles artes que en ellos existen y épocas a que pertenecen, Imprenta Real, Madrid, p. 212 / 226.
- CANESI ACEVEDO, Manuel (1996): Historia de Valladolid (1750), vol. II, Grupo Pinciano, Valladolid, p. 118 / 122.
- MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2018): "The Spanish Art Gallery: su papel en la difusión y dispersión del arte hispánico", Recepción, imagen y memoria del pasado, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, pp. 393-395.
- PAZ ESPESO, Julián (1897): El Monasterio de San Pablo de Valladolid: noticias históricas y artísticas sacadas de varios documentos, Imprenta de La Crónica Mercantil, Valladolid, pp. 59-60.
- PÉREZ MARTÍN, Sergio (2017): "De Zamora a Boston: el monumento funerario de don Alonso de Mera", nº 32, Anuario del Instituto de Estudios Zamoranos Florián de Ocampo, p. 273.
- TRUSTED, Marjorie (1987): "A work by Esteban Jordan: an effigy of a Spanish Knigth of the Order of St. John", nº 53, Boletín del Seminario de Arte y Arqueología, pp. 351-359.
- URREA, Jesús (2021): El convento de San Pablo de Valladolid. Nueva lectura para su recreación, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, pp. 23-25.
- URREA, Jesús (2009): "Caballeros de la Orden de San Juan de Malta en Valladolid", nº 75, BSAA Arte, pp. 157-168.
Record manager
Isabel Escalera FernándezCitation:
Isabel Escalera Fernández, "Frey Martín de Duero Monroy" in Nostra et Mundi. Cultural Heritage from Castile and Leon around the world, Fundación Castilla y León, 2025. https://inventario.nostraetmundi.com/en/work/427
Frey Martín de Duero Monroy
