Title

Friezes of the Palace of Curiel de Duero

Anonimous

Generic classification

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Object history

This fragment of alizar originates from one of the roofs of the rooms in the Palace of Curiel de Duero (Valladolid). At the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century, Diego López de Estúñiga promoted improvements in the palace and commissioned the installation of plasterwork and coffered ceilings filled with paintings throughout the building's various rooms (Lorenzo Arribas, 2004). In the second half of the 19th century, Curiel de Duero suffered from demographic and economic decline, leading many buildings in the area to fall into a state of disrepair (Olivera Arranz, 2002).

The palace passed into the hands of the ducal house of Osuna, but in 1860, they were forced to sell it due to the bankruptcy they were facing (Martínez Ruiz, 2008). Indalecio Martínez Alcubilla purchased it in 1862 and described its decoration as follows: "On the second floor of the building, there are large halls with ancient coffered ceilings, some of which have painted planks in the soffits of the ceilings […]" (Martínez Alcubilla, 1866). He soon began dismantling and selling the furniture from some rooms, intending for the State to purchase the entire property. However, the lack of response led Martínez Alcubilla to sell the palace in 1919 to Agustín Yagüe (Chinchilla, 1992). Yagüe did not hesitate to dismantle the remaining parts of the palace, even announcing this in the newspaper El Norte de Castilla (Martínez Ruiz, 2008). The wooden fragments and coffered ceilings were purchased by the antiquarian Lafora, who succeeded in selling them abroad. It is likely that from this point, they entered the collection of William Randolph Hearst (San Simeon, California) and other American collectors (Martínez Ruiz, 2008). Meanwhile, the stone columns from the courtyard were purchased by José María de Palacio y Abárzuza, third Count of las Almenas (Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2012).

In 2014, Alcalá Subastas auctioned a lot of five friezes, which were purchased by the Spanish State under the right of first refusal and placed in the National Archaeological Museum (Madrid). As for the frieze now housed in the Williams College Museum of Art, it was gifted to the museum by Paul and Anima Katz in 2019.

Description

The friezes are decorated with bold-line paintings, where linework takes precedence over colour. The three scenes are compartmentalised and framed. These scenes alluded to a literary fantasy universe, featuring beasts, courtly scenes, and hunting scenes.

Locations

• ca. 1370 - Early XVIII^th c.

  palace

  Zúñiga Palace, Curiel de Duero (Spain)

• XVIII^th c. - ca. 1862

  private collection

  Ducal House of Osuna, Madrid (Spain) *

• ca. 1862 - ca. 1919

  private collection

  Indalecio Martínez Alcubilla, Curiel de Duero (Spain) *

• ca. 1919 - First quarter of the XX^th c.

  private collection

  Agustín Yagüe, Curiel de Duero (Spain) *

• Early XX^th c. - XX^th c.

  dealer/antiquarian

  Juan Lafora Calatayud, Madrid (Spain) *

• XX^th c. - 2019

  private collection

  Paul Katz Collection, Dayton (United States) *

• 2019 - present

  museum

  Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (United States)