According to the Acts of the Apostles (7: 58), Saint Stephen was stoned after having preached Christian salvation. In this energetic drawing, what at first appears to be a continuous procession of pulling and pushing figures is in fact two compositions of the same scene with Saint Stephen represented twice. The drawing was preparatory for Juan de Juanes’s altarpiece of 1556 for the parish church of San Esteban, Valencia (now in the Prado, Madrid). Besides recording his name at upper right, the artist also included practical notes related to the commission of the painting, such as prices for the number of ‘heads‘.

The verso of Two Studies for Saint Stephen taken to his Martyrdom contains seemingly unrelated notes by Juan de Juanes, including a Latin epigram about love; the correct proportions for depicting Saint Jerome; a recipe for mordant for gilding, written in Valencian; and an explanation of how to measure the distance across a river, accompanied by a sketch. These notes demonstrate the workshop function of early drawings.

This is a rare survival of a sixteenth-century Spanish drawing that was preparatory for a known painting, an altarpiece originally in the parish church of San Esteban, Valencia (now in the Prado Museum). The same scene is repeated twice, with changes made in red chalk on the right half of the sheet incorporated into the composition on the left. The artist signed his name at upper right, below calculations of the cost for the final painting based on the number of figures to be depicted.

The sketch of a standing man and the inscription below him explain how to measure distances across a stream. He holds a reed in his mouth to fix the angle of his gaze. All of the other inscriptions, though also in the artist’s own hand, are unrelated to the sketches and show how sheets of paper were often used as scrap for writing, independently of any drawings on them. The notes here in both Latin and Valencian include instructions for depicting Saint Jerome and a recipe for an adhesive used in gilding.

Sir Archibald Stirling of Keir and Cawder (1769-1847); by descent to his son, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, London (1818-1878); by descent to Lieutenant-Colonel William Stirling; his sale, Sotheby's (London), 21 October 1963, lot 11; purchased there by The Courtauld via the Witt Fund

Drawings Gallery Display - Reading Drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 21/01/2017-04/06/2017

Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain, British Museum, London, 20/09/2012-05/01/2013

The Spanish Line - From Ribera to Picasso, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 13/10/2011-15/01/2012 ...More

'Il disegno in Spagna 1500-1600' in 'Spagna e Italia in dialogo nell'Europa del Cinquecento', Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, 2018
pp. 45-46
fig. 4 on p. 46

Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain, British Museum, London, 2012-2013
p. 167
fig. 4 on p. 166

Mulcahy, Rosemary, 'Review: Spanish drawings in the Courtauld Gallery. Complete catalogue. By Zahira Véliz' in 'The Burlington Magazine', September 2011 - pp. 646-47; CLIV
p. 646 ...More

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: upper centre, brown ink:” 5/300 / No. 55 //”; upper right, left column, brown ink, artist’s hand: “6 pues y mig 104a” [“: 6 feet and a half 104a] / “10 testes y mig 105[?] dues” [10 heads and a half 105[?] ducats] / “9[?] a 10 / a110 //”; upper right, middle column, brown ink, artist’s hand: “P[?]e…do [crossed out / 530 rs / Juan de Juanes //”; upper right, right column: “6 peus e mig 104” [6 feet and a half 104] /” 6 peus I tres quarts 108” [6 feet and three quarters 108] / “9 testes a 12 dus 108 [?]” [9 heads at 12 ducats 108[?] / “7 peus 112 dus” [7 feet 112 ducats] / “9 testes y un terz 112 dus” [9 heads and a third 112 ducats] / “16 / 6 / 96 //”. Verso: upper left, brown ink, artist’s hand: “t o m Mmo / coxa insulae femine sive dimidia coxae semidiameter cinture taliter q si similari / habeas se prima coxa quatordecima p stode //” [thigh ? to / of the island of the woman or half the thigh the semidiameter of the waist as almost similar you may have if the first thigh one fourteenth]; left centre, brown ink, artist’s hand: “pido dicit / periet minerua mecu si ipsa ludat [crossed out] / certe minerua perit [perit corrected to periet] mecu si ipsa ludat //” [Cupid says, if Minerva plays with me she will perish]; lower centre and continued at lower centre edge, brown ink, artist’s hand: “Etia abente alique / vel arundinem / lignu in ore immota cosiderat sese in extremum ligni / Ad commesurada latitudine fluvii seu alia distaciam / cosiderado ulteriore ripam ubi terminet visu cu pilleo et postea convertis / immota nexo //” [And having some wood or reed fixed in his mouth he gazes intently at himself on the end of the wood in order to measure the width of the stream or other distance by studying the far bank where the sight ends with the cap and then you turn backwards or to the sides thus inserted it is found in the ray itself of the eye made immobile by the bind]; upper right, brown ink, artist’s hand: “in hieronimi corpore cinturae / diameter / punctualiter habet septima illius stature / sed ab imbilico ad lumbos in eadem cintura habet decima hoc est / quantu facies / illius / possidebat in scapulis ab una ala ad altera quinta / parte stature abet //” [In the body of Saint Jerome the diameter of the waist has exactly one seventh of the height but from the navel to the back in the same waist it has one tenth, that is, as much as his face had; in the shoulder-blades from one armpit to the other it has a fifth part]; right centre, brown ink, artist’s hand: “Sisa de ale o mordent pera daurar / pren tant aceuer com vna anou / tanta goma arabica co vna amella / tanta mel co vna auellana trecada / y remalle tot ab vinagre tant quat baste / pera correr per pinzell o ploma / 1 part de mel / 2 parts de goma arabica / 4 parts de aceuer / vinagre lo q baste //” [Breath or vapour sizing or mordent for gilding / take of syrup of aloes as much as a walnut / as much of gum arabic as an almond / as much of honey as half a hazelnut / combine it all together with as much vinegar as necessary / to make it flow with the brush or pen / 1 part of honey / two parts of gum arabic / four parts of acibar / vinager as necessary].

Collector's mark: none.