As is now traditional, to mark the Christmas celebrations the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson is showing a work from the Masaveu collections related to the Nativity cycle. 

This year The Holy Family with Archangels by Domingo Martínez is on display to the Spanish public for the first time. Previously belonging to a private Central European collection, the work was acquired by the Foundation at the Lempertz auction house (Cologne, Germany) in May 2024. Faithful to its commitment to recovering Spanish heritage from abroad, the FMCMP also restored the painting following its incorporation into the collection. 

Despite being little known today, Domingo Martínez (Seville, 1688–1749) was one of the most prominent painters in Seville in the first half of the 1700s. He trained with Lucas Valdés and Juan Antonio Osorio, and his work displays the clear influence of Murillo, a trait common to all Sevillian painters of the first quarter of the 1700s. Martínez built a varied repertoire, especially of religious themes, and was a prolific painter in particular demand from the Andalusian capital’s civil and ecclesiastical clientele. In 1733 he was invited by Philip V and Elisabeth Farnese to work as a royal painter in Madrid but turned down the offer and pursued his entire career in his native city. 

This large painting on canvas, which is unsigned and undated, was probably designed as an altarpiece. It depicts the Holy Family with the archangels Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel based on an iconography inspired by Mystical City of God, a book written by the nun Sister María Jesús de Ágreda and published in 1670 which describes how the Christ Child was lowered from the heavens by both archangels. Like other works by the artist, it is characterised by its skilful drawing and masterful handling of colour which, together with the lighting – centred on the main group in contrast to the semidarkness that surrounds them – and the elegance of the composition, emphasise the agreeable appearance of this picture, a faithful reflection of the tastes of the period.