Ordination and first mass of Saint John of Matha
1634 - 1635.On display elsewhere
This painting was part of the series of 12 canvases on the lives of Saint Felix of Valois and Saint John of Matha, founders of the Order of la Santísima Trinidad de Redención de Cautivos [the Most Holy Trinity of the Exemption of the Captives]. Carducho painted them in 1634 for the church of the convent of la Trinidad Descalza (Barefoot Trinity) in Madrid.
These large canvases were inspired by the compositions done by Theodore van Thulden (1606–1676), a disciple of Rubens, for the convent of Saint Mathurin in Paris. Palomino, Ponz, and Ceán cited Carducho’s series, but after the Spanish Ecclesiastical Confiscation, the convent was dismembered, and the series was lost. Infante Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza purchased two of the canvases: this one, on the subject of the Ordination and first mass of Saint John of Matha, and another, Death of the Saint, which currently belongs to the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Both appear in the registers of the Trinity after the seizure of the infante’s property in 1835; likewise, the other ten canvases appear, even though their relationship has not been proven. The seized property was eventually returned to don Sebastián Gabriel in the year 1861, and the canvas of the Ordination and first mass of Saint John of Matha would later go to the Estrany Collection in Palma de Mallorca.
Ruiz Gómez, Leticia, Ordenación y primera misa de San Juan de Mata, de Vicente Carducho. Memoria de Actividades del Museo Nacional del Prado, 2000, 2001, p.50
