Bonay, Francisco

Bonay, Francisco or Vicente was a Spanish painter active between 1702 and 1743. Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez dedicated a few brief lines to him in his Historical Dictionary of the Most Illustrious Fine Arts Professors. These words were based on the reports offered by the local scholar Marcos Antonio Orellana in his Valencian pictorial biography. In them, he underlines the detailed natured of his brushstrokes and highlights Bonay as a landscape artist inspired by Nicolaes Berchem and Nicolas Perelle’s prints. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez brought to light the fact that Bonay’s name might not be Francisco – as the illustrious aforementioned scholars had written – but rather Vicente, as the documentation suggests. There are certain references to a person named Vicente Bonay who worked with Antonio Palomino at the beginning of the century on some of the several commissions entrusted to the Cordoba-born painter and theorist during his stay in Valencia. During that time, this enigmatic Vicente also worked for the Prince of Campoflorido, Captain General of Valencia. In addition, in 1732, he appears appraising works in Madrid, which coincides with the stay in Madrid to which Orellana and Ceán Bermúdez refer. A series of landscapes preserved in the Museo del Prado (donated by the dowager Duchess of Pastrana) traditionally attributed to Bonay are practically all that can be considered done by his hand. They are landscapes that reveal the influence of the French and Dutch engravings by Nicolaes Berchem and Nicolas Perelle, widely disseminated in contemporary Europe. The Museo Diocesano in Valencia preserves some landscapes that could be related to those in the Museo del Prado as well as a canvas from the collections of the Santa Marca heirs has traditionally been attributed to Bonay. (Crespo Delgado, D., "Encyclopaedia" M.N.P., 2006, v. 2, p. 524).