A Painting from the Private Collection of Pedro Franco Dávila at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando: The Assumption by Matías de Torres

Abstract

This article presents the reinstatement of the attribution of an oil-on-panel Assumption—preserved in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (inv. 070)—to the painter Matías de Torres. The work, originally belonging to the private collection of Pedro Franco Dávila, the first director of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, was properly documented in its inventory. However, following the Napoleonic invasion and its subsequent placement in the repository of paintings seized from the Convent of the Rosary, it entered the Academy's museum. In subsequent academic inventories, the piece lost its attribution, chronology, and technical data. The study presented here allows us to reconstruct the provenance of the work and restore its correct artistic attribution.