The painting by Domingos Sequeira that left the country surrounded by controversy following an export authorization issued by the now-defunct Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) will remain in the Soares dos Reis National Museum, in Porto, the museum and the Fundação Livraria Lello, which ensured the purchase of the work in March at TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair), the art and antiques fair in Maastricht, in the Netherlands.
The painting, which will be shown to the public for the first time on the 18th at the Leça do Balio Monastery, will be part of the long-term exhibition at Soares dos Reis from the 1st of June. António Ponte, director of this museum whose painting collection covers works ranging from the 16th century to the 20th century and which has ten national treasures in its collection, is peremptory: the departure of Descent from the Cross for the Porto museum “it is not a drop in the ocean”, there being a “set of framing logics that justify the owners’ choice” to deposit it there.
“The long-term exhibition at Soares dos Reis already has four oils on display and a significant set of drawings by Domingos Sequeira”, explains António Ponte to PÚBLICO. Descent from the Cross will join them in the same room. In fact, he adds, “preparatory drawings” of the work will also be exhibited, fueling a “dialogue” between the museum’s collection and this valuable new deposit.
According to the agreement between the public company Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, which oversees Soares dos Reis, and the Lello Foundation, the work should remain in the museum for three years, “in the first phase”. The protocol is renewable for the same period, if that is the interest of the parties.
The painting by Domingos Sequeira (1768-1837) It was put up for sale at TEFAF by decision of its then owner, Alexandre de Sousa Holstein, who entrusted the sale to the Colnaghi gallery. After authorizing its export last November, and given the controversy that decision aroused, the Portuguese State also tried to acquire the Descent from the Cross at the Maastricht fair, but the owner did not accept the 850 thousand euros that Museus e Monumentos de Portugal offered for the work.
Fundação Livraria Lello would buy it shortly afterwards for around 1.1 million euros. Already then, and even before it was known who the buyer was, but there was public information that he was Portuguese and that he was interested in seeing the Descent from the Cross in a national museum, Soares dos Reis positioned itself to be able to receive the work, says António Ponte.
This work from the final cycle of the Portuguese artist who would die in Rome will “strengthen and enrich the Domingos Sequeira nucleus” of the Museu Nacional Soares do Reis, argues its director, who recalls that the painter, as well as his co-religionist Vieira Portuense (also represented in the museum’s collection), he was a professor at the Naval Academy, in Porto. “The two are responsible for the artistic transformation of Porto at the end of the century XVIII and beginning from the __ century XIX”, he emphasizes.
Before heading to Soares dos Reis, “the public will have a unique opportunity to see, for the first time, the work of Domingos Sequeira, at the Monastery of Leça do Balio, headquarters of the Livraria Lello Foundation”, says the foundation in the statement now disclosed.
Visits have a limited time and are carried out upon registration at the site of the foundation during the afternoon of May 18th itself. International Museum Day will be marked in this way, because on the occasion the result of the requalification work of the monastery started in 2021 by the architect Álvaro Siza will also be shown – which is why the visits will be led by students from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto and by Casa da Arquitectura. The monastery will close its doors again and reopen on June 22nd with its own program lined up until the end of the year.
The case Descent of the cross was initially reported by the weekly Express, which disclosed that the DGPC had authorized its export and had considered its classification inappropriate despite the opinions to the contrary that it had requested. After that, the painting, part of a set of works with a religious theme that Domingos Sequeira executed in Rome around 1827-28, was sent to Madrid, where it was kept by the Colnaghi gallery, specialized in ancient art. From there it went to the Maastricht fair, where it was finally acquired by a Portuguese entity that later turned out to have been Fundação Livraria Lello.
Until now, it was already speculated with some certainty that his next destination would be Soares dos Reis, the only national museum in Porto. Both the current and former director of the National Museum of Ancient Art argued, however, that painting should join, in Lisbon, the Adoration of the Magia work considered to be from the same series and acquired in 2016 through a fundraising campaign for the country’s main public art gallery.
