Nicolás de la Cuadra, autor de los retratos reales de San Antonio de los Portugueses de Madrid (1702)

Abstract

The documents preserved in the Archives of the Santa Real Pontificia Hermandad del Refugio y Piedad de Madrid allow us to attribute the authorship of eight royal portraits to the Bizkaian painter Nicolás Antonio de la Cuadra. Until the present day, these paintings had given cause for all types of conjectures, in terms of authorship, as well as on the date they were painted. The assignment made by the Broth e rhood to de la Cuadra in 1702 was one of the first artistic activities of the institution in its new premises at San Antonio de los Portugueses. That year is also, up to now, the last year in which de la Cuadra's activity has been documented in Madrid, before he returned to Bilbao.