Don Andrés de Andrade y la Cal

ca. 1665–72
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 625
During a trip to Madrid in 1658, Murillo encountered grand, full-length portraiture by Titian, Velázquez, and Anthony van Dyck. Learning from their conventions, he soon adopted elements like the classical architecture and imposing dog seen here. Little is known of Don Andrés de Andrade y la Cal, whose name and coat of arms are “carved” in trompe l’oeil on the pilaster. The dog appears to be an Alano Español, a ferocious Spanish breed with double-edged associations: they embody noble power in works such as Cervantes’s “The Dialogue of the Dogs” (1613), but their use in war against Indigenous populations in the Americas has been part of European visual culture since Theodore de Bry illustrated Bartolomé de la Casas’s Brief Account of the Spanish Destruction of the Indies (1598).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Don Andrés de Andrade y la Cal
  • Artist: Bartolomé Estebán Murillo (Spanish, Seville 1617–1682 Seville)
  • Date: ca. 1665–72
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 79 × 47 in. (200.7 × 119.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, by exchange, 1927
  • Object Number: 27.219
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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