Alonso Miguel de Tovar

Alonso Miguel de Tovar (1678 - 1758) was a Spanish baroque painter, appointed court painter by Philip V in 1723.

Early career

Alonso Miguel de Tovar was born in Higuera de la Sierra in 1678, a remote and empoverished descendent of illustrious Tovar family, of the marquesses of Berlanga. He trained in Seville under Juan Antonio Ossorio and executed numerous religious paintings, including Our Lady of Consolation with SS Francis, James and a Clerical Donor (1720), in the Seville Cathedral. and St Francis Receiving the Stigmata (c. 1720), in the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Madrid. In both of these the influence of Murillo is discernible: the colouring is vivid and the drawing precise, if slightly rigid, and both works show a gentle and uncomplicated piety, differing to some extent from the tradition of Spanish religious painting.

Career as court painter

Tovar was appointed court painter in 1729, when the Spanish court moved to Seville, and he collaborated with Jean Ranc, probably painting replicas of the latter's portraits. His own portraits include Portrait of a Young Girl (1732), now in Meiningen, at Schloss Elisabethenburg. In 1733 he travelled with the court when it returned to Madrid, and he may have worked as an assistant to Louis-Michel van Loo. Tovar also probably painted the theme of the Holy Shepherd, popular with Sevillian artists of his time. Of the paintings of the subject attributed to him, however, only the one in the church at Cortelazor, near Aracena, signed in 1748, is considered authentic.