Un curioso coleccionista del siglo XVII: don Manuel de Porras

Abstract

Art collecting - an avocation almost exclusive to royalty in Spain - has not had representatives among those who did not belong to the high nobility, not even among artists themselves. In many cases, the word "collection" has been applied to what in reality were mere lists of patrimonial properties. For all of the above, it is especially noteworthy to encounter someone who neither belonged to an elevated class nor was a painter, but who managed to unite, at great personal sacrifice, an important art collection. Manuel de Porras owned interesting and a relatively large number of paintings, sculptures and prints, some of them extremely valuable. As a good collector, in order to avoid the dispersion of these works, he donated them to the Shod Trinitarians in Madrid and the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Alcalá, but unfortunately, in spite of his good intentions, nothing has survived.