Bidspirit auction | Exceptional Portrait of Saint Toribio

Exceptional Portrait of Saint Toribio Alfonso de Mongrovejo, Archbishop of Lima, dated 1726, 18th century colonial school - Oil on canvas, canvas measurements: 128 x 96, framed measurements: 145 x 111 cm. Being a descendant of the noble Mongrovejo family, Toribio was born in Mallorca in 1538. An expert in canon law, he rightly earned his reputation as a distinguished jurist. He was a professor at the University of Salamanca when the King of Spain, Felipe II, decided to send him to Peru as Bishop of the City of Kings, which would later become Lima, today the capital of Peru. Toribio founded a hundred parishes, convoked a Pan-American Council, two provincial councils and twelve diocesan synods; when the plague arrived in Peru he was in the front line among the sick and gave them everything he had. Obviously, his preferential option for the discarded aroused the antipathy of the Viceroy, who never saw him attend the lavish ceremonies of the court, and of the conquerors, since Toribio did not care in the least. Instead, the impoverished and abandoned indigenous people were his privileged sheep, and with them and for them he behaved like a true and good shepherd. He died on one of his trips to Saňa in 1606. Benedict XIII canonized him in 1726; John Paul II proclaimed him patron saint of the Latin American episcopate in 1983. Provenance: former private collection, Madrid.