The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando will be screening the documentary Zurbarán and his twelve children, a film by Arantxa Aguirre, produced by the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH), The Auckland Project and Intervenciones Novo Film, on 28 January at 7 p.m.
The film tells the story and meaning of Jacob and his twelve sons, a series of thirteen paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán in Seville around 1640, perhaps for the New World, although nothing is known about them until they were bought at auction by the London merchant James Mendez seventy years later. Later, making a significant gesture in the midst of the debate on the law of emancipation of the English Jews, the Bishop of Durham Richard Trevor took these paintings in 1756 and hung them in his dining room in Auckland Castle, where they still stand. Now, thanks to the initiative of a local financier, Jacob and his twelve sons have become the driving force behind the regeneration of a community in the North of England.
