A History of Spanish Painting. Volume XIII A History of Spanish Painting, Volume XIII: The Schools of Aragon and Navarre in the Early Renaissance [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674422117, 9780674422094

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HARVARD-RADCLIFFE FINE ARTS SERIES

A HISTORY OF SPANISH P A I N T I N G VOLUME XIII

A HISTORY OF SPANISH PAINTING BY

CHANDLER RATHFON POST HARVARD

UNIVERSITY

VOLUME XIII THE SCHOOLS OF ARAGON AND NAVARRE IN THE EARLY RENAISSANCE

EDITED

BY

HAROLD E. WETHEY

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1966

©

COPYRIGHT,

1966

B Y T H E P R E S I D E N T AND F E L L O W S OP H A R V A R D ALL RIGHTS

COLLEGE

RESERVED

Distributed in Great Britain by OXFORD U N I V E R S I T Y

PRESS

LONDON

L I B R A R Y OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N U M B E R

30—7776

P R I N T E D IN T H E U N I T E D STATES OF A M E R I C A

PREFACE In Professor Chandler R. Post's testament his unpublished manuscripts were bequeathed to the editor of Volumes X I I I and X I V as follows: " T o P R O F E S S O R H A R O L D E. W E T H E Y of the University of Michigan I give whatever unfinished manuscript or manuscripts . . . I may have at the time of my death to make . . . use thereof as he sees fit." The eleven chapters and the Appendix of the present volume were in typed manuscript at the time of Professor Post's death in 1959. T h e final completion of footnotes and bibliography was undertaken by the editor, an excruciating task in which he received welcome assistance from Mrs. W . M . Frohock of the Harvard University Press. In Volume X I V , as explained in the preface there, are published studies of several masters of the later Renaissance in Castile, all of which Professor Post had carried to the stage of pen-and-ink manuscript. A short biography of Professor Post, a photograph of him taken in 1952, and a list of his publications are included in the same volume as a final tribute to a great scholar. HAROLD E .

Ann Arbor, Michigan January 1, 1965

WETHEY

CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY OF V O L U M E X I I I

xi

CHAPTER

I

INTRODUCTION

3

CHAPTER PAINTERS TRANSITIONAL

FROM T H E

OF A R A G O N T O T H A T OF T H E

LATE

II

MEDIAEVAL

STYLE

RENAISSANCE

1.

T h e Coteta Master and the Continuation of Bermejo's Aragonese

2.

T h e Huesca Master

20 31

School in the Early Sixteenth Century

9

3.

Gaspar O r t i z

4.

T h e Master of San Pedro, T e r u e l

37

5.

T h e Hearst Master, the Arnoult Master, and Jaime Serrat . . .

44

CHAPTER PEDRO

DE

III

APONTE

1.

H i s Biography

48

2.

Works W r o n g l y Ascribed to Pedro de Aponte

52

3.

Paintings of his Early Period

58

4.

Paintings of his Later Period

73

5.

Paintings Attributed to Pedro de Aponte by the Author . CHAPTER

THE

SCHOOL OF P E D R O DE

.

.

84

IV

APONTE

1.

M a r t i n Garcia and Antonio de Plasencia

2.

T h e Egea Master

105

3.

Works of Unascertained Authorship in Pedro de Aponte's Circle

III

CHAPTER

116

CHAPTER SIJENA

MASTER

92

V

A N T O N I O DE A N I A N O

THE

.

VI 123

CONTENTS

viii

CHAPTER S E V E R A L P A I N T E R S OF E A S T E R N

VII

AND N O R T H E R N

ARAGÓN

1. T h e San Victorian Master 2. Esteban Solórzano and his School 3.. T h e Míanos Master CHAPTER S E V E R A L P A I N T E R S OF W E S T E R N

150 157 169 VIII

ARAGÓN

1. T h e Gotor Master 2. T h e Borja Master 3. T h e Tena Master 4. Prudencio and Juan de la Puente 5. Juan Fernández Rodríguez CHAPTER P A I N T E R S OF O T H E R

173 184 193 197 203 IX

S P A N I S H S C H O O L S A C T I V E IN A R A G Ó N

CHAPTER A R A G O N E S E P A I N T I N G S OF T H E

EARLY

216

X

RENAISSANCE

BUT

OF

UNCERTAIN

ATTRIBUTION

231

CHAPTER

XI

NAVARRE

1. Introduction 2. Additional Works of Pedro Díaz de Oviedo 3. Works surely or probably by Navarrese Artists

258 258 272

APPENDIX ADDITIONS TO V O L U M E S

I—XII

T h e All Master Andrés Marzal de Sas T h e Castellig Master Miguel Alcañiz (Equal to the Gil Master and the Alcudia Master) . T h e Retascón Master T h e Beck Master T h e Monterde Master Juan de Sevilla T h e Villalobos Master T h e Master of the Large Figures T h e Bonilla Master T h e St. Agnes Master

301 303 305 310 315 319 319 324 326 329 329 331

CONTENTS T h e Master of the Military Orders T h e Master of the Valencian Hospital Rodrigo de Osona the Younger T h e Perea Master and the St. Anne Master Francisco Solibes T h e Girard Master T h e Canapost Master Martin Bernat T h e Arnoult Master T h e Armisén Master T h e Oslo Master T h e Master of the Agreda Predella T h e Morata Master T h e Bonnat Master T h e Villarroya Master Juan de la Abadía T h e Florida Master Pedro Berruguete Juan de Borgoña Juan Correa de Vivar T h e Portillo Master Marcos de Pinilla (the Arévalo Master) T h e Paredes Master T h e Calzada Master T h e Master of Santa Maria del Mercado T h e Schretlin Master Paolo da San Leocadio Felipe Pablo de San Leocadio Pedro de Rubiales (and Gaspar Requena) T h e Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters Jerónimo Martínez (the Alcoraz Master) INDEX

OF N A M E S

I N D E X OF P L A C E S

OF A R T I S T S

ix 333 339 342 342 345 350 350 354 358 360 360 368 375 377 377 379 382 384 386 388 398 404 404 408 412 414 418 422 424 430 436 439 442

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF VOLUME XIII Abbad Ríos, Francisco, Estudios del Renacimiento aragonés, Archivo español de arte, X V I I I ( 1 9 4 5 ) , 1 6 2 - 1 7 7 ; 3 1 7 - 3 4 6 . — -La Seo y el Pilar de Zaragoza, Madrid, 1948. See also Catálogo monumental de España. Abizanda y Broto, Manuel, Documentos fara la historia artística y literaria de Aragón, siglo XVI, Saragossa, I, 1 9 1 5 ; I I , 1 9 1 7 ; I I I , 1932. Damián Forment, Barcelona, 1942. Ainaud de Lasarte, Juan, La pintura deis segles XVI i XVII, Barcelona, 1958. Albareda, Hermanos, El retablo mayor de Híjar, Aragón, October, 1934, p-_l89Angulo Iñiguez, Diego, Miscelánea de primitivos flamencos y españoles, Archivo español de arte, X I I I ( 1 9 3 7 ) , 1 9 1 . La pintura del Renacimiento en Navarra, Príncipe de Viana, I V (1943), 422-444. Nuevas pinturas del Renacimiento en Navarra, Príncipe de Viana, V I I I ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 160-170. La mitología y el arte español del Renacimiento, Madrid, 1952. Nuevas obras del maestro del Portillo, Archivo español de arte, X X V ( 1 9 5 2 ) , 172. Historia del arte, Seville, I I , 1953. Pintura del Renacimiento, vol. X I I in the series Ars Hispaniae, Madrid, 1954. Pinturas del siglo XVI en Toledo y Cuenca, Archivo español de arte, X X I X ( 1 9 5 6 ) , 45. Juan de Borgoña, Archivo español de arte, X X X ( 1 9 5 7 ) , 329. Arco, Ricardo del, La pintura antigua aragonesa, Arte español, I ( 1 9 1 2 — I9I3.)> 3 4 0 - 3 5 I El pintor cuatrocentista, Pedro de Aponte, Arte español, I I ( 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 1 5 ) , 106-125. El arte en Huesca, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X X I I I ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 189, 196. Nuevo paso arqueológico, Arte español, I V ( 1 9 X 8 — 1 9 1 9 ) , 193. La pintura mural en el alto Aragón, Vell i nou, V , no. 94, July 1,1919,250. El arte en la catedral de Huesca, época I I , Vell i nou, February, 1921,384-392. El real monasterio de Sigena, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X X I X ( 1 9 2 1 ) , 53, 59. La catedral de Huesca, Huesca, 1924. La colección de primitivos del museo y noticias inéditas sobre

xii

BIBLIOGRAPHY

;pintores aragoneses, Memorias de los Museos Arqueológicos Provinciales, 1941, 86—93. Pedro de Ponte o Aponte, Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Universidad de Valladolid, tomo I X , fascículo X X X I (1943), 59-77Nuevas noticias de artistas altoaragoneses, Archivo español de arte, X X (1947), 217-239. Documentos inéditos de arte aragonés, Seminario de arte aragonés, IV (1952), 53-78— See also Catálogo monumental de España. Balaguer, Federico, Pintores •zaragozanos, en Protocolos Notariales de Huesca, Seminario de arte aragonés, V I ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 77—88. Bardavíu Ponz, V., Historia de Albalate del Arzobispo, Saragossa, 1914. Bayarte Arbuniés, Emilio, El arte en la villa de Uncastillo, Boletín del Museo de Bellas Artes de Zaragoza, I I , no. 2 ( 1 9 4 2 ) , 52—72. Bermejo, Elisa, Exposition de l'art flamand dans les collections espagnoles, Bruges, July—August, 1958, pp. 28—29. Bertaux, Emile, Exposición retrospectiva de arte, Saragossa, 1908, pp. 65— 66. Biurrun Sótil, T o m á s , Las escultura religiosa y las bellas artes en Navarra durante la época del Renacimiento, Pamplona, 1935. Blake, Maurice and Wilfred, Saints and their Emblems, Philadelphia, 1916. Bologna, Ferdinando, Roviale Spagnuolo e la pittura napolitana del Cinquecento, Naples, 1959. Boronat y Barrochina, Pascual, Juan de Ribera, Valencia, 1904. Brans, J . V. L . , Isabel la Católica y el arte hispano-flamenco, trans. Manuel Cardenal Iracheta, Madrid, 195 2. Castro, José R a m ó n , Escultores navarros: Esteban de Obray, Príncipe de Viana, V ( 1 9 4 4 ) , 1 7 - 3 9 . Catálogo monumental de España, published by the Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Bellas Artes: Provincia de Huesca, by Ricardo del Arco, 1942; Provincia de Zaragoza, by Francisco Abbad Rios, 1957. Cerni, Vicente Aguilera, Noticia de una nueva obra de Vicente Macip, Archivo de arte valenciano, X X V I I I ( l 9 5 7 ) > 45 — 47Darby, Delphine Fitz, a review of vol. V I I I of Chandler R . Post, A History of Spanish Painting, Art Bulletin, X X V I ( 1 9 4 4 ) , 132. Donate Sebastiá, José María, Los retablos de Pablo de San Leocadio en Villarreal de los Infantes, Castellón de la Plana, 1958. Dresden, Die staatliche Gemäldegalerie zu Dresden, vollständiges beschreibendes Verzeichnis, Berlin, 1929. D u r á n Gudiol, Antonio, San Oriencio, obispo de Auch, Argensola, V I (1955), I-I3Santas Nunilona y Alodia Vírgenes (1955)» 123-134. Durliat, Marcel, Arts anciens du Roussillon,

y Mártires, Peinture,

Argensola,

VI

Perpignan, 1954-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

xiii

Ferrando Roig, Juan, Iconografía de los santos, Barcelona, 1950. Fuentes, Francisco, Un nuevo retablo de Pedro de Oviedo, Príncipe de Viana, V I ( 1 9 4 5 ) , 4 0 5 - 4 1 2 . Galiay, José, TJn retablo de Pedro Moret, Seminario de arte aragonés, I I C 1 9 4 5 ) i 7García Chico, Esteban, Documentos para el estudio del arte en Castilla, Pintores, Valladolid, I, 1946. García Guinea, Miguel Angel, Las tablas del Maestro Portillo en La Seca, Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Universidad de Valladolid, X X ( 1 9 5 5 ) , 223—224. Gudiol Ricart, José, Historia de la pintura gótica en Cataluña, Barcelona, 1944. El Maestro de Avila, Goya, no. 21 ( 1 9 5 7 ) , 1 3 8 - 1 4 4 . Guasp Gelabert, Mossén Bartolomé, Un códice y un retablo del siglo XIV, Boletín de la Sociedad Arqueológica Luliana, X X X (1951), 662-663. Guérin, Paul, Les petits Bollandistes, Paris, 1888. Layna Serrano, F., La parroquia de Mondé jar, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X L I I I ( 1 9 3 5 ) , 289. Llabrés y Quintana, Gabriel, Nuevo retablo de Santa Catalina en la catedral de Huesca, Revista de Huesca, I ( 1 9 0 3 — 1 9 0 4 ) , 342—343. López Jiménez, José Crisanto, newspaper article in La Verdad, Murcia, December 3, 1958. Recientes hallazgos, Archivo de arte valenciano, X X I X ( 1 9 5 8 ) , 33Una Santa Barbara de Requeña y Rubiales, Archivo español de arte, X X X I I ( 1 9 5 9 ) , 150. Madrazo, Pedro de, Navarra y Logroño, vol. I I I in the series España, sus monumentos y artes, Barcelona, 1888. Madurell Marimón, José María, El pintor Luis Borrassá, in Anales y Boletín de los Museos de Arte de Barcelona, V I I ( 1 9 4 9 ) ; V I I I (1950); X (1952). Martínez, Jusepe, Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la pintura, edited by Julián Gállego, Barcelona, 1950. Michel, André, Histoire deVart, Paris, I V , 1 9 1 1 . Muntaner y Bujosa, Juan, Para la historia de las bellas artes en Mallorca, Boletín de la Sociedad Arqueológica Luliana, X X X I I ( 1 9 5 3 ) , 4. Museo Arqueológico del Seminario de Lérida, 1933. Museo Arqueologico Nacional, Guia, Madrid, 1954. Paño, Mariano de, El real monasterio de Sijena, Lérida, 1883. La techumbre de la catedral de Teruel, Revista de Aragón, January, 1904, pp. 5 3 - 5 9 . Pellejero, Cristóbal, Juan de Bustamante, Príncipe de Viana, I V ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 315-326. Pigler, Andor, article on Juan de Borgoña in Müvész,ettdrténeti 1952, pp. 4 1 - 4 3 .

Ertisíto,

xiv

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Post, Chandler Rathfon, The Pacully Master, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, series 6, X X I I I ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 3 2 1 - 3 2 8 . A Flight into Egypt by the Schretlin Master, Bulletin oj the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, X L I I I ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 49—55. The Paintings oj Damián Forment, Miscellánia Puig i C adajalch, vol. I, Barcelona, 1 9 5 1 , 213—223. El maestro de Geria, Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Universidad de Valladolid, X I X ( 1 9 5 3 ) , 1 1 — 1 3 . Unpublished Early Spanish Paintings oj Unique or Very Rare Themes, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, series 6, X L I V ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 317— 338Juan de Borgoña in Italy and in Sfain, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, series 6, X L V I I I ( 1 9 5 6 ) , 129—142. An Agony in the Garden by Rodrigo de Osona the Younger, Bulletin oj Rhode Island School oj Design, Providence, R . I . , 1 9 5 8 , pp. 1 - 3 . Ramírez de Arellano, Rafael, Las parroquias de Toledo, Toledo, 1 9 2 1 . Razquin Fabregat, Fernando, Cervera, Barcelona, 1 9 3 5 . Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier, Fuentes literarias para la historia del arte español, Madrid, I I I , 1 9 3 4 . Catalogue oj the Prado, 1949, p. 4 1 1 . Sánchez Pinto, Vicente, El retablo de la iglesia de S. Miguel de Arévalo, Estudios abulenses, I I ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 303—309. Sanz Artibucilla, J . M . , El maestro entallador Pierres del Fuego, Príncipe de Viana, V ( 1 9 4 4 ) , 1 4 5 - 1 5 8 . Sanz-Pastor, Consuelo, Museo Cerralbo, Catálogo, Madrid, 1 9 5 6 , p. 20. Sanz Vega, Fernando, Marcos de Pinilla, Archivo español de arte, X X X I (1958), 243-246. Saralegui, Leonardo de, Para el estudio de algunas tablas del XV—XVI, Archivo español de arte, X X V I I ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 303—314. Sobre algunas tablas del XV al XVI, Archivo español de arte, X X I X (1956), 275-290. Sebastián, Santiago, Identificación del maestro de Alcoraz con Jerónimo Martínez, Archivo español de arte, X X X I I ( 1 9 5 9 ) , 69—72. Soldévila Faro, J . , Aragón en el Museo Diocesano de Lérida, Aragón, February, 1 9 3 3 , pp. 2 8 - 3 0 . • El arte del Maestro de Sigena, Aragón, November, 1 9 3 3 , pp. 211-214. Tormo y Monzó, Elias, Catálogo de los objetos que contiene el Museo Provincial de Huesca, 2nd ed., Huesca, 1 9 0 5 , p. 5. La pintura aragonesa cuatrocentista, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X V I I ( 1 9 0 9 ) , 234—242. Catálogo de las tablas de primitivos españoles . . . viuda de Iturbe, Madrid, 1 9 1 1 , p. 14. Un viejo texto de lengua y arte valencianos, El de Soror Isabel de Villena, Almanaque de "Las Provincias," Valencia, 1 9 1 5 , p. 169,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

xv

Torralba Soriano, Federico B., La villa de Monterde y sus retablos, Saragossa, 1 9 5 3 , p. x. La catedral de T arazona, Saragossa, 1 9 5 4 . Usón, M . , Dos retablos góticos en Castejón de Mone gros, Huesca, 1924. Wethey, H. E . , Gil de Siloe and his School, Cambridge, Mass., 1 9 3 6 . Zarco del Valle, M . R . , Documentos inéditos para la historia de las bellas artes en España, in Colección de documentos inéditos -para la historia de España, L V ( 1 8 7 0 ) , 200—342.

THE SCHOOLS OF ARAGON AND NAVARRE IN THE EARLY RENAISSANCE

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Somewhat less completely than at the end of the Middle Ages 1 and yet to a considerable extent the painting of Aragón during the early Renaissance divides itself into well-marked groups. One of these consists of the artists who carried the style of Bermejo's Aragonese followers during the immediately preceding period into modes transitional to the manner of the sixteenth century. T o this group belongs an actual late mediaeval follower of Bermejo whom we have studied in volume V I I I , the Coteta Master, who lived long enough to be slightly influenced by the new tendencies in works seemingly a little subsequent to those which previously have called for our attention. Another prominent member of the group to whom I give the title of the Huesca Master was an outstanding pupil of a leading figure among Bermejo's Aragonese adherents, Miguel Jiménez. Briefly discussed in volume V I I I , though not yet more specifically denominated than as a follower of Jiménez, the Huesca Master eventually developed, in many more productions that I shall ascribe to him, a style somewhat divorced from his teacher's precedents and dimly conscious of the oncoming Renaissance. T h e same tendencies declared themselves a very little later in the painter whose real name was in all probability Gaspar Ortiz. T h e strain from Bermejo is less tangible in a southern Aragonese, the Master of San Pedro, Teruel. Once more, finally, we shall have to return to an artist whom we treated in the earlier volume as perhaps not indebted to Bermejo, the Hearst Master, and who will demand our further examination not only for his limited intimations of the fashions of the sixteenth century but also for other reasons that I postpone to a subsequent chapter. A second group that accounts for a very large section of Aragonese painting during the first decades of the Cinquecento is constituted by the phenomenally popular Pedro de Aponte and the many satellites who were attracted to him. Certainly trained in the circle of 1

See my vol. VIII, p. 3.

4

INTRODUCTION

Juan de Borgona at Toledo, from whatever part of Spain he originally came, he first emerges to our knowledge in Aragon and, while formally a resident of Saragossa, spent an early period of remarkable productiveness and enthusiastic patronage at Huesca and in its environs. Then transferring his activity to western Aragon and even into adjacent Navarre, he there enjoyed quite as signal a vogue, meanwhile showing the capacity and elasticity of real talent by expanding his modes into a pronounced aspect of the mannerism of the Renaissance. On both sides of Aragon his highly individual style and evidently dominating personality magnetized numerous imitators, so that an ample division of Aragonese painting of the early Renaissance may be described merely as the school of Aponte. It is manifest that he was one of those leaders in art, like Juan de Borgona in central Castile or Pedro Berruguete in northwestern Castile, whose attainments create a fashion for a whole region. We should have expected that a third group would have been composed by the followers of a painter more forceful than Pedro de Aponte and quite as gifted, the artist who has come to be called the Sijena Master; but for mysterious reasons at which we shall merely guess when we discuss him no such circle of adherents was formed, and he remains a lone and unexplained phenomenon. If we add to these categories the small and not very impressive coterie formed at Huesca and its territory by Esteban Solorzano and his few associates, we have accounted for the great majority of the paintings produced in Aragon in the period that lies between the late Middle Ages and the High Renaissance. Those not included in any of the classes that we have defined are, for the most part, of secondary quality, executed by men some of whom we can name and for others of whom we are obliged to create sobriquets. An exception to the strictures upon their competence is the Gotor Master, who can practically rival his best contemporaries in Aragon and appears to owe little to the previous artistic tradition of this section of the peninsula. We must not neglect works that, if I am right in my attributions, signalize the patronage of artists from Castile. Juan de Pereda belongs to this class, and his employment in Aragon would be no surprise since he is known to have been active in closely contiguous places, Sigiienza and the monastery of Santa Maria de Huerta. We shall endeavor to confirm in at least one actual, extant picture the presence

INTRODUCTION

5

also of Fernando del Rincón in Aragón, which was already established by document.2 Moreover, an Alonso de Villaviciosa of Toledo is proved by a receipt of January 2, 1534,3 to have done some kind of painting (apparently no longer discoverable) for the Colegiata of Montalbán (south of Saragossa but in the northern section of the province of Teruel), and Angulo 4 quotes Sanz Artibucilla to the eifect that there is record of his executing a lost 5 retable of the Esperanza (meaning probably the Virgen de la Esperanza) in the church of the Magdalena at near-lying Hijar. In the lack of any certified achievement by this painter there are no means of determining whether like Pedro de Aponte he brought from Toledo to Aragón a style derived from Juan de Borgoña or whether, merely born in Toledo, he was trained artistically in Aragonese circles. There are other names in the annals of Aragón at the time that might denote an origin from western Spain, such as Juan de Madrid, Antón de Plasencia, and Francisco de Cáceres, but, without any authenticated productions by them, it may very well be that they belonged to families which had long since settled in this section of the peninsula. Esteban Solórzano, despite the fact that in a document he vaunts his extraction from Castile, originated in a part of this province, the vicinity of Santander, where there was no centre of painting, and he is recorded as having begun his pictorial education at Saragossa, though subsequently active at Huesca and its region. From another school, that of Valencia, came an eminent intruder, Damián Forment, maintaining in his new home, at least in painting, a still Valencian manner that had passed into the early Renaissance,6 but, if the Sijena Master, as is not impossible, originated in the same region, he at once immersed himself in the Aragonese aesthetic atmosphere more thoroughly than almost anyone in whose veins the blood of Aragón actually ran. T h e amazing thing is that there seems to have been no partiality toward painters from the even nearer Catalonia, except on the border between it and Aragón, and that the imitation of the Catalan style, which had Vol. VIII, p. 44. M . Abizanda y Broto, Documentos fara la historia artística y literaria de Aragón, siglo XVI, Saragossa, I ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 46. 4 Pintura del Renacimiento, Madrid, 1954, p. 183, vol. X I I of the series, Ars Hisfaniae. I have not been able to find the reference in any of the published works of Sanz Artibucilla, and Angulo writes me that he probably was told by him of the retable in a conversation. s So far as I can find, not even the church of the Magdalena exists any more. 6 M y vol. XI, p. 143. 2

3

INTRODUCTION

6

vied for favor in the second half of the fifteenth century with the modes introduced by Bermejo, came to an abrupt end. The rift that had occurred during the later Quattrocento 7 in the old association of Navarre with the Aragonese school was partially healed in the early sixteenth century by the commissions that Pedro de Aponte there received; but this was almost an isolated phenomenon, and the rest of Navarrese painting was of a different sort, owing little or nothing to Aragon. It may have been, however, by reason of the affinity with Aragonese ideals in the style of Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, who came from western Spain, that he had enjoyed such a vogue in Navarre, and we shall record in the present volume a number of further works by him and his followers in this section of the peninsula, although the majority of them reveal little or no consciousness of the advent of the Renaissance. As a matter of fact the manner of Pedro Diaz was so congenial to the Aragonese temperament that not only was he employed, as former volumes have given us the occasion to note, in the part of Aragon contiguous to Navarre but was called as far distant and as far east in Aragon as Huesca, where we shall be surprised on subsequent pages to find his documented presence now confirmed by extant productions. During the middle and second half of the sixteenth century the ties between Navarre and Aragon were concretely cemented again by the renewed Navarrese popularity of painters from the more southerly division of the peninsula. In the earlier Renaissance, which now concerns us, there existed, beside the importations by Pedro de Aponte, a kind of native school, exemplified chiefly by the Ororbia and Gallipienzo Masters, which in its origins seems to have owed something to Leon Picardo in the neighboring province of Burgos. T h e qualities that in our discussions of the fifteenth century we have learned to associate with the Aragonese school, a general asperity, sternness, and massiveness embodied in brusque angularity of lines both for poses and costumes, in broad sweeps of drapery, and in the sacrifice of human pulchritude to stalwart physiques and strong faces, did not persist in all the painters of the region during the early Renaissance. Among the principal reasons were the facts that so much of the work was done by Pedro de Aponte, who had imported his style from Toledo, and that a considerable amount of the rest of the painting fell into the hands of men operating under ' Vol. VIII, p. 4.

INTRODUCTION

7

his influence. The outstanding perpetuators of the old, essentially Aragonese qualities were the Sijena Master, the Borja Master, and to a less extent Juan Fernández Rodríguez, not to speak of the artists whom we shall analyze in the chapter on the painters transitional from the Middle Ages and who naturally preserved much of the character of the mediaeval tendencies in which they had had their beginnings. As in Catalonia, the gold embossings soon died out even in Aragón which had been most addicted to them; but the accentuation of paintings through brilliant brocades suffered a more lingering death, particularly in the artists essentially Aragonese in nature. Besides Pedro de Aponte and his circle there was a good deal of production in a somewhat Italianate and generalized mode strangely not much affected by the Aragonese atmosphere. This is notably true at Huesca of Esteban Solórzano, possibly because he was trained by Damián Forment, although his followers gave more expression to their indigenous proclivities. We shall observe also that several works of unascertained authorship and of quite secondary importance were executed in a manner that was half-classical but generally nondescript. There are only two painters of the time in whom even the slightest grounds exist for the hypothesis of an Italian sojourn: the presumptive Antonio de Aniano and the most Aragonese of them all, the Sijena Master. It is quite possible that the other painters absorbed what they knew of Italianism from the adjacent parts of the peninsula and from the general aesthetic atmosphere of the period, for Aragón was the most provincial of the regions possessing a school of art and could scarcely have inspired in the members of the profession the desire for foreign study. The provincialism, of course, had its better side in its homely directness of approach. The cultivation of Antwerp mannerism is largely confined to the late works of Pedro de Aponte and to the Mianos Master. W e do not know whether they had ever actually resided in Flanders or only learned the fashions from the many examples imported into Spain. The derivation of compositions from the prints of Dürer was less prevalent than in Catalonia, though not without its exponents. The principal seat of artistic life was the central capital, Saragossa, the residence of the majority of painters, regardless of wherever their commissions took them temporarily j but the northern capital, Huesca, was nearly as lively a focus. Teruel, the southern capital, at the time that now

INTRODUCTION

8

concerns us, appears to have been somewhat sterile soil for the Aragonese school, dependent partially upon the not very distant Valencia. The vital interest in art at Saragossa is demonstrated in the action in 1517 by the Confraternity of Painters which was under the patronage of St. Luke. On November 18 they agreed to increase and reform the regulations which governed the procedures of painters of retables, tapestry-workers, and gilders of altarpieces and which, drawn up in 1502, had been authorized by no less a personage than King Ferdinand the Catholic; and on December 3, 1517, the new rules were sanctioned.8 A l l of these practitioners of art were to be subjected to a strict examination of their competence before they could undertake any commission. T h e painters appointed procurators of the Confraternity to give shape to the regulations were Antonio de Aniano and Juan de Altabas, only the former of whom is even possibly known by a preserved work; 9 but, nothing extant can with anything like certainty be assigned to the other members of the organization who are listed in the document of November 18, except Martin Garcia, and some of the members are mentioned only here in our records. If the Francisco Giner who appears in the list is the same man whom we have thought conceivably identical with the late mediaeval painter, the Armisen Master, 10 he survived until a considerably later date than we had realized. For the documents, see Abizanda y Broto, of. cit., I ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 3-9. See below, p. 116. 10 M y vol. VIII, pp. 184 ff. 8 9

CHAPTER II PAINTERS TRANSITIONAL FROM T H E LATE MEDIAEVAL STYLE OF ARAGON TO T H A T OF T H E RENAISSANCE I.

THE

C O T E T A M A S T E R AND T H E C O N T I N U A T I O N OF

B E R M E J V S ARAGONESE SCHOOL E A R L Y SIXTEENTH

IN

THE

CENTURY

Inasmuch as the works of the Coteta Master reveal that he survived through the first years of the Cinquecento, I have postponed until now the consideration of certain of his paintings which must be added to the roster of his productions already included in volumes V I I I 1 and I X 2 and appear to be assignable to this later date. One of the additions is the painted background for a wooden Crucifixion in the parish church of Alagon (northwest of Saragossa). H e has given us a very crowded representation of the tragedy of Calvary, with a galaxy of saints, the majority of whom lived long after the event, gathered about the customary participants in the scene; and, as in the case of the St. Cyprian in the Provincial Museum at Seville, he partly constructs his characteristic, elaborate, embossed haloes of inscriptions of almost all the figures' names. A t the lower left of the cross Mary Salome, Mary Iacobi, and the Magdalene surround the swooning Virgin. Above them, St. John Evangelist stands between a bareheaded youth and the good centurion (accompanied by a banderole with the first words of the sentence, "Vere Filius Dei erat iste"), but the intrusion of later sacred personages begins at this side of the composition in the St. Francis of Assisi erect behind the Beloved Disciple (Fig. i ) . T h e kneeling St. Veronica and St. Helen at the right of the cross balance the group of the Virgin and holy women (Fig. 2 ) ; St. Anthony of Padua at the extreme edge of the composition is the pendant to St. Francis; St. James Major as pilgrim stands next to him, flanked, like the St. John on the other side, by two unhaloed figures, both in this instance men of arms; and the ' P . 221. p. 877.

2

FIG. I. THE COTETA MASTER. CRUCIFIXION (DETAIL). PARISH CHURCH, ALAGON {Photo. Mas)

FIG. 2. THE COTETA MASTER. CRUCIFIXION (DETAIL). PARISH CHURCH, ALAGON (Photo.

Mas)

12

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

final personage here, close to the cross, is the most unusual, labelled in his halo as a St. Genesius, who by reason of his vestments must be an early, canonized bishop in Auvergne honored on June 3, rather than either of the non-episcopal saints of this name, who, however, enjoyed a cult in Aragon and Catalonia.3 Further canonized worthies embellish the guardapolvos, among them St. Baudelius of Nîmes, who enjoyed a cult in Spain, for example in the Mozarabic church of San Baudelio de Berlanga not very far distant from Alagón, 4 and who is represented by the Coteta Master as a bishop according to one of the traditions in regard to his ecclesiastical status. T h e nature of the chiaroscuro is almost enough in itself to authenticate the Crucifix as a work of the Coteta Master, since no other Aragonese painter of the period spreads the shadows so extensively and deeply over the countenances, concerns himself to such a degree with modelling from dark to light, or is generally so interested in this phase of his craft. The types of human beings, however, provide abundant corroboratory evidence. Mary Iacobi practically duplicates the Virgin in the triptych of the Seville Museum, even in the delineation of the clasped hands.5 A straining for an expression of anguish marks both the triptych and the Alagón Crucifixion, resulting in an analogous squint of the eyes in the Christ of the triptych and several of the actors at Alagón, especially the St. Anthony. The St. Genesius scarcely differs from the St. Cyprian in the Seville panel of his arraignment, and a single model seems to have served for the heads of the soldiers behind Sts. Francis and Genesius and the guard who presents St. Cyprian for trial. In the already mentioned, unhaloed figure between St. John and the sculptured Christ, the Master stops for the study of a mystically gazing and handsome youth, as in the captor of St. Cyprian at the extreme left of the panel. Possibly the most telling proof is furnished by a small detail, the face of Christ on St. Veronica's cloth, which, if relieved of the beard, would exactly equal the countenance of the Madonna formerly belonging to Don 3 Vols. I V , pp. 624 and 636, and X I I , p. 1 9 1 . If I r i g h t l y interpret the first letter of the name in the halo, the spelling is a Spanish f o r m , Genes, neither the regular Castilian Ginés nor the Catalan Genis. T h e G is somewhat different in shape f r o m this letter in the halo of the M a g d a l e n e ; but such variations occur within single Spanish inscriptions of the period, and I do not see w h a t other letter it could be except D, w h i c h is also diversely made in the Magdalene's nimbus. Denes can scarcely be any Spanish f o r m for the bishop St. Dionysius (St. Denis of F r a n c e ) , whose name is ordinarily spelled Dionisio in Castilian and Dionis in Catalan. 4 See also vol. X I I , p. 148. 5 V o l . V I I I , fig. 101.

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

13

Mariano de Pano but now in the Pérez Cistué Collection, Saragossa.6 The exaggerated aspect of Aragonese opulence in golden decoration of raised stucco in which the Master, despite the prolongation of his activity as late as the sixteenth century, continued to indulge flares forth at us everywhere in the Alagón Crucifixion. T h e majority of the haloes, for example, are enriched in their inner zones with the lavish, leafy scrolls that appear in the aureoles of the Madonna formerly in the D e Pano Collection and of the St. Anthony Abbot at Magallón. 7 T w o panels in the Collection of the Hispanic Society at New York, displaying erect effigies of Sts. Jerome and Michael (Fig. 3), approximate so precisely the Alagón Crucifixion that not only must we register them with certainty as works of the Coteta Master but they may even be hypothetically assigned to a presumptive, original assemblage of which the Crucifixion was perhaps a part. T h e St. Michael, to be sure, is conceived somewhat differently from the mode in which the Master treated him at Magallón ; but the wings are delineated in the same fashion in both instances, and even an artist of his limited scope would not always abide by a monotonous norm. As a matter of fact, the St. Ursula at Magallón and, save for the pained expression, the Magdalene in the Alagón Crucifixion possess countenances very like that of the archangel. T h e counterparts for the St. Jerome are the Santiago in the Crucifixion and the Magallón St. Anthony Abbot. T h e haloes, though a bit less elaborate, recall very definitely, with the inscriptions of the names in their outer rings, the specimens in the Alagón panel. T h e cards are stacked in favor of the Coteta Master in the case of a panel in the Collection of Mr. Emerich P. Korecz at Bluemont, Virginia (Fig. 4), which is of great iconographie interest because it depicts a saint, the pope Cornelius, represented only once again, so far as my knowledge goes, in Spanish art and at that by a Spaniard, the Pacully Master, strongly under Flemish influence; 8 but other definite possibilities of authorship undeniably forestall such a definite attribution. The lavish gold embossings would bespeak the Coteta Master; but the patterns are not found in any of his recognized achievements, and the auric prodigality could be used to argue also, Vol. VIII, fig. 100. i Ibid. See my article on the Pacully Master in the Gazette des beaux-arts, June, 1943, p. 324. A s in the work by this Master in the Musée de Cluny, Paris, he is identified by the tiara and his emblem, the horn. 6

8

FIG. 3. THE COTETA MASTER. STS. JEROME AND MICHAEL. HISPANIC SOCIETY, NEW YORK (Photos.

Courtesy

of the Hisfanic

Society of

America)

FIG. 4. THE COTETA MASTER (Í). POPE CORNELIUS. COLLECTION OF MR. EMERICH P. KORECZ, BLUEMONT, VIRGINIA

TRANSITIONAL

i6

PAINTERS

e.g., for Pedro D í a z de Oviedo or his followers. T h e Coteta Master's known productions fail to reveal a duplication of the halo's figuration, and the one thing really creating a presumption in his favor is the distinctive chiaroscuro of the countenance which I have analyzed on a former page. If one should seek for at least a partial visual counterpart, he might adduce the St. Genesius in the Crucifixion at Alagón. It is not because I have not faithfully reviewed the demands of all other claimants that I have chosen to set the Korecz panel at this spot in my volumes, but such claimants cannot be conclusively rejected, even Juan Gaseó in Catalonia. W e are unable to rest any more comfortably if we dare to ascribe, even very conditionally, to the Coteta Master a further work, a panel of St. Peter enthroned between clerics on the left and laymen at the right, and adored, at a lower level, by a donor and his wife, which, of unknown provenience, was once in the Viñals Collection, Barcelona, thence passed into the possession of a Señor M a r t í n e z in the same city, and finally into unascertained ownership ( F i g . 5 ) ; and here, besides other bars to the attribution, there is the possibility, as in the case of one or two other productions which I have tentatively included in the Aragonese school, that after all it comes from a different region of the peninsula. T h e absence of embossings is not really a bar, for, despite his mania for them in their most opulent aspect, he dispenses with them altogether in a number of the compartments of the retable at Magallón. T h e reason may have been that both the retable, 9 although three of the compartments do display rich ornaments in relief, and the panel of St. Peter were late achievements of the Master, and, as a matter of fact, it is only in this panel, if he is the author, that he introduces motifs from the repertoire of the Renaissance, embodied in the Apostle's throne. T h e principal argument for the attribution is the peculiar chiaroscuro, to which I have so often had to turn in contending for the Coteta Master's execution of paintings, but other factors are not discordant with my opinion. T h e human types in general correspond well enough, and there are even some specific resemblances. T h e mitred bishop in the group at the left is more definitely than the Korecz St. Cornelius like the St. Genesius in the A l a g ó n Crucifixion, where the St. James also has a counterpart in the bearded layman at the right beside St. Peter's throne. T h e cypress trees behind the Apostle are featured likewise 9

Vol. V I I I , p. 224.

FIG. 5. THE COTETA MASTER (?). ST. PETER ENTHRONED. FORMERLY IN THE MARTÍNEZ COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo.

Mas)

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

i8

at Magallón in the background of the Virgin receiving the homage of the gentleman of Cologne. If the Coteta Master indeed deserves the credit for the picture, he reveals additional facets of his personality. The two donors prove him a very respectable and rather forceful portraitist. He also exhibits an interest in still life, in the censer and book on the ledge of the throne, the aspersorium with its aspergillum under the seat, and on the pavement the donor's hat, staff, and missal and for his wife a candle in a curious kind of holder. Some similarities to the Coteta Master's fashions can be detected in a retable on the north side of the nave in the church of Sta. Maria at Egea de los Caballeros but far from sufficient to label it as his creation or to permit any more exact classification than as a work in Bermejo's school, possibly not executed before the early sixteenth century. The main body of the retable presents three saints in as many compartments, Thecla in the middle (recognizable not only by her name inscribed in the halo but also by the Tau cross 10 that she holds with her right hand) and Cosmas and Damian at the sides, all of them standing against the old, conventional backgrounds of stiff curtains of gold brocade (Fig. 6). The Crucifixion occupies its usual place in the central pinnacle, and the lateral scenes at this level, above Sts. Cosmas and Damian, are their miracle of the cancered leg and their martyrdom. In the predella, the Pietà is set between episodes from St. Thecla's story. The types, obviously descendants of those of Bermejo, are somewhat akin especially to the conceptions of humanity that, among his pupils, the Coteta Master favored. The contours of St. Thecla's mantle (over her gown of gold brocade, another reversion of the artist to the mediaeval past) reproduce almost exactly the outline of the robe of the Madonna by the Coteta Master formerly in the De Pano Collection at Saragossa, but the folds themselves retain more of the Flemish puckerings. The position of St. Cosmas's right leg and its inordinately large foot recall the corresponding details in the Master's Baptist at Magallón ; but his addiction to a heavy richness of embossed gold accessories is absent, nor are even the haloes rendered in raised stucco. The consideration that the Egea retable may not have been painted until shortly after 1500 will not account for the renunciation of the embossings, since they are sometimes retained by the Master as late as the early sixteenth century, for ex10

Vol. VIII, p. 300.

FIG. 6. FOLLOWER OF BERMEJO. RETABLE OF ST. THECLA. CHURCH OF STA. MARÍA, EGEA DE LOS CABALLEROS {Photo.

Mas)

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

20

ample in the Alagón Crucifixion and two saints of the Hispanic Society, and at other times abjured, as in the subordinate sections of the Magallón altarpiece. On the whole, we can by no means predicate that the Coteta Master was the follower of Bermejo to whom the commission for the Egea retable was given. There is not even a remote possibility of the Coteta Master's authorship in the case of another relic of Bermejo's Aragonese school, a fragment of a predella belonging to the Museum of the Colegiata at Daroca, in which the absence of embossings combines with the general manner to argue a date in the first years of the Cinquecento. The Resurrection in the central compartment and the two left, lateral pieces, with standing figures of a canonized bishop and St. Apollonia, remain to us from the predella, but the corresponding pair at the right of the Resurrection have been lost. For a moment one might entertain the idea of an attribution to an artist much employed at Daroca, the Morata Master, possibly still active at the time when the predella was painted. The reason would be the close analogy of the landscape of the Resurrection to the specimens in his doors in the same church decorated with scenes from the miracle of the corporals j 11 but the predella exhibits no other very tangible resemblances to the works of the Morata Master, whose general sympathies were with the coterie of Aragonese artists ultimately dependent upon Huguet and Catalonia rather than with the group indebted to Bermejo. It is the bluffer style of this group that is embodied in the predella; and not only do the types of personages hark back ultimately to those of Bermejo, but the composition of the Resurrection is pretty plainly derived from the version of the theme in his own predella at Daroca. 12

2.

T H E HUESCA

MASTER

The name that I have chosen for this disciple of Miguel Jiménez finds a reason in the consideration that Huesca is the place where the majority of the works attributable to him are or at least once were to be seen. An important part of these works consists in a series of panels in or from the church of S. Lorenzo at Huesca and probably all deriving from a single retable: a representation of St. Lawrence con11 13

Vol. VIII, p. 399. Vol. V, p. 126.

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

21

signing the ecclesiastical treasures to the indigent, now in the Bofill Collection, Barcelona (with modern additions of the legs and lower draperies of the two figures in the foreground at the right, Fig. 7 ) ; a fragment of a scene depicting St. Lawrence's burial, still, so far as I know, in the Archives of the church; another fragment that seems to have disappeared from the church and perhaps was a bit of the compartment showing the hallowed deacon's ordination; and two wellpreserved panels that of old graced the antesacrestia of S. Lorenzo but were for a long time important parts of the Collection of the Duchess of Parcent at Madrid. One represents St. Orentius, the father of St. Lawrence, seated on a throne adorned with the simulated statuettes of eight Prophets and flanked by two angels standing on a parapet. A s emblems he holds a goad, referring to his miraculous taming, on his arrival in France, 13 of a pair of oxen, and a chain attached to a demon at his feet in allusion to his powers as an exorcist. T h e other panel shows us St. Lawrence's mother, St. Patientia, similarly exalted on a throne, the sides of which are conceived as embellished with a galaxy of futti who possess all the charm and the naturalistic activities that Amadeo bestows upon the forms of children. T h e figures on the parapet behind her are the other two outstanding members of the category of deacon saints, Vincent and Stephen. T h e religious character of Sts. Orentius and Patientia is emphasized by bestowing upon them, though they were lay folk, the vestment that indeed is sometimes worn in ecclesiastical services by non-clerics, the cope. I am convinced that Ricardo del Arco's ascription of this whole series to Pedro de Aponte cannot be maintained and that they were produced by a different personality, namely the painter whom I christen the Huesca Master; but I postpone my documentary, as well as stylistic, refutation of his opinion to the chapter that subsequently in this volume I shall devote to Aponte, where the discussion will fit better into place. Before we can evaluate the series aesthetically and define the Huesca Master's style, we had best enlarge our outlook upon his qualities by attributing to him a work in which I had already in volume V I I I 14 begun to glimpse dimly his manner, the six panels from a retable of the Baptist in the convent of Sijena that are now distributed between the Museums of Huesca and Saragossa. W h e n I 13 See below, p. 53. '"Pp. 134 ff.

Fic. 7. T H E HUESCA M A S T E R . ST. LAWRENCE BESTOWING ECCLESIASTICAL T R E A S U R E S UPON T H E POOR. BOFILL COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo. Mas)

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

23

wrote volume VIII, not having thoroughly analyzed Del Arco's early considerations of the problem, I too easily took it for granted that his findings were impregnable and that the painter whom I am dubbing the Huesca Master was surely Aponte, and therefore, in pointing out the similarity of the Sijena series to the Huesca Master's manner, I described the pictures as incorporating possibly "a first stage" in Aponte's development. Indeed in some of my other allusions to Aponte in this volume, I was laboring under the misapprehension that he ought to be recognized in the author of the panels connected with St. Lawrence and his parents, and I had not yet realized that he was the quite diverse artist whom we shall analyze in a later chapter. The general affinity of the Sijena series with the Huesca Master I have insinuated in my former volume, so that it remains only to stress some of the absolute identities which now appear to me to make the attribution to the same artist mandatory. The factor that in my opinion most renders a single authorship unescapable is the complete equality of the hindermost of the two spectators in back of the man holding the infant Baptist in the scene of the naming 15 with the enthroned St. Orentius. The woman upon whose head St. Lawrence places his hand as he distributes the church's possessions has almost as close a counterpart in the St. Elizabeth of the Visitation (Fig. 8), and the St. Zacharias in the Visitation as well as in the episode of the Baptist's birth is reproduced in the bearded profile among the recipients of the holy deacon's charity. The youth at the lower right in this group is like the cupbearer at Herod's banquet, and the kneeling cleric at the left in the fragment of St. Lawrence's interment recalls, particularly in the high cheekbones, the prominent onlooker with upraised hand in the compartment where Zacharias gives a name to his son. The Huesca Master thus emerges as an agreeably talented follower of Miguel Jiménez, having advanced a bit farther along the ways of the incipient Renaissance in the fragments of S. Lorenzo than in the cycle of the Baptist. Aragonese harshness has been a little more relieved both in linear quality and in types by the serener modes of the new century, so that a date in the very early years of the Cinquecento is indicated. The varied and delightful playfulness of the multiplied futti on the arms of St. Patientia's throne reminds us of 15

Vol. VIII,fig.59.

Fie. 8. THE HUESCA MASTER. VISITATION. MUSEUM, HUESCA {Photo. Mas)

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

25

the still essentially mediaeval nude children whom Gil de Siloe carved as sporting amidst the opulent ornamentation of the Infante Alonso's tomb at Burgos, 1 6 but the Huesca Master may have been led to introduce this form of decoration through the example of the Renaissance in Italy rather than, like Gil, through adhesion to late Gothic tradition. Otherwise the stage of development has not progressed beyond that of the school of Aragón in the twenty-five years just before 1500. In the panels of the Baptist, however, the Huesca Master had already denied himself the favorite Aragonese embossings in the haloes and other accessories, and he takes another step toward the less conventionalized art of the Renaissance in the narrative fragments of S. Lorenzo by abjuring any kind of halo altogether; but the consideration that in the Sts. Orentius and Patientia he was depicting, not such themes, but solemn objects of cult influenced him to retain for them and even for the accompanying angels and canonized deacons haloes of simple, raised rings like those which his teacher, M i g u e l Jiménez, chastely preferred. I still hold to the slight reservations that I expressed in volume V I I I 17 in the question of ascribing to the painter of the panels from Sijena, and therefore to the Huesca Master, the Baptism in the Museum of Huesca and the predella, No. 17, belonging to the same collection. O n the other hand, we can adjudge to him with much certainty a retable over the high altar of the church of Santiago at L u n a (north of Saragossa and west of Huesca), an altarpiece which the simple priest, suspicious of the purposes of a foreigner, did not allow me to see at m y one visit to the town in 1930, admitting me only to the parish church and, at that, briefly, but not to Santiago or the other ecclesiastical edifices. I do not know the retable, therefore, save in the not complete photographs of the M a s Archive, which are enough to show the Huesca Master to deserve the credit, and in the description by Abbad Ríos. 1 8 In the rather paltry main body of the structure the statue of Santiago is at the centre, and there are two painted scenes at the sides, on the left his vision of Our L a d y of the Pillar and on the right his administration of the sacrament of Baptism. T h e compartment above the statue contains a later canvas of the 1 6 H. E. Wethey, Gil de Siloe and his School, Harvard University Press, 1936, pp. 1 1 - 1 3 . 1 7 Pp. 139—141. 18 Francisco Abbad Ríos, Catálogo monumental de España: Zaragoza, Madrid, I957> P- J8i-

26

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

Madonna of the Immaculate Conception. T h e ambitious predella displays four further scenes from the story of St. James, his preaching, martyrdom, the embarkation of his body or its debarkation in Spain, and ( F i g . 9) at the extreme right his frequently represented, posthumous miracle of the resurrection of the fowls to prove that quite as much alive was the youth whom he had kept breathing upon the gallows (the latter episode being shown in smaller scope in the background, where the lad's father, returning from his pilgrimage to Compostela, finds him, though still hanged from the rope, living under the protection of the Apostle). Of the three faces of the tabernacle, the one in the middle exhibits the Crucifixion and those at the sides the standing figures of the Magdalene and an Apostle who has features like those regularly assigned to St. Peter in the art of the time but may be intended as some other member of the College of the Twelve or even Joseph of Arimathaea, since Sts. Peter and Paul already occupy the retable's two extant doors. T h e spaces on the tabernacle above its principal themes contain also, in the spots left open between the carved foliage, painted subjects that I am unable to make out. As not uncommonly in the riddles of attribution, the clue is first given by a single figure, here the seated judge at the right lifting his hands in amazement in the scene of Santiago's posthumous miracle. H e is a type peculiarly the Huesca Master's own, with narrow face, with its bony structure emphasized, and with pointed nose, illustrated, for instance, by the listeners to the Baptist's sermon in the Sijena series, the foremost of whom has a hat like that which the magistrate wears. Thus guided we at once see many other analogies. T h e lad's father, standing at the left beside the table of the miracle, belongs to another of the Huesca Master's types, embodied most closely in the St. John of the Baptism in the Huesca Museum, a panel that, as I have said, should almost certainly be credited to the Master himself. T h e Magdalene on one face of the tabernacle recalls the Virgin of the Sijena Visitation and the angels beside the throne of the Parcent St. Orentius. T h e landscape of the Visitation, unfolding a deep vista of hills and valleys accented by romantic edifices and feathery trees, may be taken as an example of the Master's favorite backgrounds of nature with which the setting of the Crucifixion on the Luna tabernacle is in complete accord. T h e reservations concerning his authorship vanish likewise in the

Fig. 9. T H E HUESCA M A S T E R . L E G E N D OF ST. J A M E S . CHURCH OF SANTIAGO, LUNA {Photo. Mas)

TRANSITIONAL

28

PAINTERS

case of a panel formerly owned by D o n Raimundo R u i z of M a d r i d ( F i g . 10). T h e subject is St. Blaise in prison receiving the gift of a pig's head from the widow to whom he had promised the rescue of this beast of hers from a w o l f ; and in a view of a city in the background like that which M i g u e l Jiménez introduced into his representation of St. Gregory's procession, 19 there is enacted in diminished scale one of the scenes included in an early Aragonese retable by the Bacri Master, 20 the previous episode of St. Blaise on his way to incarceration declaring to the widow that her pig will be restored. T h e Huesca Master has deposited his traces all through the panel. T h e stern, wild-eyed spectator at the extreme right, for instance, recalls the similarly placed auditor of the Baptist's sermon in the picture in the Saragossa M u s e u m ; the armed jailer of St. Blaise has a facial counterpart in the cupbearer in the compartment of Herod's banquet in the Museum of Huesca; and the drapery of Salome's skirt in this compartment, as well as that of the midwife at the left in the panel of the Baptist's birth in the same Museum, is reproduced in the widow's garments. In distinction from the Huesca Master's practice in some of his other recognized works, he here keeps for St. Blaise an embossed halo of the old Aragonese tradition. It is quite probable that there derive from the same retable as the panel of St. Blaise two compartments which themselves seem surely to have belonged to a single assemblage. One of these compartments, in the Baude Collection, Paris ( F i g . n ) , depicts the flaying of St. Bartholomew, 2 1 so that, if the R u i z piece has the same source, the retable, as not infrequently happened, would have honored two sacred personages. T h e general style is practically enough to establish the Huesca Master's claims to the Baude compartment, but the seal is put upon the attribution by the actual repetition, in a spectator in the background, of the harsh profile of the man at the lower right in the Baptist's congregation in the picture in the Saragossa Museum, a figure that we have observed to be less exactly reproduced in the panel of St. Blaise. T h e representation of the flaying of St. Bartholomew is likely to elevate our estimate of the Huesca Master's talents, especially, as prophetic of Ribera, in the unexpectedly varied, original, and effectively realized attitudes of the Apostle's tormentors, among whom the most memorable are the 19

V o l . V I I I , fig. 25.

20

Ibid.,

21

T h e dimensions are 83 centimetres in height by 63 in width.

p. 32.

FIG. IO. THE HUESCA MASTER. ST. BLAISE IN PRISON. FORMERLY IN T H E COLLECTION OF RAIMUNDO RUIZ, MADRID

FIG. II. THE HUESCA MASTER. FLAYING OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. BAUDE COLLECTION, PARIS

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

3i

henchman at the left, gruesomely baring his conspicuously raised arm in preparation for the vigorous use of the knife, and the bravo at the centre, tugging hard to pull the skin off. Membership in the same structure as the Ruiz piece is suggested not only by the similarity of the haloes and of the pavements upon which the events are enacted but also by the fact that the line at the top of both scenes inscribes the same curve, in the case of the St. Blaise beneath the carved Gothic frame 22 and in the case of the St. Bartholomew beneath the kind of background, painted to simulate a brocade, against which retables were so often set. At any rate the identity of the surmounting brocade makes it impossible to doubt that a Crucifixion now in a private collection, Mexico City, was the central pinnacle of the retable from which the Baude panel is preserved (Fig. 1 2 ) ; and the haloes also correspond to those of Sts. Blaise and Bartholomew. In the matter of types, the St. John resembles the rather woebegone handmaid of the Virgin in the Visitation of the Sijena series and the angel in the Baptism of the Huesca Museum; the countenance of the Saviour, in which once more the Huesca Master surprises us by rendering a fusion of agony and virile power with unforgettable impressiveness, recalls in actual lineaments the Baptist in the Sijena compartment where he denounces Herod and Herodias; and the sorrowing Mother in facial traits is not very different from the enthroned St. Patientia or from the attendant upon the widow in the presence of St. Blaise. T h e pleasant landscape, as especially in the Sijena panel of St. John preaching in the wilds, is also entirely characteristic, with the road winding back into the placid countryside, with the slim trees bursting into foliage only at the tops, and with the contrasting clump of stern rocks near the foreground at the left side. Some breadth of scope in the Master is revealed by the difference of the figures of the Virgin and the Evangelist from their treatments in the rendering of the Crucifixion at Luna.

3.

GASPAR

ORTIZ

Among the painters whose artistic personalities mischances have prevented us from ever recovering and defining, I thought until recently that Gaspar Ortiz must be numbered. T h e records connect 22 I do not know whether this frame is original, but the imitation of the Plateresque style in the frame of the flaying seems certainly modern.

FIG. I2. THE HUESCA MASTER. CRUCIFIXION. PRIVATE COLLECTION, MEXICO CITY (Photo.

Soria)

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

33

him with two undertakings, and by a piece of detective-work I have now arrived at the conclusion that very probably the predella of the earlier of these should be recognized in a panel in a private collection. Before, however, we turn to this painting, let us dismiss the later of his recorded achievements. In the contract for the earlier production he is stated to be a resident of Saragossa, but he is described as living at H i jar, southeast of Saragossa, in the second published document about him, 23 dated June 23, 1 5 3 4 , which has generally been taken as establishing his participation in the retable over the high altar of the parish church of H i jar, a work that, combining sculpture with painting, was destroyed in the Spanish civil war. T h e document, however, does not definitely assert that Ortiz did the paintings, although it strongly so implies. Essentially it is a contract with the sculptor Juan de Moreto to do the retable's framework and carved sections, and Ortiz is mentioned only as appearing together with Moreto before the notary and the witnesses when the arrangements were made with Moreto and as agreeing to transport the completed retable from Saragossa to H i jar. This activity of Ortiz in connection with the commission, nevertheless, is such as to make it almost certain that he executed the painted sections, that he did not turn them over to some other arist, and that his role in the transaction was not confined to being no more than the agent, as perhaps a native of H i j a r . In any case, it is merely an academic question, for not only was the retable burned in 1936 but the sole photograph of it that was made and has served as the basis of illustrations published by Abizanda, Abbad Ríos, 2 4 and the Albareda brothers 25 is quite insufficient to give any idea of the paintings' style. Unhappily I myself kept postponing a visit to H i j a r until after 1936 it was too late, nor has the manner of the paintings been analyzed at all by the one or two critics fortunate enough to have seen the original. T h e Albareda brothers found that the old mediaeval delight in the punctuation of paintings with gold brocades still persisted, but this fact is far from enough to reveal what the essential manner of Gaspar Ortiz was. 23

Abizanda y Broto, o f . cit.x II ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 2 6 7 - 2 6 8 . Archivo es-pañol de arte, X V I I I ( 1 9 4 5 ) , between pp. 164. and 1 6 5 . In the periodical Aragón, October, 1 9 3 4 , p. 189. For the destroyed retable there has been substituted in the church a fine facsimile by the Albareda brothers, as exact as their memory and the photographs of the original allowed but possessing, of course, little or no value for an estimate of the style of Ortiz. 24

25

34

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

H e first appears to our knowledge on March 13, 1528, when he contracted to do a retable for the church at Argavieso, just southeast of Huesca. In publishing this document, in 1917, Abizanda y Broto 26 declares that he believes the retable to be preserved, evidently meaning that it was then still in the church, and, as so often unfortunately happens in careless historical writing, the short notice of Ortiz in the Thieme-Becker Lexikon in 1932 takes Abizanda's guarded statement, goes it one better, and asserts the existence of the retable to be a fact. As early, however, as 1926, when I visited Argavieso, the retable was certainly no longer there, and Ricardo del Arco in his Catàlogo monumental of the province of Huesca, 27 which was brought out in 1942, speaks of it as a thing of the past. Abizanda may have been misinformed, and the retable had perhaps disappeared long before the day when I explored the church. Fortunately the contract specifies all the subjects, so that, if any part or parts strayed into private or public collections, they ought to be recognizable. It is demanded in the document that in the main body of the retable there shall be the Salvator Mundi at the centre and Sts. John Baptist and Vincent at the sides ; the Crucifixion was to be depicted in the pinnacle; and the predella was to consist of the Pietà flanked by compartments with effigies of Sts. Catherine, Barbara, Lucy, and Quiteria. Very exceptionally the contract stipulates that the paintings in the main body and the Crucifixion shall be on cloth, but the predella and guardafolvos of wood which was still the ordinary material for a whole painted retable in Spain during the early Renaissance as well as in the Middle Ages. The word used for predella is fie (foot), as frequently in the documents of the time. Now, there can be scarcely more than a minimum of doubt that the predella exists in the Collection of Mr. E. B. Hosmer at Montreal (Fig. 13), a panel that, as we shall see, agrees in style of place and time with the activity of Gaspar Ortiz. First, the subjects, with one exception, are those listed in the contract. A t the centre is Christ of the Mass of St. Gregory supported by two angels, the kind of theme that, perhaps somewhat loosely, is often described as a Pietà. T h e saints ranged in the compartments at the sides are (reading from left to right) Barbara, Anne (holding the young Virgin), Catherine, and Quiteria (with one of her regular emblems, the mad dog). M y Abizanda y Broto, Documentos, II, 42. Ricardo del Arco, Catalogo monumental p. 143. 26 27

¿e Esfana:

Huesca, Madrid, 1942,

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

36

volumes have shown how common in the finished product were iconographic changes from the terms of a contract, even more drastic 28 than the substitution of St. Anne for St. Lucy. The document specifies that Catherine and Barbara shall be at the right and Lucy and Quiteria at the left, but (if in the Hosmer panel the order of the compartments has not been altered) the variation in position actually means nothing. It is true that Sts. Barbara, Catherine, and, particularly in Aragón, St. Quiteria are commonly met in predellas, but the conjunction of the three possesses decided significance. In the amassment of cumulative proof, the agreement of the width of the Hosmer predella with the dimensions that the contract designates for the Argavieso retable is an important item. The width required is ten palmos which, since the -palmo is about eight inches, would be, in round numbers, eighty inches, and the predella measures with the frame, seventy-seven inches. Furthermore the style is what one would expect of a painter employed, like Ortiz, in eastern Aragón during the twenties of the sixteenth century, so similar to the manner of the Huesca Master that I have often tried to ascribe the predella to him but in the end without success. Like the slightly earlier Huesca Master the Hosmer artist was formed, at least partly, under the influence of Miguel Jiménez, as the types of Sts. Barbara, Catherine, and the angel at the left reveal. The composition of Christ with the two angels had been used by Miguel 2 9 and his son Juan Jiménez. 30 An additional argument for the assignment to Ortiz is that, although I have searched exhaustively for many years, I have been unable to find any other painter to whom the predella could reasonably be attributed. At frequent intervals ever since I first saw the picture I have returned to laborious comparisons with the works of artists to which it manifested any sort of resemblance even in other Spanish schools, such as the St. Ildefonso Master, the Osma Master, and Pedro Diaz, as well as the Aragonese, but all to no avail; and I feel that I have been rewarded, as in so many instances, for refraining from a snap attribution by the virtual certainty that the author is Gaspar Ortiz. If I have really proved myself a good detective, Ortiz emerges as manipulating the sturdy modes of Aragón with perhaps a little more than average competence. 28 29

30

Vol. VIII, p. 250. Vol. VIII, pp. 1 1 2 - 1 1 5 .

Ibid., fig. 32.

TRANSITIONAL 4.

THE

MASTER

OF

PAINTERS

SAN PEDRO,

37

TERUEL

T h e transition to the Renaissance now transports us from Huesca to the other end of Aragon, to the south, bringing us into contact with a painter for whom I can devise no less unwieldy a title than the one that I have just used above as a heading, based on the fact that we definitely know the source of one of his productions, three panels, manifestly by the same hand and perhaps from a single altar, among the works of art which from the church of S. Pedro at T e r u e l were gathered into the episcopal palace and survived the havoc of the civil war but were studied by me, albeit perforce hastily, as early as 1932. T h e triad of panels embody two curious fusions, a blend of the style of the beginning of the Renaissance with the gold embossings of the fifteenth century and particularly an amalgamation of gentle types of humanity like those of the Valencian school with the great, spreading, angular draperies of Aragon. One of the panels is an effigy of St. L u c y ( F i g . 1 4 ) , standing in front of a parapet and relieved against a gold textile hung between bits of landscape, the principal compartment of a retable from which there was to be seen in the palace also a small narrative piece depicting her arraignment. T h e third panel is a complete antependium incorporating what was evidently the T e r u e l habit, 31 unusual elsewhere, of still rendering this section of an altar's adornment with figured subjects according to the early mediaeval practice. T h e figures consist, at spaced intervals, of the Madonna and Child between the favorite pair of Sts. Fabian and Sebastian, all once more standing before textiles, a parapet, and a landscape, the whole ensconced in a painted frame of Plateresque ornamentation. T h e unity of manner with the fragments of the retable of St. L u c y requires no demonstration, and even the tiling beneath the feet of the sacred personages is the same in both the frontal and the retable, each square punctuated at the centre with the same dainty floral design. It is not inconceivable that an Aragonese artist should have produced types like these only a little more delicate than those of the artists of Escatron and Anento; 32 but the gold textile behind St. L u c y is incised merely at the borders in the Valencian way and with a Valencian pattern, and the likelihood is that the author belonged to the school of Valencia, though not identical with any known Valencian painter of the period, taking on * V o l . X I , p. 335. 3 2 See below, pp. 2 4 5 - 2 4 7 .

Fie. 14. THE MASTER OF SAN PEDRO, TERUEL. ST. LUCY. EPISCOPAL PALACE, TERUEL (Photo.

Mas)

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

39

some characteristics of Aragon at Teruel where the two streams met, or that he was a native of the city, consequently merging both aesthetic tendencies. A second work by this painter, of unknown provenience, has recently been acquired by the Gallery of Sacred Art in Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina, a retable 33 displaying at the centre St. Bartholomew enthroned between two angels and at the sides standing figures of Sts. John Baptist and Sebastian (Fig. 1 5 ) . T w o of the emblems of St. Bartholomew are visible, the knife and "the white mantle which in every corner hath (here simulated) gems of purple and precious stones therein"; but someone has painted over the other attribute, the chained devil, inadvertently, however, leaving the clue of the fetters held by the Apostle. Among the manifold proofs of execution by the Teruel artist are the near identity of the two St. Sebastians, the same combination of Aragonese characteristics, here perhaps reminiscent of Bermejo, with Valencian gentleness, the same kind of debilitated faces in the angels, particularly the one at the right, as in the St. Fabian, and a Plateresque frieze in the parapet behind St. Bartholomew like the specimens of such decoration in the panels of the episcopal palace. Besides the embossings of borders of garments, we still have the ringed, Aragonese haloes of raised stucco, perhaps because the retable is of slightly earlier date than the altarpiece of St. Lucy and the antependium. At my visit in 1932 to Noguera, west of Teruel and beyond Albarracin, the only works of any quality that I found among the early paintings 34 in the parish church were in the sacristy, panels 33

The dimensions within the frame are 6 3 ^ inches in width by 5 1 / 4 ¡ n height. From the chapel of the cemetery at Noguera there had been imported to the south wall of the parish church a retable of little more than rustic merit, executed, according to an accompanying inscription, in 1 5 2 1 at the order of the municipal council of the town. I do not know whether this or any of the other paintings at Noguera survived the civil war, nor do I possess any photographs of the retable; and my notes taken on the spot say of the style only that it was so feeble and nondescript as to forestall my describing it more specifically than as an inferior Aragonese manner of the early sixteenth century. The principal compartment displayed St. Peter enthroned against a background patterned, unusually for this section of Spain, with a Moorish laceria, and in the two lateral divisions at the level of St. Peter stood Sts. Paul and Andrew. T h e central pinnacle surmounting St. Peter was occupied by a representation of St. George and the dragon; over St. Paul was St. Margaret; and above St. Andrew, St. Roch. A small Crucifixion in the middle of the predella was flanked by busts of Sts. Cosmas, Damian, Luke, and a youthful martyr; and the guardapolvos were decorated with further full-length sacred effigies. The sacristy contained a panel of St. Blaise likewise carried out in a countrified and not clearly defined manner of c. 1500. 34

FIG. 15. T H E MASTER OF SAN PEDRO, TERUEL. ST. BARTHOLOMEW ENTHRONED. BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

TRANSITIONAL

PAINTERS

4i

(truncated at the bottom) of St. John Baptist and (somewhat smaller in size) St. John Evangelist, which we cannot doubt to be achievements of the Master of San Pedro. T h e Baptist, even in the curly hair, is almost a replica of the effigy in the retable at Bob Jones University, and he has the suave but intense gaze of the St. Bartholomew. In the delicately mystical expression of the Evangelist the Master surpasses himself. This brocades ( f r o m which the gold has worn off or been stolen) serving as backgrounds to the two St. Johns are absolutely the same as those behind the Baptist and Sebastian in the retable at Greenville. In the case of the Noguera panels the gold haloes and borders of garments are not embossed. T h e bishop's palace at T e r u e l contained panels, besides those of St. L u c y and the frontal, from the church of S. Pedro related to the style of our Master and just conceivably by him. T h e one with clearest affiliations represents the Trinity ( F i g . 16), in which the Second Person exhibits the softened apparent reflections of Bermejo in fairly young bearded heads characteristic of the artist and the Eternal Father looks out at us with the majestic stare of the St. Bartholomew. A s in the panels of St. L u c y and the frontal the haloes are flat but the orphreys of the cope embossed. I am reminded of the St. Bartholomew also by an enthroned St. Anthony Abbot ( F i g . 1 7 ) , and in the narrative scene that was preserved from the same altarpiece, depicting the great anchorite beaten by demons, the head exhibits the relaxation of Aragonese severity that the Master cultivates and is discernible likewise in the seated effigy. T h e practice of Noguera is here followed in the renunciation of all embossings. In the remains of another retable from S. Pedro consisting of a figure of St. Catherine standing in front of a throne and surmounted by a Crucifixion, the Aragonese qualities are more pronounced than in the Master's sure productions, the type of the virgin martyr, the heaviness of her form, the extensive embossings, and the multiplied rings of her halo; but she has the glance of many of his personages, and the crushed Maximin again possesses the sort of mild, bearded countenance to which I have referred above. I am haunted by a sneaking suspicion that we perhaps ought to recognize an early work of the Master of San Pedro, Teruel, in the panel, dated 1491, of the Trinity formerly in the Pani Collection, Mexico City, for which in volume V I I I 3 5 I could find no parent. T h e accompanying St. A n d r e w conforms more or 35

P . 5 1 0 and fig. 237.

FIG. I6. THE MASTER OF SAN PEDRO, TERUEL. THE TRINITY. BISHOP'S PALACE, NOGUERA, TERUEL

{Photo. Mas)

FIG. 17. THE MASTER OF SAN PEDRO, TERUEL. ST. ANTHONY ABBOT ENTHRONED. BISHOP'S PALACE, NOGUERA, TERUEL (Photo.

Mas)

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

44

less to such a type as the Noguera Baptist and the flaccid St. Babilés 36 to the St. Fabian of the frontal. The representation of the Trinity perhaps does not resemble the version in the episcopal palace any more closely than the very subject imposed, but the links might be more visible if the repaint, which was admitted by Señor Pani at least on the vestments of God the Father, were removed. 5.

T H E HEARST MASTER, THE ARNOULT MASTER, AND J A I M E S E R R A T

We must devote some lines to the artist whom I studied in volume V I I I 3 7 under the name of the Hearst Master not only because his style already edges upon the Renaissance but also because conceivably he deserves the credit for a retable that by reason of the great uncertainty of its attribution must be relegated to our penultimate chapter.38 Indeed there is a further motive for returning to him, the fact that a cleaning of the altarpiece which gives him his name, once in the Hearst Collection but now belonging to the Fogg Museum at Harvard (Fig. 18), reveals not only more clearly his human types but even the real subjects of some of the compartments which were concealed by extensive repaint. In the main body of the altarpiece, the theme of the compartment at the right, which I found to be so enigmatical, turns out to be, when the many alterations have been eliminated, the Transfiguration, in which the St. James at the bottom had been blotted out and the Moses and Elijah in the upper corners metamorphosed into angels. Considerable changes were made in the composition of the Nativity at the left, where even the conspicuous proclamation to a shepherd had been covered over. The background of the central Madonna was entirely modernized, since a hanging textile flanked by bits of landscape had taken the place of a continuous red fabric. The figure on the upper left piece of the guardapolvos in whom I questionably recognized St. Stephen is actually St. Vincent; and the left cross-piece of the guardapolvos in the "restored" altarpiece incorporated even a change of sex in the substitution of a putative St. Bartholomew for a virgin who, with the attribute of a chained devil, should probably be interpreted as St. Bridget of Ireland. 39 36 37 38 39

F o r this St. Babilés, see ibid., p. 5 1 2 , and below, pp. 262 and 292. P. 258. P. 238. See below, p. 288.

FIG. I 8. THE HEARST MASTER. RETABLE. FOGG MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

TRANSITIONAL

46

PAINTERS

On the lower right upright of the guardafolvos, St. Christine with the knife was transformed into the more familiar St. Catherine with the sword. T h e perplexity in which I was involved by the predella is clarified by the expert who did the cleaning and declares it to be a forgery. In the Christ of the Transfiguration the cleaning has brought out a swarthy and rather dour head, which accords with the conception in Aragón of bearded males and adds its argument to the great probability that such was the Hearst Master's nationality. Upon the attributions to him that I ventured in volume V I I I no further comment remains for me to make, except in the case of the panel of the enthroned Magdalene and surmounting Crucifixion which, once in the Collection of Don Luis Ruiz at Madrid, has finally obtained a home in the Memorial Art Gallery at Rochester, New York. Like the retable now in the F o g g Museum, it has benefited by a skilful cleaning, but the only resulting substantial change is in the face of the Magdalene, which renders an ascription to the Hearst Master less plausible. Indeed she looks now somewhat like the types of the Arnoult Master, 40 and Mrs. Delphine Fitz Darby, among the keenly discerning suggestions that she has comprised in a review 4 1 of my volume V I I I , has adduced evidence for an identification of this Master with Jaime Serrat, to whom very haltingly I had proposed the Hearst Master as conceivably equal. Our documentary references to Serrat, which may be found by consulting the indices of names in my volumes V I I and V I I I , include the information 42 that in 1505 he was commissioned to finish a retable at L a Alumnia de Doña Godina which Miguel Jiménez had left incomplete at his death and that in the undertaking he was to use as a model the altarpiece by Jiménez then in the church of S. Pablo, Saragossa, but now in the Museum of this city. T h e retable of L a Almunia has been lost, but the Arnoult Master in his John Evangelist 4 3 in the church of Santos Juan y Pedro copies the figure of this saint in the retable from S. Pablo, 44 with practically no alterations except those dictated by his slightly different conception of a human countenance. Since Serrat in one instance had been asked to imitate Jiménez and since, as his sonin-law, he might be expected to rely upon his wife's father for ideas, 40 41 42 43 44

Vols. VIII, p. 216, and IX, p. 873. Art Bulletin, XXVI ( 1 9 4 4 ) , 132. Vol. VIII, p. 86. Ibid., fig. 99. Ibid., fig. 33.

TRANSITIONAL PAINTERS

47

there certainly exist grounds for equating Serrat with the Arnoult Master, but, on the other hand, some other painter could have found inspiration in the achievements of an artist of Jimenez's prominence. Moreover, Serrat's dates, extending into the sixteenth century, would indicate a painter of the nascent Renaissance like the Hearst Master rather than one who, so far as we know the Arnoult Master, remained essentially a mediaevalist.

CHAPTER III PEDRO DE I.

His

APONTE

BIOGRAPHY

A f t e r many conjectures and after a number of false attributions, the personality of this artist, who since the seventeenth century has enjoyed a considerable reputation in the annals of Spain, is now clearly defined through the stylistic agreement of a series of extant paintings with accreditings to him in documents. One of the reasons that it has been difficult to perceive the agreement is that the paintings are spread over a somewhat extended period during which Pedro de Aponte, with more initiative than the majority of Spanish artists of his time, progressed from modes still bound by many primitive restrictions to a pronounced mannerism of the Renaissance; but the tokens by which his hand can be recognized, namely his human types and technical tricks of the trade, as I shall seek to demonstrate, continued the same from the beginning to the end. Before we can undertake this demonstration or remove the false attributions in preparation for an analysis of his true style and achievements, we must set down what is known of his biography. In the contemporary documents of the early sixteenth century, he does not stand forth with any greater prominence than many of his rivals in Aragón, but beginning with the second quarter of the seventeenth century a special lustre surrounds his name in Spanish literature. 1 H i s modern fame, however, seems to stem from the importance given to him by the Aragonese painter and writer on art, Jusepe Martinez, who, in his Discursos fracticables del nobilísimo arte de la fintura,2 finished between 1673 and 1682, makes him a court1 F o r the references, see Ricardo del Arco's important treatments of Pedro de Aponte i n : Arte español, I I ( 1 9 1 4 — 1 9 1 5 ) , 106—125; Memorias de los Museos Arqueológicos Provinciales, 1 9 4 1 , pp. 86—93; Catálogo monumental de España: Huesca, M a d r i d , 1942 ( f o r the pages, consult the index) ; and Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Universidad de Valladolid, tomo I X , fascículos X X X I - X X X I I I ( 1 9 4 2 — 1 9 4 3 ) , 59—77. T h e r e are occasional allusions to the painter in D e l A r c o ' s articles listed in the bibliographies of my previous volumes. 2 T h e pertinent extracts are included by Sánchez Cantón in his Fuentes literarias para la historia del arte español, M a d r i d , I I I ( 1 9 3 4 ) , 2 9 - 3 0 and 60—61. See also

PEDRO DE

APONTE

49

painter of Ferdinand, the husband of Isabella, singles out his ability as a portraitist, wrongly bestows upon him the distinction, so commonly attributed also to others, of having been the first to use oil, and champions his versatility by alleging him to have planned the stratagem of the false walls for the Christian camp of Santa F e in the siege of Granada. T h e similar, tardy exaltation of the half-mythical Antonio del Rincón in Castile may be due to his confusion with Fernando del Rincón, 3 but there are no means of determining whether Jusepe Martinez or his immediate predecessors had any sound authority for thus elevating Pedro de Aponte 4 above his colleagues or whether, like Vasari in some instances, Martinez merely took the liberty of composing a good character sketch. Certainly the extant paintings attributed to Pedro prove him, though by no means deserving the adjective "great," superior to almost all his Aragonese competitors. W e first hear of him when, on June 5, 1 5 0 7 , being called, as always in the records, a resident of Saragossa, he contracted to do for the Hospital of Nuestra Señora de Esperanza at Huesca a retable of unspecified themes, except that the document demands that it shall be in general devoted to Our L a d y of Expectation, 5 to whom the institution is dedicated. On April 14, 1508, and again on J u l y 2, 1 5 1 0 , 6 he acknowledged payment for the undertaking. Ricardo del Arco once 7 held that the panels of St. Vincent and the Crucifixion in the Museum of Huesca, which I 8 have attributed with conviction to the late mediaeval Aragonese painter, Bernardo de Aras, 9 were relics of the retable for the Hospital, since they entered the Museum from the church of this institution, but his subsequent investigation 10 of the the modern republication of Martinez's book, edited by Julián Gallego, Barcelona, 1950, pp. 179 and 241. 3 See my vol. IX, p. 258. 4 I keep the form of his surname that has been traditional since the seventeenth century, although in the documents of his own period it appears as Del Ponte or (in Catalan) del Pont, with the one exception of the spelling, Alpont. 5 For this cult, see my vol. VI, p. 254. 6 The second receipt is published by Ricardo del Arco in Archivo esfañol de arte, X X ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 2 2 7 ; and among- the many favors that I owe to Don Federico Balaguer is a copy of certain extracts from the actual contract. 7 Memorias de los Museos Arqueológicos Provinciales, 1941, pp. 90-91, and Catálogo monumental, Provincia de Huesca, pp. 119—121. 8 Vol. VIII, p. 382. 9 Whom we formerly knew as the Pompién Master: see vol. X , p. 399. 10 Article in the Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Valladolid, tomo IX, fascículo X X X I (1942—1943), 63, 65—67, and 69.

50

PEDRO DE APONTE

notes and activities of the archaeologist Carderera revealed to him that the two pictures, before they were deposited in the Hospital, had been in the now demolished Capuchin monastery of Huesca and that Carderera believed them to have derived from the retable of the high altar of S. Lorenzo. We shall later show that there is no reason for crediting Carderera's opinion that they were parts of the retable in S. Lorenzo, and at any rate, inasmuch as they do not come originally from the Hospital and no other pieces of the retable for this place have been recognized, the documents of 1507 and 1508 fail to uncover Pedro de Aponte's style. The contract of 1507, however, does supply confirmatory evidence for the more definite proof of his authorship of the preserved retable of the high altar in the parish church at Bolea that we find in another document, since one of the contract's clauses permits him to execute, while dwelling at this town, the retable of the Huesca Hospital and since thus it may be deduced that he was at the time employed in Bolea. The other document, dated March 2, 1 5 1 1 , is the commission to him to paint the extant retable of the high altar in the parish church of Granen, but it also conclusively establishes the similarly placed retable at Bolea as his creation because in the document it is demanded that the Granen project be carried out "in the mode and form that is at Bolea, that which was made by his hand, and in the manner of the retable of S. Lorenzo at Huesca." 1 1 It will subsequently appear, however, that the retable for S. Lorenzo is not thus raised correspondingly to the rank of Pedro de Aponte's own productions. A record of September 16, 1511, : 1 2 embodies articles of partnership between him and Antonio de Aniano 13 according to which they promise to do jointly five no longer extant retables at Saragossa. We need encumber our pages with the specification of merely two of the five retables listed in the deed of partnership, the specimen for the high altar of the church of L a Magdalena (which included also sculpture), because the notice of payment to Aponte for one of the compartments in 1 5 1 7 supplies us with another date in his life, and an altarpiece for the chapel of the Archdeacon in the cathedral, be11 See below, pp. 52, 59. The document cannot refer to a subordinate, sculptured retable in the church at Bolea which has a predella painted by a pupil of Aponte, with perhaps some slight collaboration of the master himself, since this small monument could in no sense be likened to the ambitious structures, with doors, over the high altars at Granen and in S. Lorenzo, Huesca. 12 Abizanda y Broto, Documentos, I ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 25. 13 Cf. below, p. 1 1 6 .

PEDRO DE

APONTE

5i

14

cause Sánchez Cantón has conclusively rejected the idea that we should recognize as a part of this altarpiece the panel of St. Vincent which has reached the Prado from the chapel (also called the chapel of St. Vincent) and which indeed, as an achievement of the Master of the Prelate Mur, 1 5 is too early in style for such an identification. There are no documentary grounds for the proposition of Abizanda 16 and Del Arco that Pedro may have shared in carrying out an order for a retable at Beteta in the province of Cuenca in the execution of which Antonio de Aniano in November, 1 5 1 1 , took as an assistant Martín Pérez de Novillas. 1 7 No traces of a retable of St. John Baptist that Pedro de Aponte agreed 18 on August 10, 1 5 2 1 , to do in the church of Paniza (south of Saragossa) have been found there either by me at my visit to the place or by anyone else. By the twenties his reputation had spread to the confines between Aragón and Navarre, where he executed several preserved works, for the most part authenticated by style but in one instance documented, namely his contribution to the retable over the high altar in the parish church of Cintruénigo, just east of Tudela in Navarre and close to the Aragonese border. Our only reference to his participation in the enterprise is an agreement, drawn up on December 1 , 1 5 2 5 , of the sculptor Esteban de Obray with Aponte, according to which the former was to do the carved sections of the retable and wherein it is stated that Aponte had already bound himself, "under very strict conditions," to be responsible for the whole structure, meaning, of course, that he was to carry out its paintings as well as oversee the entire project. 19 Internal evidence reveals that only the predella was done by Aponte and that the panels in the main body of the structure are all by a different painter, the reason probably being that our master soon died, since in 1 5 3 0 in a contract of Obray, with another sculptor, Guillen Obispo, handing over to him the completion of the carved parts of the structure, Aponte is no longer mentioned as having originated the undertaking. 20 14 15 16 17 18 19

Catalogue of the Prado, edition of 1949, p. 4 1 1 . See my vol. VIII, p. 302. Of. cit., II, 35. Ibid., I, 24; see also below, pp. 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 . Ibid.., I, 4 1 . The contract with Obray was first published by Abizanda y Broto, Documentos,

II ( I 9 I 7)> 35-

20 T . Biurrun Sótil, La escultura religiosa y las bellas artes en Navarra la éfoca del Renacimiento, Pamplona, 1935, p. 25; and below, p. 73.

durante

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52 2.

WORKS

WRONGLY

ASCRIBED

TO P E D R O

DE

APONTE

Prior to proceeding to the affirmative discussion of Aponte's authentic creations and their qualities, it is necessary to shoulder the less agreeable and negative business of clearing away the false attributions that have befuddled the estimate of his attainments. W e have already been able to set aside two of the works wrongly assigned to him since they were manifestly done by other artists, the panels in the Museum of Huesca by Bernardo de Aras and the St. Vincent in the Prado by the Master of the Prelate M u r ; and on the same grounds we can easily remove from any possibility of his sometimes asserted authorship the portraits of Ferdinand, Isabella, and their children on the doors of the Miraculous Corporals in the Colegiata at Daroca which we have found in volume V I I I 2 1 to be owed to the brush of a feeble provincial active in a different part of Aragon from the districts of Aponte's employment, the Morata Master. A more involved problem is raised by Ricardo del Arco's 22 ascription to Pedro of a number of panels that he supposed to have been parts of the retable which once rose over the high altar of S. Lorenzo at Huesca and which he adduced reasons for predicating that Pedro had executed. It turns out, however, that there is no substantial basis for thinking that more than a few of these panels could come from the retable of S. Lorenzo and thus be assigned to Pedro de Aponte even according to Del Arco's hypothesis. Our first business is to exclude the other panels from the question. W e have already seen that two of them, the St. Vincent and the Crucifixion now in the Museum of Huesca, are productions of the incapable painter of the late M i d d l e Ages, Bernardo de Aras, and that, since we cannot trace them farther back than their location in the Capuchin church in the city, we have no other grounds for deriving them from S. Lorenzo than Carderera's unsupported statement. Even if they were originally in the church of S. Lorenzo, they cannot have been sections of the retable over the high altar, for they are very obviously painted in a manner totally divergent from that of the panels the subjects of which indicate a provenience from this retable. There is no evidence whatsoever for the theory once held by Del Arco that the retable so conspicuously included, among those whom it honored, St. Vincent, despite the fact that he is sometimes coupled with St. Lawrence and " PP- 399-402-

32

See above, p. 50, n. 11.

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is actually depicted in small scale, together with St. Stephen, behind the throne of St. Lawrence's mother, St. Patientia, in a picture that we shall find perhaps to have belonged to the retable of the high altar. T h e Spanish critic himself in his earlier studies had refused the pair of panels to Aponte, and even in his later writings on the question, before the emergence of Bernardo de Aras's personality, he was loath to accept the Crucifixion as Pedro's achievement and attributed it to a collaborator under Catalan influence. The painter, however, who did the Crucifixion was most plainly responsible also for the St. Vincent, so that Del Arco himself inadvertently cast suspicion upon his endeavor to relate the two panels to the retable of S. Lorenzo and one of them to Aponte. Finally, they are carried out in an inferior aspect of mediaeval fashions, whereas Pedro's dates place him in the early Renaissance, and his fame, even though it has come down to us chiefly in reflections of the seventeenth century, would forbid us to think of so lame a performer. Another pair of panels we may reject quite as decisively, since they prove to be works of Pedro D í a z de Oviedo and not even representations of the themes affiliated with St. Lawrence that Del Arco has seen in them. Discovered in an upper room attached to the church of S. Lorenzo and until recently 23 in the Archives of the edifice, they depict in reality Pilate washing his hands as he condemns Our Lord and a scene in which Chirst, already stripped of His garments and wearing the crown of thorns, is led away from Pilate's presence to execution. Possessed by his determination to discover willy-nilly a large section of the retable of S. Lorenzo, Del Arco quite fantastically 24 interprets them as episodes from the life of St. Orentius or Orientius, the father of St. Lawrence. According to the legend 25 Orentius had twin sons, Lawrence and a boy who was named Orentius after his father. Subsequent to the death of his wife, Patientia, he emigrated to France with the son Orentius who eventually was made bishop of Auch and became, in French, the canonized St. Orens. 2 3 T h e panel of Pilate washing 1 his hands has n o w been deposited in the n e w l y founded Diocesan Museum of Huesca, but I am uninformed of the present location of the companion-piece. 2 4 A s in the case of the panels of St. B a r t h o l o m e w by Juan de la A b a d í a , w h i c h he w r o n g l y takes to be scenes f r o m the life of the Baptist: see m y v o l . I X , p. 893. 2 5 See the Bollandists under St. Lawrence's day, A u g u s t 10 ( I X ) , 501—503, and under the day of St. Orens, M a y 1 ( V ) ; both in Guérin, Les •petits Bollandistes, Paris, 1888; and especially an article by Antonio D u r a n G u d i o l in Argensola, V I ( 1 9 5 5 ) , 1.

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There is a story of the elder or younger Orentius or both together exorcising a French potentate's daughter, and Del Arco distorts the representation of Christ before Pilate washing his hands into this theme, conceiving Pilate to be the potentate (though leaving unexplained the detail of the washing), misunderstanding what is obviously the head of a man leering in the crowd at the right as the afflicted princess, capriciously taking a kneeling tormentor of Christ in the lower right corner to be the discomfited demon, and failing to tell us why St. Orentius, as whom he incorrectly identifies the figure of the Saviour, should have about his neck fetters the end of which the tormentor holds! There is no tradition of St. Orentius having suffered such indignities from the potentate, so that Del Arco is even less justified in elucidating the second panel, which actually shows Christ led away to Calvary, as an augmentation of the maltreatment of St. Lawrence's parent. Even the small detail of the crown of thorns forbids us to discern St. Orentius in the figure, and Del Arco betrays that he himself must have once entertained some misgivings in the matter, since, although in 1942 in the text of his Catdlogo monumental26 of the province of Huesca he describes the two panels as episodes in the life of St. Orentius, he designates, in the plates accompanying the text, the falsely supposed scene of exorcism as the "Judgment Hall of Pilate"! But it is really not necessary to show that they have nothing to do with St. Orentius, with the ramifications of the story of St. Lawrence, or with the high altar of S. Lorenzo, for it has now become clear to me that they are works of the immigrant from the west into Aragonese and Navarrese territory, Pedro Diaz de Oviedo,27 and so are removed from any possibility of being creations of Pedro de Aponte. We already were informed that in 1498 a Pedro de Oviedo polychromed a boss in the cathedral of Huesca,28 and we can scarcely hesitate to recognize in him Pedro Diaz, since it develops that this artist must have painted about this time a retable in the church of S. Lorenzo from which the two scenes of the Passion have come down to us. My only excuses for not having discerned the authorship earlier in my studies are that, before I had carefully sifted Del Arco's publications for my writing of the present volume, I had too readily accepted the results of his research, and that I was diverted from 2S

P. 131. See my vol. IV, pp. 4.29 ff. 28 Vol. V, p. 340. 27

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the truth by the absence, in the two panels, of Diaz's usual heavy embellishments of his paintings with accentuations, in the Aragonese fashion, of raised stucco. T h e pictorial methods, however, in the two panels, and the types are absolutely his. Pilate, especially in the episode of the hand-washing, possesses a peculiarly snooping kind of countenance which is a frequent phenomenon in Diaz's works, illustrated, for example, by the man at the extreme right in the Purification and the left scourger in the Flagellation of the Tudela retable and by the spectator at the right in the scene of the encounter of Santiago and Hermogenes 29 in the altarpiece at Tarazona. T h e composition of the panel of Christ before Pilate at Tudela is somewhat varied j but above the Saviour is a head like one close to the back of the throne at the right in the Huesca version, and the legs of the soldier at the lower right in the Tudela rendering are exactly repeated in the henchman leading the L o r d in the second piece in S. Lorenzo. T h e profile of the spectator at the lower right in this piece has a counterpart at the left in the compartment of Santiago's sermon at Tarazona 5 the expressive face in which Del Arco wrongly descries the phrenetic princess is duplicated far back in the crowd behind the Apostle's executioner in the Tarazona altarpiece; and the guard who holds Christ's chain as Pilate washes his hands crouches on the pavement in a posture that Pedro Diaz copes with as unsuccessfully as in the seated attitude of the fellow who binds the Saviour's legs in the Tudela Flagellation. Since it was perhaps the first gusts of the Renaissance that blew away at Huesca the elaborate embossings of Diaz' principal achievements, the date of the two panels of the Passion may fall a little later, let us say c. 1 5 0 0 ; and we already knew that he survived at least until December 30, 1 5 1 0 , when, having returned to the seat of his earlier activities, Tudela, he signed a receipt for a retable at Cascante, which is preserved to us in such a repainted and ruined state that it is impossible to say how far he conforms to the terms of the contract requiring execution "in the Italian manner," i.e., in the new fashion that the Renaissance was popularizing even in remote Aragon and Navarre. 3 0 Embossings are absent also from his triptych in the Parmeggiani Collection at Reggio Emilia. 3 1 Having eliminated the pieces by Bernardo de Aras and Pedro 29

Vol. I V , fig. 1 6 7 . V o l . V , pp. 338—34.0. For further data about Pedro Diaz but, at this point in our studies, not pertinent, and for other works that I newly ascribe to him, see below, chapter X I . 31 Vol. V I I , p. 864 and fig. 3 5 3 . 30

56

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D í a z from the problem of Pedro de Aponte, we arrive finally at the panels the themes of which legitimatize the guess that they may indeed derive from the retable over the high altar of S. Lorenzo at Huesca, which has been considered a documented work of Aponte, was at least planned as early as 1496-1499, 3 2 and did not finally suffer dismantlement until 1678. T h e documentation, however, as we shall perceive, is unsatisfactory, and the style of the panels betrays that they cannot have been painted by the real Aponte, the author of the works at Bolea, Grañén, and Cintruénigo, but by the anonymous artist for whom I have invented the sobriquet of the Huesca Master. 3 3 T h e panels 3 4 consist, first, of bits that D e l Arco found used as mere wood in altars of the church. T w o pieces fit together to form the well-known episode of St. Lawrence distributing the ecclesiastical treasures to the poor, and have been acquired for the Bofill Collection at Barcelona. Another fragment, at my last knowledge in the Archive of the church of S. Lorenzo, appears to be a part of the scene of St. Lawrence's burial, but is oddly interpreted by D e l Arco, with his insistence upon importing large sections of the stories of the two saints named Orentius into the retable, as the son St. Orentius, the bishop of Auch, curing an epileptic deacon. T h e prelate is indeed reported to have performed miracles of healing but not specifically upon a deacon, and the prostrate body of the deacon in the fragment, with his crossed hands, is obviously a corpse, not a rigid epileptic. A third fragment, which, so far as I can find, no longer exists in the church, is only the lower part of an ordination of a cleric whose vestments are not well enough preserved to enable us to determine whether he was being elevated to the diaconate or the episcopate, but I suspect the former and that we have to do with a piece of St. Lawrence's reception of H o l y Orders, although here again D e l Arco perceives an episode in the life of St. Orentius, bishop of Auch, his consecration. In any case, the fragment is too far gone to afford much evidence in regard to style. In distinction from the ruined pieces that had been built into altars, two well-preserved panels thought to come from the retable and displaying the en3 2 C f . an article by Federico B a l a g u e r , w h o still considered Aponte to be the author, in Seminario de arte aragonés, V I ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 81. T h e dates are those of donations by a D o ñ a Violante de A l c o l e a f o r the retable, thus partially dispelling the tradition that Ferdinand, the husband of Queen Isabella, ordered it. 3 3 See above, p. 20. 3 4 F o r illustrations, see above, under the Huesca Master.

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throned effigies of Sts. Orentius and Patientia, the parents of St. Lawrence, 35 used to hang in the antesacrestia of S. Lorenzo 36 but were sold in 1910 and eventually entered the collection of the Duchess of Parcent at Madrid. Even if we leave out of account the stylistic proof which forbids an attribution of the panels that have to do with St. Lawrence to Pedro de Aponte, there are serious lacunae in the historical considerations that have led to the proposition, for we lack not only trustworthy evidence that he did the retable of the high altar in S. Lorenzo but also the absolute certainty that the panels derive from this retable. The categorical statement that he painted the retable does not appear until 1638 and 1673 in the respective writings of two Aragonese chroniclers, Uztárroz and Dormer, both defending the claims of Huesca to be the birthplace of St. Lawrence; and the latter author, in a description of S. Lorenzo called the humen ecclesiae, dated two years afterward in 1675, merely deduces from the paintings' colors that Aponte must have executed them.37 Uztárroz may have been following the common practice of ascribing old works of art to famous names, since even prior to Martinez some now undiscoverable reason had endowed the memory of Aponte with glamour; but our only record contemporary with Aponte that has been assumed to establish the retable as his performance is, when carefully examined, quite otherwise than determinative. We have already 38 had occasion to quote this notice, in his contract of 1 5 1 1 to do the retable of Granen; but we must stress the points that, although, of the monuments that Aponte is asked to imitate in the Grañén retable, the prototype at Bolea is definitely stated in the pertinent passage to have been painted by Aponte, no such specification of authorship is attached to the mention of the retable in S. Lorenzo, Huesca, and, moreover, that the manner in which the document goes out of the way to emphasize his execution of the Bolea altarpiece would naturally be taken to mean that by contrast the specimen in S. Lorenzo did not enjoy the same distinction. In Aragón itself the case of Martin Bernat and Miguel Jiménez, who were required to use as a model a retable by Huguet and Rafael Vergós,39 demonstrates that artists 35

F o r a detailed description of the panels, see above under the Huesca M a s t e r . T o r m o in his C a t a l o g u e of the Parcent Collection (then called the Iturbe C o l lection) w r o n g l y states (p. 1 4 ) them to come f r o m the cathedral of Huesca. 36

37 38

F o r all these references, consult D e l A r c o ' s articles a l r e a d y listed. 39 P. 50. V o l . V I I I , p. 4 3 .

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were sometimes naturally required to pattern themselves after outstanding achievements of others. Furthermore, even if for the sake of argument we should grant that Aponte did the retable over the high altar of S. Lorenzo, it cannot be unconditionally averred that the extant panels (by the Huesca Master) derive from this source. Scenes from St. Lawrence's life, such as some of the fragments, would have been included in the assemblage, and yet he might have been honored also in subordinate altarpieces in the edifice. There is a reason for believing that the large effigies 40 of his parents in the Parcent Collection might have been the doors at the sides of the retable. Since it is demanded in the contract for the altarpiece at Granen that it be like the examples at Bolea and in S. Lorenzo, we may suppose that the two latter retables resembled each other; and, although the Granen altarpiece has lost whatever doors it may once have had, the Bolea example possesses doors generally analogous to the Parcent panels, enthroned saints each with a pair of angels on the throne's arms. On the other hand, a chronicler, Ayuna, writing in 1 6 1 9 , definitely states that the miracles of St. Orentius were depicted on the retable's doors, and an account of an episcopal visitation to the church in the same year describes the doors as painted on cloth, so that, if the words "miracles" and "doors" were used accurately, we are forbidden to recognize the doors in the Parcent pictures, which are single figures, not miracles, and are painted not on cloth but on wood. They could of course, have constituted lateral compartments in the retable's main body, but we cannot entirely scout the idea that the two pictures might have been the centres of smaller, separate retables in the church or have been combined as the principal pieces at the middle of a single retable in a subordinate chapel and thus have no connection with the retable over the high altar which Aponte is supposed to have done.

3.

P A I N T I N G S OF HIS E A R L Y P E R I O D

Having rid ourselves of the works that have been wrongly claimed for him, 41 we are prepared to analyze his development in its first phase, represented by the retable at Bolea, the sound documentation 40

About 1 . 5 0 metres in height by 1 . 1 2 in width. F o r , my defective conception of Pedro de Aponte in the few references that I made to him in volume V I I I , see above. 41

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of which we have already reviewed. Angulo finds an irreconcilable and perplexing divergence in style between the Bolea retable, which he provisionally recognizes as Aponte's achievement, and the equally documented example at Grañén, as well as the Cintruénigo predella and the other paintings in northwestern Aragón and in Navarre in which he rightly recognizes the hand of the Grañén artist, assigning all these later productions to a personality whom he christens the Agreda Master 3 but I am confident that, if he would examine anew the Bolea panels and the fine photographs recently made by the Mas Archive, he would realize that we owe the whole series of works to the same man, still operating in 1507 at Bolea with the restraint of the very early Spanish Renaissance but at Grañén and in the other, later achievements gradually accommodating the fundamental forms and technical methods that he had used in the Bolea altarpiece to the changed standards of the High Renaissance and even of mannerism. As a matter of fact the transmutation that took place in the master's style was only a little, if any, more revolutionary than in the case of his Andalusian contemporary, Alejo Fernández. 44 In the passage 45 in the document that authenticates the Bolea altarpiece, namely the words "in the mode and form that is at Bolea, that which was made by his hand," Ricardo del Arco 46 takes the second relative clause as restrictive, signifying that Aponte's activity extended only to a part of the monument, which he believes to be the predella of the Passion and the doors; but the paintings of the entire altarpiece, including the doors, appear to me. unmistakably the production of a single artist. T h e centre of this vast structure over the high altar of the former Colegiata of Bolea ( F i g . 1 9 ) is occupied by late Gothic sculpture, a statue of Our L a d y of the Immaculate Conception as well as, above it, the Crucifixion, and the carvings are extended to a multiplicity of statuettes of sacred personages on the structure's dividing uprights, to a sub-predella of the Apostles, and to small figures on the preserved, original tabernacle. T h e major part of the assemblage con42

P. 50. Príncipe de Viana, IV ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 4 3 4 - 4 4 3 ; Historia del arte, Seville, 1953, II, 169; and Pintura del Renacimiento, Madrid, 1954, p. 74, vol. X I I of the series, A rs Hisfaniae. 44 See vol. X , p. 34. 45 See above, p. 50. 46 See his already cited article in the Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Valladolid (1942—1943), p. 68. 43

FIG. 19. PEDRO DE APONTE. HIGH ALTAR. COLEGIATA, BOLEA {Photo.

Mas)

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sists of paintings, in almost perfect preservation in contrast to the condition in which so many Spanish works of the period have come down to us. In the main body of the altarpiece there are twelve scenes from the lives of the Virgin and Christ, the Meeting at the Golden Gate, Birth of Mary, Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity of Our Lord (Fig. 20), Epiphany, Purification, Flight into Egypt, the young Saviour among the Doctors in the Temple, the Massacre of the Innocents, and (out of order in the sequence, which otherwise proceeds from left to right) the Last Supper (Fig. 21) and Washing of the Apostles' Feet. The predella aligns six episodes of the Passion, the Agony in the Garden, Betrayal, Flagellation, Ecce Homo, Via Dolorosa, and Lamentation over the Dead Christ. On the two doors are depicted a canonized pope (Gregory?) and an episcopal saint (Augustine?), 47 each seated on a throne and with a pair of musicmaking angels on the throne's arms, in obvious resemblance to the Sts. Orentius and Patientia from S. Lorenzo, Huesca. 48 When we take up Aponte's later achievements at Granen and other places, we will make the comparisons demonstrating in types, compositions, and general methods that the Bolea retable was executed by the same artist; but at present we have before us the pleasant task of studying the qualities, as delightful as they are remarkable, in the early stage of his evolution that the retable incorporates. T h e fundamental stylistic fact about the panels, which are dated about 1507, is that we can hardly escape the conclusion that their author must have proceeded from the milieu of Toledo directly to Aragon just after Juan de Borgona in the very first years of the sixteenth century had executed in the cathedral of Toledo his works in the chapel of the Conception, for the kinship is so close that it is virtually impossible to entertain the hypothesis of an independent development of analogous characteristics. Indeed, it is difficult to put one's finger upon any Aragonese predecessor exhibiting traits that could justify the theory that he was Aponte's master. A number of the compositions appear to be derived from the Toledo chapel's pictorial decoration. T h e Birth of the Virgin, Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity of Christ, and Epiphany seem to be all based upon the versions in Juan 47 T h e juxtaposition of a sainted pope and bishop w o u l d suggest t w o of the four Fathers of the Church, and, although Ambrose and Augustine are often represented in the same w a y , the latter was probably intended as being the more prominent. 48 See above, p. 23.

FIG. 20. PEDRO DE APONTE. NATIVITY. HIGH ALTAR OF THE COLEGIATA, BOLEA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 2!. PEDRO DE APONTE. LAST SUPPER. HIGH ALTAR OF THE COLEGIATA, BOLEA {Photo.

Mas)

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de Borgona's retable in the chapel, and the Last Supper recalls the arrangement of the figures and table in the rendering in Juan's triptych commissioned by Alonso de Salcedo which the chapel also once housed. There is even a close parallel for the Meeting at the Golden Gate in Juan de Borgona's pupil, Correa de Vivar, the example in the Collection of Sir J. Charles Robinson,49 and, although this is too late to have been seen by Aponte, it probably reflects a very exact, lost prototype by Correa's teacher. The majority of the types of humanity look as if they had their source in Juan de Borgona, being indeed, only slightly modified, for instance in the direction of somewhat smaller heads. Very tangible examples of such indebtedness are afforded by the Saviour among the Doctors and in the Washing of the Apostles' Feet, as well as, in the Betrayal, by the soldier at the right and Judas. In the realm of color, Aponte here quite vies with the artist whom we are postulating that he took as his guide, attaining harmonious tonalities of a luminous but sobered brightness. As a matter of fact, if the reader will review my explanation, in volume IX, of Juan de Borgona's characteristics, he will soon perceive that almost all of them apply nearly as well to Aponte, who, however, reveals no sure evidence of direct familiarity with Italian art. The Bolea retable shows us a painter who cultivates staidness and simplicity, tending to reduce the compositions, as notably in the Epiphany, to a small number of figures. I am cognizant of no model for the Massacre of the Innocents in Juan de Borgona's extant production, but his serenely monumental manner would have caused him to confine the scene, as at Bolea, to a mere symbolization by a few, not phrenetically agitated participants. A mood of calm overspreads even the grief of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, broken only by the wind-blown tresses of the Magdalene and St. John and by the latter's billowing mantle and upraised hands. Within the limits of his restraint, however, our master is capable of transmitting to us the expression of intense feeling in his actors, as in the woman bending over her slain child in the Massacre of the Innocents or in the adoring young shepherd in the Nativity of Christ. H e likes Juan de Borgona's sharp profiles; when he wishes, he can rival his probable inspirer in such incisive individualizations of persons as the kneeling King in the Epiphany, the hooknosed doctor questioning the young Christ in the Temple, and the foremost Apostle at 49

See vol. I X , fig. 109.

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the left in the Last Supper; and both artists' seriousness of purpose precludes much indulgence in details of genre, leaving at Bolea only infrequent exceptions, for instance the dog in the Epiphany and the flowering plants and birds in the foreground of the Garden of Gethsemane. Nevertheless, Pedro de Aponte's moderation at this early moment in his career does not prohibit him from exercising his invention in the composition and interpretation of some of the sacred events. The outstanding example is the Washing of the Apostles' Feet, where, instead of grouping them all, according to the usual scheme, in a single room, he places only five in a stately hall at the front together with Our Lord and relegates the rest to a garden just behind a ruined colonnade into which the hall opens. In the Betrayal, Judas sullenly clutching the money-bag at the right is very much featured; and in the Lamentation, Joseph of Arimathaea, Nicodemus, and a younger man do not, as ordinarily, bend over the body of their dead Saviour but stand, sadly handling and discussing the cruel nails and hammer. Aponte does not lag behind Juan de Borgona in a concern with impressive settings of architecture of the Renaissance, but, although in the colonnade of the Washing of the Feet he introduces one of Juan's favorite capitals surmounted by a zafata, he tends in general to sacrifice the richness and ornateness of the Toledo artist's edifices to a more solemn grandeur. T h e settings of the Virgin's Birth, the Purification, the scene of the young Christ among the Doctors, and the Washing of the Feet show how, like Juan de Borgona, he enjoyed experimentation in the deep perspective of interiors; but he adds an interest of his own, the extension of the perspective to the representation, in the left backgrounds, of ranges of the severe masses of urban buildings, as in the Massacre of the Innocents, the Last Supper, and Ecce Homo. Although the human types resemble those of Juan de Borgona, they are so far modified as to be expressions of the individuality of Pedro de Aponte himself and to become touchstones by which his other works may be recognized. A more distinctive factor and one more determinative for attributions to him is his chiaroscuro, especially the pronounced, weird, and arbitrarily decorative contrasts of light and shade that he causes to play over countenances. In this early station in his artistic journey, he is perhaps more prone than

66

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Juan de Borgoña to retain the decorative effect that brilliant brocades had constituted in Spanish painting of the Middle Ages. Although in Pedro de Aponte's second documented work, the retable over the high altar ( F i g . 22) of the parish church at Grañén, just south of Huesca, the types and many of his underlying traits remain enough unaltered to prove even by stylistic considerations the same authorship as for the Bolea panels, the modes are so far changed in the direction of mannerism that we are glad to have the records allow a greater interval to account for the development than the four years from his activity at Bolea in 1507 until his first assumption of the Grañén commission in 1 5 1 1 . Ricardo del Arco 50 summarizes and Balaguer has eventually published 5 1 documents of March 26, 1 5 1 1 , showing that three compartments in the predella, the Agony in the Garden, Betrayal, and Flagellation, had already been done by a Cristóbal de Cardeñosa of Saragossa; and both Del Arco and Balaguer 52 partially quote the previous contract of March 2, 1 5 1 1 , by which Aponte assumed the task of doing the rest of the paintings, probably because the municipal council of Grañén were rightly, as the three panels betray, dissatisfied with their quality. Internal evidence, however, shows that only the Agony in the Garden and the Betrayal are by one hand, presumably that of Cardeñosa, and that a different, though quite as inferior a hand, was responsible for the Flagellation. Either, therefore, the text has been misread by Del Arco, or the experts summoned on the question in 1 5 1 1 were uninformed that the Flagellation could not be blamed upon Cardeñosa. Another document of M a y 26, 1 5 1 2 , reveals that the authorities of the town, for lack of sufficient funds to remunerate Aponte, permitted him a longer time to complete the retable than they originally planned, although they had already paid him in part; and the task may have stretched over a number of years, thus giving him an ampler period for the adoption of new fashions. T h e sections in the Grañén retable not by Aponte are the central statue of Santiago, to whom the church is dedicated, above it two paintings of the Assumption and Crucifixion which are apparently accretions of the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and the three compartments of the Passion at the left of the tabernacle in the pre50 His article in the Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Valladolid ( 1 9 4 2 - 1 9 4 3 ) , p. 70. 51 In Seminario de arte aragonés, VI ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 81 and 86. 53 Ibid., 83.

FIG. 22. PEDRO DE APONTE. HIGH ALTAR. PARISH CHURCH, GRANEN (Photo.

Mora)

68

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della by Cardenosa and his colleague. In the body of the structure Pedro executed at the left six scenes from the story of Santiago and at the right as many from the life of his brother, St. John Evangelist. When I visited Granen in 1930, the panels having to do with St. James, whatever their original or present arrangement, began at the bottom of the vertical row nearer to the statue, read upward, and then down in the further row. W e first see the demons bringing the enchanter Hermogenes to the Apostle; 53 then, the preaching of Santiago at Oviedo (Fig. 23); next (repainted), his benediction of his successor in the see of Saragossa, Athanasius; the manifestation of Our Lady upon the pillar at Saragossa to St. James and his seven disciples from the city; 54 the corpse of the pilgrim from Lorraine lifted by the posthumously appearing Apostle upon his white horse, with the aid of the man's faithful friend; and the youth who was hanged on a false charge of theft but had been kept by St. James alive on the gallows and thus found by the father. 55 T h e order of the scenes from St. John's life was in 1930 much disturbed, but the chronological succession would be as follows: the arraignment before Domitian; the boiling in oil; the writing of the Apocalypse on Patmos; the resurrection of Drusiana; some episode in the Apostle's intercourse with the philosopher Crato and the rich youths; and his drinking of the poison that had slain the pair of criminals. T h e three subjects at the right of the tabernacle in the predella by Aponte are the Ecce Homo (repainted), the Via Dolorosa, and Deposition (Fig. 24). There is a sub-predella of busts of the Apostles, and the guardafolvos are decorated not only with heraldic symbols but also with futti carrying instruments of the Passion. It is first incumbent upon me to demonstrate the unity of authorship with the Bolea retable, even though I should disregard the documents. T h e presence everywhere at Granen of Aponte's eccentric chiaroscuro, so peculiar to him, is nearly enough in itself to prove the point, but corroborative evidence is copious. In actual types of humanity, I will select for the reader, among many examples, the following comparisons, in which even the partial adaptation to mannerism will not dim the identities: in the preaching of St. James at Oviedo, the foremost youth at the left with the adoring boy in the 53 V o l . I X , p. 776. F o r these three subjects, see vol. V I I I , pp. 2 8 7 - 2 9 0 . 55 F o r the last t w o subjects, see vol. II, p. 38.

54

FIG. 23. PEDRO DE APONTE. PREACHING OF SANTIAGO. OF PARISH CHURCH, G R A M N (Photo. Mas)

HIGH A L T A R

FIG. 24. PEDRO D E APONTE. DEPOSITION. HIGH A L T A R OF PARISH CHURCH, GRANÉN (Photo. Mas)

P E D R O DE A P O N T E

7i

Bolea Nativity, the higher youth in the same part of the picture with the other shepherd, and the woman facing us in the Apostle's audience with the Magdalene in the Bolea Lamentation; in Santiago's benediction of his successor (despite the repaint), the spectator at the extreme left with the correspondingly placed figure in the Last Supper j St. James himself before the pillar with the Joseph of Arimathaea (holding the nails) in the Lamentation; the angel in the scene concerning Hermogenes with the celestial spirits on the arms of the thrones in the Bolea doors; in the Ecce Homo at Granen, Pilate with Nicodemus (at the right) in the Bolea Lamentation; and in the Descent from the Cross, the woman supporting the Virgin with Our Lady's handmaid in the Purification, and the soldier at the extreme right with the trumpeter in the Bolea Ecce Homo. W e also begin to get, in the young Apostle at the left in the Last Supper and in the Washing of the Feet at Bolea, a forerunner of a type that Aponte much employed at Granen and in his later productions. The countenance of Christ, however, is somewhat changed in the Granen compartments where H e appears in favor of a rather neurotic intensity conforming to Aponte's evolving mannerism. Analogies to the Bolea panels could be multiplied, were it necessary, for instance the similarly flying mantles of St. John in the Lamentation of the earlier retable and of St. James in the compartment of the pilgrim of Lorraine at Granen, or, in the scene of Santiago blessing Athanasius in the later altarpiece, the introduction of one of Aponte's perspectives of towns. Of the two cases of identical subjects in the retables, the composition for the Ecce Homo is much the same, including members of the fierce crowds opening their mouths in cruel excitement; and the main outlines in the versions of the Via Dolorosa are not varied. Already at Granen, as we have noted, Pedro de Aponte has started on his way to the advanced mannerist that he subsequently became. Angulo perceived that his contacts seem to have been, not with Italy, but with Flanders of the early Renaissance. His types are somewhat transmuted under this influence, but they still remain fairly normal representatives of humanity, especially the charming Mother and Child on the Pillar, without, in the majority of cases, the manneristic peculiarities of anatomy and nervous agitation to which eventually he was to subject them. Nevertheless, premonitions of these eccentricities are by no means absent. Here and there we spot the beginnings

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of the intentional departures from orthodox physical standards — the dolichocephalous youth in the distance in St. John's encounter with Crato and the similarly unusual maiden turning to the side in the first row of St. James's congregation at Oviedo, the flat-faced man talking to the father of the hanged boy, the unashamed plainness of countenance imposed upon the gaping spectator behind him, and the ill-favored hag kneeling in front of Drusiana's bed. The cheekbones and noses are likely to be unnaturally emphasized, as in the companions of St. James enjoying the vision of Our Lady of the Pillar, and the two tormentors above Our Lord falling under the cross in the Via Dolorosa betray an ugliness of features beyond what was necessary to stigmatize evil characters. The scene in which the wanton treatment of the figures and the emotionalism are carried nearest to the Flemish mannerism of Aponte's maturity is the Ecce Homo. His compositions were relatively simple until the end, but at Granen this quality, the general quietude of the scenes and actors, and a partial lack of ease in the articulation of the forms and postures (particularly in the Via Dolorosa and Deposition) are still only punctuated by manneristic prophecies. The result is rather incongruous, for Aponte has not as yet shaken himself free of mediaeval clogs and realized his innate, more modern aesthetic proclivities. In a few instances he cannot yet forego the brocades that had been so conspicuous in his predecessors' pictures. The Via Dolorosa is an example of the dramatic invention of which he had already given us foretastes at Bolea. With a partial and reversed parallelism to the great composition that Tintoretto was to employ for the theme in the Scuola di San Rocco, we see on a hill in the distance, above the suffering Christ and his persecutors, the two thieves in smaller scale relieved against a sinister sky and goaded to the crosses of their agony. The dependence upon Flanders seems to be incorporated even in the Bosch-like nature of the demons transporting Hermogenes; but Aponte is still sparing of genre and intent upon his main themes, confining it practically to dogs, which, however, are no better drawn than the specimen in the Bolea retable. With the enviable discernment to which he has accustomed us, Angulo 56 has detected the hand of the Agreda Master, who for me is Aponte, and at his finest, in a small panel of the Madonna and 56

Pintura

del Renacimiento,

p. 75.

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73

Child in the Balanzo Collection, Barcelona (Fig. 25). T h e general style suggests a moment in his development not much, if any, later than the Granen retable. In particular the type of Our Lady and her hair should be compared with the representations of St. John in this retable, but the analogy also to the Virgin in the Bolea Flight into Egypt demonstrates again the underlying oneness of the Bolea altarpiece with Aponte's more mature creations. T h e ornaments hanging beside her are like those introduced into parts of the Olite retable both by Aponte and his collaborator,57 but there is no reason to think that he should not have used them at a somewhat earlier stage in his career. The inscription at the top also serves as decoration, " A v e gracia (sic) plena D O 5 8 M I N U S , " with the word Dominus thus curiously separated and with the following tecum in the salutation omitted in order not to violate the planned spacing. Although I have found no absolute prototype, the composition may have been suggested by the treatments of the theme at the hands of some such northerner as Jan Gossart, even in the detail of the brilliant rug over the parapet. 4.

P A I N T I N G S OF HIS L A T E R P E R I O D

When only about ten years or so later 59 he did the predella of the retable at Cintruenigo, he had astoundingly developed his style and changed into a more out-and-out mannerist than the Antwerp painters who inspired him. T h e centre of the retable is occupied by sculpture, a medallion of the standing St. John Baptist, to whom the church is dedicated, beneath it the Baptism, and above it the Crucifixion. T h e paintings in the body of the structure, eight scenes from the life of the Baptist and four from that of Christ, were perpetrated by a bungler who, a collaborator rather than a pupil of Aponte, was trying to work in the modes of the full Renaissance and whose hand I have not detected in any other monument. By contrast the superior craft of our Master stands forth with all the more distinction in the six episodes of the Passion at the sides of the tabernacle in the predella, the Agony in the Garden, Flagellation, Ecce Homo, Pilate Washing His Hands, Via Dolorosa (Fig. 26), and the Lamentation over the Dead Saviour. 57 58 59

See below, p. 80. I imagine that some later restorer has changed the D into B. See above, p. 5 1 .

FIG. 25. PEDRO D E APONTE. MADONNA A N D CHILD. COLLECTION, BARCELONA (Photo. Mas)

BALANZO

FIG. 26. PEDRO DE APONTE. VIA DOLOROSA. RETABLE. (Photo.

Mas)

CINTRUENIGO

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It is not difficult to follow Angulo in discerning not only an indebtedness to the Antwerp mannerists but more particularly a similarity to the aspect that mannerism assumed in Lucas van Leyden, whether or not he was actually conversant with the achievements of this almost exact contemporary of his in the Low Countries. It is perhaps Aponte's augmentation of the general harshness of Flemish and Dutch mannerism that leads Angulo to feel in him an affinity to German painting of the early Renaissance: his nearest Teutonic relative appears to me Hans Baldung. All the ways in which these northern mannerists nervously revolted from the normal are now visible in a rather extreme phase, the haggard, sometimes elongated bodies, the perversely sought uncomeliness of visage, frequently distorted by strained expressiveness, the angular postures, the capricious chiaroscuro, the general mood of feverish tensity. To realize how the germs present in the Granen retable have now more than realized their manneristic foreboding, one has only to compare the two versions of the Via Dolorosa. I leave the reader to pursue in Angulo's article his detailed analysis of the exemplifications of all these qualities in the several compartments of the Cintruenigo predella; and I confine myself to pointing out that in the chiaroscuro and in other respects we can still clearly descry the traces of the same artist who years before at Bolea had abided by the staid principles of the Spanish school in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The compositions for the Lamentation and, to a certain extent, for the Flagellation are changed, but in the Ecce Homo, as at Granen, he continues the general arrangement that he established in the Bolea rendering. Not only does the Agony in the Garden exhibit much the same composition as at Bolea, but the face of Christ, which already in the earlier work tends toward a straining of religious intensity, is surprisingly little altered 5 and for the Via Dolorosa Aponte actually returns to a disposition of the figures more similar to the rendering in his first documented achievement than to the Granen version. Of the works in the region of Cintruenigo justly attributed by Angulo to Aponte 60 on internal evidence, he rightly selects the retable over the high altar of the church of S. Miguel at Agreda (in the province of Soria but just beyond the Aragonese border) as the performance of the painter's maturity least contaminated by assistance 6 0 I.e., to the personality whom he calls the Agreda Master and who for me is Aponte in a more mature phase: see above, p. 59.

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and revealing his powers in his manneristic phase at their best. Sculpture is here chiefly confined to the statue of the archangel at the centre above the tabernacle. Aponte's paintings consist, in addition to a simplified Crucifixion above the statue, of eight scenes from the legend of St. Michael and a predella of four episodes of the Passion at the tabernacle's sides. Some of the scenes are of regular occurrence in the retables of the archangel. In the upper space at the extreme left he leads the angelic victory over the devils; two compartments are reserved for the story of Monte Gargano, the shooting of the bull and the episcopal pilgrimage to the spot; at the extreme right the upper panel depicts St. Michael's rescue of the woman and her child from the tides of Mont St. Michel, and the lower, his wiping of the sword of pestilence over the Castel Sant' Angelo, but, according to the Master's tendency to compositions of a few figures, without the presence of St. Gregory and his processional litany, so that the participants are confined to St. Michael and a few excited spectators. The subject of the lower compartment at the extreme left is much rarer,61 the archangel's altercation with Satan for the body of Moses (Fig. 27). The inner compartment at the upper left displays St. Michael, accompanied by other angels, offering two naked persons to God, and this I take to be a simplified treatment, in conformity with the Master's habitual tendency in composition, of the archangel's function in the guidance of redeemed souls to Paradise, since the panel is adjacent to the scenes of the combat with demons and the episode of Moses's body, which in the catalogue of St. Michael's activities at the beginning of the section of the Golden Legend devoted to him are listed in juxtaposition with the sentence describing him as a psychagogue. The eighth and last compartment, next to the Crucifixion at the upper right, contains another unsual piece of iconography, St. Michael conceived as the angel expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, but this and the presentation of souls to God, as well as the struggle for Moses's body, are all comprised in the sculptured scenes of 1519 by Damián Forment in the retable in S. Miguel de los Navarros at Saragossa.62 The events of the Passion chosen for the predella are the Agony in the Garden, Flagellation, Via Dolorosa, and Lamentation over the Dead Christ. Vols. II, p. 430, and IV, p. 618. Abizanda y Broto, Damián Forment, Barcelona, 1942, lámina VIII. The year 1518 is here given as the retable's date, but 1519 is shown to be correct by the records that he published in his other book, Documentos, II ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 183. 61

62

Fie. 27. PEDRO DE APONTE. ST. MICHAEL AND SATAN WITH T H E BODY OF MOSES. RETABLE OF SAN MIGUEL. AGREDA (Photo. Mas)

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It is not alone the greater care in draughtmanship and in general execution that distinguishes the retable of St. Michael from the work at Cintruenigo, but also the fact that the manneristic proclivities, though emphatically present, are somewhat less advanced. T h e r e is a little more respect for ideal beauty ; the action is not quite so spasmodic j and we cannot explain the looser technique and less sharp contours of Cintruenigo only by the theory of the collaboration of the Master's shop. T h e difference may be brought out concretely, if the reader will compare the four scenes of the Passion which occur in both altarpieces and in which the actual compositions are but slightly changed. T h e reasonable conclusion would be that the retable at A g r e d a was painted, though after the example at Granen, a bit before the Cintruenigo predella; but chronological arguments based on small variations in style are notoriously untrustworthy, and it is not impossible that Aponte should, subsequently to his activity at Cintruenigo, have reverted to a more tranquil mood. T h r e e of the compositions resemble somewhat closely those utilized for the same scenes in the carved retable in S. M i g u e l de los Navarros at Saragossa, and, since the influences would naturally flow from the Aragonese capital to a small country-town rather than vice versa, we probably ought to date the A g r e d a paintings after the year of the Saragossa sculptures, 1519. 6 3 H a v i n g once evolved a composition, he did not alter it to any great degree in future uses of the same subject, but now on the raised hill above the Via Dolorosa he represents a later moment in the punishment of the thieves than in the Granen version, for at A g r e d a they already hang upon their crosses awaiting the arrival of their Co-sufferer. T h e fact that in the scene of St. Michael wiping his sword Aponte attains a fairly accurate representation of the Castel Sant' A n g e l o as it then looked does not necessarily imply, since he could have known the edifice in prints, that he had ever been in Rome. In the foregrounds of the compartments of the procession to Monte Gargano and of the struggle for the body of Moses he features futti who are introduced evidently for no other reason than their charm and their popularity in the Renaissance and in whose types A n g u l o appears to be correct in descrying a concrete example of Lucas van Leyden's influence. Reminiscences of his early Bolea period are no more lacking than at Cintruenigo. So far as diversities of composition exist in his re63

See preceding note.

8o

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iterations of the same themes, the Agony in the Garden and the Flagellation recall in main outlines the treatments at Bolea more than they do the Cintruenigo renderings, and the composition of the Via Dolorosa reveals greater similarity even than the version at Cintruenigo to his first extant management of the theme. The boy who had adored the infant Saviour in the Bolea Nativity reappears in the procession to Monte Gargano, and the St. Michael disputing the body of Moses with the devil continues to manifest a kinship with a type of young man for which Aponte at his beginnings already showed a predilection. The vogue of our Master penetrated into Navarre considerably farther north than Cintruenigo to Olite, where in the church of the castle there is a vast retable over the high altar upon which he personally may have done some little brush-work but which, at least in very large part, he allowed his shop to execute. As commonly in the retables that we have been studying in the present chapter, the more conspicuous art of sculpture, is employed at the centre of the structure, above the tabernacle a statue of the Madonna, the church's patroness, and at the summit a large Crucifixion. Over the predella of the Passion, with the same six subjects as at Cintruenigo except that the Betrayal takes the place of Christ before Pilate, the scenes from the lives of Mary and her Son are arranged in three tiers of a half-dozen compartments each, with the narrative beginning at the bottom and proceeding from left to right. The themes are the Meeting at the Golden Gate, Birth of the Virgin, a symbolization of the Immaculate Conception, the Marriage of Our Lady, Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity of Christ, Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, Flight into Egypt, the young Saviour among the Doctors, the Baptism, Transfiguration, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Assumption. The size of the sculptured Crucifixion leaves room in a topmost tier only for four compartments of the Evangelists seated against archaically retained gold backgrounds upon which there is painted a formal, hanging, floral motif of the Renaissance. The themes chosen for the highest cross-piece of the guardafolvos, which also still resort to the gold backgrounds, similarly embellished, are busts of the blessing Christ and six Apostles, and the rest of the College of Twelve appear on the pair of cross-pieces at the next lower level. Each of the two intervening upright sections of the guardafolvos receives as its subject a standing effigy of a Prophet. The large vertical sections of

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these dust-protectors at the sides of the main body of the retable display full-length figures of eight saints, at the top the four Fathers of the Church and at the bottom four virgin martyrs, Barbara, Quiteria, Engracia, and a maiden with the attributes of a palm and crucifix whom neither Angulo nor I can identify. A kind of sub-predella is constituted by medallions of purely ornamental heads (one of which Angulo 64 surmises to be perhaps a portrait of Aponte) in the midst of sculptured details of decoration. T h e paintings on the tabernacle are of a later period. Angulo recognizes an extensive collaboration of Aponte's shop in the retable, and indeed the only parts in which I should be willing to admit his own handiwork, and even then not with entire conviction, are the four Evangelists, the Nativity of Christ (Fig. 28), the Baptism, and the Agony in the Garden (Fig. 29). The rest is carried out in a very servile reproduction of his style which not only is technically weaker and, in rendering gentle types of humanity, rather insipid but also has travelled farther along the road of manneristic disintegration of the forms. A comparison with the almost identical compositions for the scenes from the Passion at Cintruenigo will bring out the still more neurotic tension that courses through the altarpiece at Olite. Although Aponte must at least have supervised the execution of the retable and although his compositions are ordinarily simple, it is hard to believe that he could have been guilty of the dull, stereotyped designs of the Transfiguration, Ascension, Pentecost, and Assumption and that he did not consign the actual compositions of these panels to his atelier. A number of the compositions distantly reflect the precedents of Diirer's woodcuts of the Life of the Virgin. Angulo has pointed out the curious iconographical details of the symbolical roses on the floor of St. Anne's bedchamber at the birth of her daughter and, in Our Lord's Nativity, the futti flying down with a cloth in which to enswaddle Him. T h e Navarrese milieu is indicated by the fact that the panel of the Immaculate Conception is practically a replica, in its composition and elaborately didactic symbolism, of the example in the retable of Artajona by a follower of Pedro Diaz. 65 Aponte, however, never forgets the ideas that he had evolved in the first years of the century at Bolea, still using, for instance, as at Agreda, the early composition for the 64 65

Pintura del Renacimiento, p. 75. Vols. IV, p. 440, and IX, p. 629.

Fig. 28. PEDRO D E APONTE. N A T I V I T Y . R E T A B L E . STA. M A R Í A L A R E A L , OLITE (Photo. Mas)

Fig. 29. PEDRO DE APONTE. AGONY IN T H E GARDEN. STA. M A R Í A L A REAL, O L I T E {Photo. Mas)

RETABLE.

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APONTE

Flagellation, defining the flowers in the Garden of Gethsemane as irises, and repeating (though he turned over the execution to an assistant) the cartoon of the scene of Christ in the Temple.

5.

P A I N T I N G S A T T R I B U T E D T O P E D R O DE A P O N T E BY T H E A U T H O R

In addition to my championship of Aponte's rightful claims to the Bolea altarpiece, I should like, on my own account, to include on stylistic grounds other works among his authentic, extant productions. Since when I wrote volume V I I I , I was not very conversant with his modes, it must have been largely through divination that correctly I stated 66 that he would probably turn out to have done, in the parish church of Alfajarin, the remains of a retable over the altarpiece by the late mediaeval Master who takes his name from the town. Informed that the paintings in the edifice had been destroyed in the civil war, I believed that there were no means of verifying my impression, but I now find that not only the altarpiece by the Alfajarin Master survived but also the sections of the retable above it; and a recent photograph by the Mas Archive (Fig. 30) of the principal section, with Sts. Anne, Lawrence, and Barbara, confirms what was little more than my guess in regard to Pedro de Aponte's authorship. T h e stage suggested in his development is a moment just before his employment at Bolea. There are enough parallelisms in types to his other creations as, for instance, between the St. Barbara and the young Apostle (St. John?) at the right in the compartment of the Washing of the Feet in the Bolea altarpiece or between the Child held by St. Anne and the infant being murdered at the upper right in the panel of the Massacre of the Innocents in the same assemblage, but it is after all the highly personal chiaroscuro, especially upon St. Lawrence's face, that puts the seal upon the attribution. T h e composition of the panel of St. Lawrence, with the throne of the Renaissance, the angels upon its arms, and the canopy, also reminds us of the hallowed pope and bishop on the Bolea altar's doors. The Pentecost in the sacristy of the church also came safely through the war's havoc, but I possess no photograph to control my surmise 67 that this too may be a product of Pedro's brush. T h e Crucifixion in the pilgrimage church of the Virgen de la Pena at Alfajarin, for which I hesitatingly 66

P. 144.

67

Vol. VIII, p. 146, n. 2.

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proposed his handicraft, has not, so far as my vague information goes, outlived the civil strife. Without hesitation we may place among Aponte's authentic works and assign probably to a period just before the Grañén retable but after his activity at Bolea three panels that were burned or lost during the Spanish civil war in the church of the village of San Martin de Buil, 68 near Boltaña in the northern part of the province of Huesca. Certainly deriving from a retable the other parts of which had long since disappeared, they consist of what must have been its principal compartment representing St. Martin's encounter with the beggar and of two lateral panels displaying erect figures of Sts. Michael and Anthony Abbot. T h e attribution is self-evident to anyone who has read the preceding pages and studied the photographs of Aponte's paintings, but I will stop to drive home the point by indicating a few of the most striking parallelisms to the Grañén retable, the closest stylistic and chronological relative. T h e St. Anthony Abbot, if his beard were shortened, would prove the same person as Simon of Cyrene lifting Our Lord's cross in the Via Dolorosa; the St. Michael is facially very like the incongruously youthful Virgin of the Deposition j the beggar receiving St. Martin's charity has many counterparts, especially in some of the companions of the philosopher Crato; and over the figures and countenances there plays Aponte's spectral chiaroscuro. Since the Buil panels could not have been very far removed in time from the Bolea retable, similarities to this earlier effort are not difficult to find, for example a more striking analogy of the St. Anthony to the priest of the Purification even than to the Grañén Simon of Cyrene; and contrariwise the St. Michael looks vividly forward to the archangel claiming the body of Moses in the Agreda altarpiece. Only the somewhat attenuated forms of St. Martin and the mendicant presage mannerism, and a moment slightly prior to the artist's employment at Grañén is suggested by the retention of the haloes of flat gold plaques, in opposition to his usual practice, and for Sts. Michael and Anthony, of the old convention of backings of rigid gorgeous textiles. 68 Not the near-lying Santa Maria de Buil. At Buil, the painter Francisco Baget was paid for a retable in 1495 (cf. R. del Arco in Archivo es-pañol de arte, X X , 1947, 2 2 j , and in Seminario de arte aragonés, IV, 1952, 62) ; but, since it was dedicated to the Virgin, it must have been for Santa Maria and has likewise been lost. In any case the subject matter of the panels in San Martin and their style of the Renaissance exclude them from identification with the document of 1495.

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«7

A panel in the Fundación Lázaro Galdeano at Madrid depicting the mounted Santiago in the peculiarly Spanish guise of Matamoros, Slayer of Moors, seems to me in every way to harmonize with a style that the painter afterward developed to a more mature expression. Some year before his commission at San Martín de Buil is proclaimed not only by the greater hardness of line but also by the persistence of the gold embossings of the Middle Ages; and yet, despite these adornments in raised stucco, the panel can scarcely have anteceded the Bolea retable because the types of St. James and his victims foretell more clearly Aponte's later conceptions of human beings, and because in general the correspondence to the style of Juan de Borgoña is less tangible. The most obvious proofs of his authorship are found in the two beardless Moors trampled under the white steed's hoofs, since their faces embody both his peculiarly individual chiaroscuro and a type to which he constantly resorts for youths, as in the pilgrim of Lorraine in the Grañén retable. The St. James lifting the pilgrim is only one of many bearded visages in the Master's output for comparison with the third Moor, and such a head as that of Christ in the Lamentation of the predella of the retable at Agreda may be selected likewise from numerous parallels to be set beside the countenance of the Lázaro Santiago himself. Even the somewhat poorly understood and articulated charger directly recalls the horse of St. Martin at Buil; and Santiago's cape flutters in the mode of the mantles of St. John in the Bolea Lamentation and of St. James holding the pilgrim of Lorraine at Grañén. It has been a great surprise to me to discover a work of Pedro de Aponte in a spot so distant from the seats of his known activity as the church of La Magdalena at Jaén. I find it hard to believe that, contrary to the usual restriction of most artists at the time to a single, general part of Spain, he had wandered from Aragón and Navarre far south into Andalusia, especially in view of his demonstrably almost continuous employment in the north and the many days that long journeys then required; and the likely explanation is that someone acquired the work in Aragón or Navarre or from a dealer and presented it to the Andalusian church. Shown by its style to have been executed probably during his last period, it consists of fragments of a retable: a compartment depicting the Virgin upon the pillar appearing to St. James Major (Fig. 31); and a bit of a predella with half-lengths of Sts. Anthony Abbot and

Fig. 31. PEDRO DE APONTE. APPARITION OF T H E VIRGIN OF T H E PILLAR T O ST. JAMES MAJOR. LA MAGDALENA, JAÉN {Photo. Gudiol)

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John Baptist, separated by a column (Fig. 32). The former panel is little else than a variant of the composition for the theme in the Grañén altarpiece, according to Aponte's habit of reiterating his cartoons. The St. James in both renderings, indeed, is nearly unaltered, except for the kneeling posture at Jaén. In the group of devotees who at the right balance the Apostle the increased manneristic expressiveness of Pedro's final evolution is very tangible. Of the two bald-pated devotees, for instance, the one at the left should be compared with the outermost man holding the cloth in front of the bishop in the panel of the episcopal procession to Monte Gargano in the Agreda retable or with a head at the upper right in the scene of Pilate washing his hands at Cintruénigo. The Baptist of the predella looks out at us with precisely the moist gaze of the Christ in the Cintruénigo Via Dolorosa. The angel at the upper left in the scene of the pillar has many exact counterparts in type and sfumatezza among Aponte's last productions, especially, at Olite, the St. John in the series of Evangelists. The kind of countenance used for the Virgin goes as far back in his career as the Madonna in the Nativity of the retable at Bolea. It is all but certain that we should attribute to Aponte the Lamentation over the Dead Christ at the centre of the conglomerate retable which was sold at the Anderson Galleries, New York, on April 26, 1 9 2 1 , and which on a later page 69 we shall find to be otherwise largely composed of panels by Pedro Diaz. The internal evidence implies that the Lamentation was painted about the time of the retable in S. Miguel at Agreda or perhaps at a slightly earlier moment. Either it would already have been combined with works of Pedro Diaz in whatever church was its source, or, if instead the dealer who acquired the pieces made the assemblage, he would naturally have conjoined pictures that he bought in the same edifice or at least vicinity. Aponte had succeeded Pedro Diaz in favor in the region of Agreda and Tarazona on one hand and of Huesca on the other, but the stylistic analogy to the retable at Agreda constitutes a kind of argument for the provenience of the Lamentation from the former of the two districts. No light is thrown for me upon the question by the third stratum in the conglomeration, two compartments of the Annunciation and Epiphany, since I am unable to determine their attribution.70 69

See p. 2 5 9 .

70

Ibid.

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The composition of the Lamentation varies somewhat from the cartoons that he ordinarily employed for the subject at Bolea or in his subsequent treatments, but the accordance with his methods of procedure is in other respects arresting. I was first led to think of Aponte as a likelihood by perceiving his curious sort of chiaroscuro on the faces of Christ and St. John, and with this starting-point we at once discover correspondences with the persons depicted in his securely authenticated works. Of his other treatments of Christ in the theme, the Bolea example agrees best with the figure in the panel that now concerns us. The St. John is one of the curly-pated youths whom the Master loves to depict, with the head tipped to the angle at which in such adolescents he is prone to represent it. Characteristic instances, among many, are one of the Moors in the panel of the Fundación Lázaro Galdeano, the St. Michael of San Martín de Buil, and the pilgrim of Lorraine at Grañén. The Magdalene, with her box of ointment, at the right, embodies a feminine type often used by Aponte, as in the most prominent lady listening to St. James's sermon at Grañén, and the holy woman above St. John resembles the Magdalene herself in the version of the Lamentation at Agreda both in profile and headdress. I have weighed the possibility that one of Aponte's followers might have painted the panel sold at the Anderson Galleries, but none of them in style or even in ability proves so plausible a candidate.

CHAPTER IV T H E SCHOOL OF PEDRO DE I.

APONTE

MARTÍN GARCÍA AND ANTONIO DE PLASENCIA

T h e somewhat confused publication and elucidation of the documents by Abizanda y Broto when dealing with the name Martin Garcia make it possible but not certain that there were two painters so named in the first half of the sixteenth century, one the successor of the other. In his work, Documentos fara la historia artística y literaria de Aragón, in all places except one he accumulates records and interprets them as referring to a single painter called Martin Garcia, whose activity may be followed from 1511 until his death in 15465 but the one exception obtrudes a flat contradiction, since in the first volume of his work, brought out in 1915, 1 when he summarizes the receipts of payment for a Martín Garcia's collaboration in the polychromy of the extant sculptured retable of St. Augustine in the cathedral, he states that they show Martin to have died in the early months of 1521, while laboring on the task, and that in the second of the receipts a son called after his father is set down as collecting the money. This would seem conclusive for the existence of two artists called Martín Garcia, but unfortunately such is not the case. T o begin with, Abizanda's chronology is muddled. H e enters as the date of the first payment for the polychromy to " M a r t í n Garcia, painter" April 2, 1521, but he assigns the contract for the job to October 7 of this year! One of the dates must be wrong, and, if October 7 is right, a time in the autumn is certainly not an early month in the year, when Abizanda declares the painter Martin Garcia to have departed this life. In the second receipt that he asserts to have been made out on M a y 2, 1521, the son who signs is described as dwelling in the town of Paniza (south of Cariñena), and Abizanda adduces an apparently somewhat later document, concerning a financial transaction, in which the son's profession is designated as agricultural. Instead of quoting, Abizanda merely epitomizes the document, but he seems to allege that the painter is definitely 1

Pp. 1 2 5 - 1 2 6 .

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said in it to be deceased. Of course, the son might have signed the second receipt for his father while the latter was still alive, but the document about the financial transaction, if summarized correctly by Abizanda, would appear to prove that a painter Martin Garcia had died in 1521 or shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, when the Spanish scholar comes to his second volume, published in 1917, 2 he gaily forgets all the above difficulties and writes of one painter, Martin Garcia, traceable from 1511 until death overtook him in 1546! I do not see how it is possible to extract from these contradictions the truth as to whether there were two pictorial homonyms, one doing the paintings assigned to him by documents until 1521 and the other the works recorded in the subsequent years. If there was a second painter Martin Garcia, he could scarcely have been the son of the receipt of 1521, who is designated as a farmer, but a nephew or some other relative. W e can hardly argue for a Martin Garcia II on the ground that a painter so-called married a Catalina Vallès in 1522, for artists by no means always undertake matrimony at an early age. W e shall find, however, that the supposition of a younger Martin Garcia would help us slightly in solving a stylistic problem presented by the altarpiece at Salient which is connected by document with a painter of this name. T h e considerable activity of a Martin Garcia in the polychromy of sculpture falls without our scope. Of the retables containing paintings that are recorded in the archives to have demanded his services apart from collaboration with any other painter, only one has survived that can with probability be related to a document, the example over the high altar of the church of S. Martin at Uncastillo, far north of Saragossa, in which, luckily for our purposes, painting plays the major rôle. In the execution of the imposing, extant retable at Salient de Gâllego he was joined with the painter Antonio de Plasencia, thus creating a difficult problem of attribution with which on a subsequent page we shall have to struggle. It is not necessary to rehearse the list of his other altarpieces which through my own travels, through the investigations of Abizanda, and through the kind offices of my Aragonese friends I have found to have perished either long since or in the civil war and which the interested reader can find recorded in the apposite pages of Abizanda's books. M y registration, in volume VIII, 3 of the paintings, besides the Alfajarin Master's altar2

Pp. 14 ft.

•'Pp. 1 4 2 - 1 4 6 .

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piece, at Alfajarin and my unpublished notes on the works of art in the town show that the Spanish scholar is wrong in supposing that there may have been preserved anything of the retable of the Magdalene which in 1 5 1 3 Martin Garcia contracted to execute in an ermita dedicated to her. In the same year the master agreed to do a retable at Villamayor, but an Epiphany that I discovered in an ermita- in the village, though still belonging to the sixteenth century, is too late in manner to have been a relic of the assemblage. The reason that I have been obliged above to confess that Martin Garcia's connection with the retable at Uncastillo cannot be described as more than probable is the somewhat unsatisfactory character of the documentation. Abizanda publishes an agreement of May 14, 1520, by which the painter Martin Garcia and the maker of the frames, a Miguel Morillo, consent to accept the arbitrament of two experts and of the parishioners in regard to the adequacy of a retable that they have promised to do in the church of S. Martin in the town, but the agreement refers to a contract of the same day which, if it exists, Abizanda does not include and which evidently contained what the second entry unfortunately lacks, i.e., a detailed description of the commissioners' desires in the monument. Since, therefore, there are two other, roughly contemporary, painted retables in the church and since the agreement of 1520 makes no specification whatsoever of the contents of the retable with which it is concerned, we cannot be absolutely certain that the panels over the high altar represent the work of Martin Garcia. One of the other retables, by a member of Aponte's circle different from the author of the principal altarpiece, will demand our analysis on a subsequent page.4 Of the second of these subordinate retables, in a chapel on the north side of the edifice and dedicated to St. Blaise, I have no photographs, but I find it stigmatized, in the notes that I took on the spot, as the production of a rather countrified imitator of the painter of the high altar. The preponderant likelihood is that the agreement of 1520 has to do with the retable over the high altar, inasmuch as documentary provisions of so elaborate a nature would scarcely have been drawn up for the retables of subordinate chapels and as it is hard to believe that the parishioners would have acted as judges of a contract's fulfilment in the case of secondary altarpieces, which probably would have been ordered by private patrons. A small but significantly cor4

P. 1 1 3 .

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roborative bit of evidence is provided by a baptismal entry of April 6, 1520, in the register of S. Martin, where it is stated that there acted as the sponsor of a child "the wife of the carver who made the retable of S. Martin." 5 The chronological approximation to the date of the document of May 14, 1520, renders it practically certain that both records have to do with the same retable, which would therefore be the structure over the high altar because it is designated as the retable of the church in the reference to the christening; and we are justified in calling the sponsor Señora Morillo. We need entertain, then, only the very slightest doubt that in the panels of the high altar we recover the personality of Martín Garcia, who, if there were really two of this name, would be the first by reason of the date 1520. The central vertical division of the retable is occupied, as so frequently, by sculpture, contemporary with the paintings and capably executed, a statue of St. Martin beneath an elaborate, late Gothic canopy and at the top the Crucifixion. The subjects of seven of the eight surrounding, painted scenes from the hallowed bishop's life are identifiable. He enjoys a vision of Christ wearing the garment that he had bestowed upon the beggar; he is flogged out of Milan by the Arians; consecrated bishop; the emperor Valentinian is constrained by supernatural flames about his throne to show favor to Martin; 6 a lad is resuscitated through the saint's prayers; thieves waylay Martin (out of order in the sequence because the event occurred before his elevation to the episcopate, as is indicated also in the picture by his secular garb); and then ensues the commonly depicted episode of his reception of the miraculous golden and jewelled sleeves at mass. The subject of the last compartment I did not note when at Uncastillo I studied the retable, and the photograph by the Mas Archive is too dim to afford much help; but it may be St. Martin's exorcism of the devil-ridden cow. In the predella, at the sides of a baroque tabernacle that has taken the place of whatever at this point the retable originally contained, there are aligned six scenes of the Passion, the Agony in the Garden, Betrayal, Flagellation (Fig. 33), Ecce Homo, Pilate Washing His Hands, and the Via Dolorosa (Fig. 34)5

Emilio Bayarte Arbuniés, EL arte en la villa de Uncastillo, Boletín del Museo de Bellas Artes de Zaragoza., II (i942), no. 2, 70, n. 1. 6 See vol. XI, p. 123.

FIG. 33. M A R T Í N GARCÍA. FLAGELLATION. PREDELLA OF RETABLE. SAN MARTÍN, UNCASTILLO

{Photo. Mas)

Fie. 34. M A R T Í N GARCÍA. VIA DOLOROSA. UNCASTILLO {Photo. Mas)

SAN M A R T Í N ,

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Stylistically, the precedents of Pedro de Aponte, as embodied at Bolea and Granen, before he had developed into a full-blown mannerist, are taken and accommodated to a lesser technical endowment and to a partial persistence of the heaviness that had characterized the school of Aragon in the second half of the fifteenth century. T h e compositions of the episodes of the Passion derive to a certain extent from the Bolea and Granen renderings. On an elevation in the background of the Via Dolorosa, for instance, the presumptive Martin Garcia copies from the Granen treatment Pedro's grim detail of the earlier arrival of the thieves on Calvary. Stimulated by this example, he even tried the same device for himself, depicting behind the actual Betrayal two of the terror-stricken Apostles fleeing up the side of a knoll. T h e human types likewise disclose an indebtedness to Pedro de Aponte. W e may select as outstanding instances: the right flagellator of Christ, imitated directly from two of the men who in the Granen retable are vouchsafed the vision of Our L a d y of the Pillar; the helmeted soldier at the centre of the Via Dolorosa, recalling the spectator in a high cap, viewing, at Granen, the hanged youth; a bearded head just behind the fellow flogging St. Martin at Milan, which is hardly distinguishable from that of Simon of Cyrene in the Granen rendering of the Via Dolorosa; and the lower of the two lads in the scene of Pilate Washing His Hands, exhibiting a kind of countenance that reverts to the adoring shepherd-boy in the Bolea Nativity. T h e painter of Uncastillo endeavors also to reproduce the weirdness of Aponte's chiaroscuro. T h e aesthetic atmosphere of Aragon, however, has modified the borrowings, bestowing upon the forms a good deal of the bulky solidity that the inhabitants of this part of Spain admired in themselves and consequently in their art, as especially in the scenes of St. Martin's flogging and the Saviour's scourging. Despite the fact that the Granen retable seems to have been more immediately present to the Uncastillo Master's mind than the specimen at Bolea, he continued to cling, not really understanding the embryonic mannerism of the later monument by Aponte, to the harder contours which in the Bolea altarpiece Pedro still retained. T h e paintings in the grandiose retable (Fig. 3 5 ) over the high altar of the church at Salient de Gallego (north of Jaca and close to the border of France) are thoroughly documented as works of a Martin Garcia collaborating with Antonio de Plasencia in the year 1 5 3 7 ; but the evidence is so complicated that it does not seem possible to decide

FIG. 35. MARTÍN GARCÍA AND ANTONIO DE PLASENCIA. HIGH ALTAR. SALLENT DE GÁLLEGO {Photo.

Mas)

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the fundamental questions as to which of the two masters was the dominating personality in the execution of the panels, exhibiting, as they do, a homogeneous style, or, if Martín Garcia was this personality, with what man of the name we have to do. T o begin with, it is not entirely established that the Uncastillo artist was a Martin Garcia, and in any case, the types of persons in the Salient retable, though also derived from Pedro de Aponte, are so different from those at Uncastillo that the artist could scarcely have succeeded, like Pedro, in developing into the out-and-out mannerist whom the Sallent panels reveal. If Martin was not responsible for the Uncastillo cycle and if he exercised the preponderant role at Salient, we should still vainly have to wrestle with the question of whether he incorporated a late phase of a single master of the name or whether he was a younger painter thus entitled. It is quite within the realm of credibility that Antonio de Plasencia, who at the time enjoyed a high reputation in painting as well as in polychromy, was the personality whose style dominated the monument, but here again we confront an insurmountable difficulty, since none of the rather numerous pictures assigned to him by documents is surely 7 preserved as a guide to his modes. W e are therefore not justified in any more precise attribution than the unsatisfactory attachment of both names to the Salient panels. A plausible, though far from certain, explanation of the stylistic homogeneity in the paintings is that either Martin or Antonio executed them wholly or almost wholly by himself, leaving to the partner the polychromy of the sculpture in the monument and of the frames. No end useful to our purposes would be served by registering here the series of the lost paintings of Antonio de Plasencia, who may be traced from 1527 until his death in 1557, or by recording the various carvings that he adorned with polychromy, since all these data are included in Abizanda's three volumes. T h e whole east end of the church at Salient was a princely enterprise, commissioned by the viceroy of Aragón, Juan de Lanuza, as a pious memorial to himself. Its architecture was ordered from the prominent builder, Juan de Segura, as early as 1525, 8 and in the actual retable the sculptured sections were done by no less a personage than Juan de Moreto, who, though at that time in partnership with two other sculptors, Miguel Peñaranda and Pedro Lasaosa,® may be 7

See below, p. 186. Documentos, II, 366. Ibid., 290.

8 Abizanda, 9

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credited with the execution of the carvings at Salient on stylistic evidence and also because on February i, 1537, he acknowledges partial payment for the work which he declares that he is then doing on the altarpiece.10 On the same day Martin Garcia and Antonio de Plasencia signed the document 11 that authenticates the paintings in the retable, their receipt for partial remuneration for the task upon which they too state that they are engaged. The sculpture by Juan de Moreto in the central, vertical division consists of a Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and, above, of the usual Crucifixion. The paintings, the extent and importance of which are signalized by the elevated price that the negotiators agreed upon, incorporate the following subjects: on either side of the Crucifixion, the actors in the Annunciation j in the next, lower tier, the Nativity, Epiphany, Resurrection, and Ascension; in the row beneath, adjacent to the bottom of the Virgin's statue, Pentecost and the Dormition but at the outer ends compartments with standing effigies of Sts. Benedict and Bernard; and in the predella, about the tabernacle, the customary scenes of the Passion, the Washing of the Apostles' Feet, Agony in the Garden (Fig. 36), Betrayal, Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns, and Via Dolorosa. The painter, whether a single Martin Garcia or a second artist of the name or Antonio de Plasencia, had plainly been formed under the influence of Pedro de Aponte. The types, the chiaroscuro, as on Christ in the Flagellation (Fig. 37), and the compositions for the Passion reflect such origins, but like Aponte in his late achievements, the master of Salient has evolved this phase of Aragonese art into full-fledged mannerism. He takes over in the Passion his inspirer's tendency to introduce arresting episodes in the backgrounds, depicting in the Via Dolorosa, as in the version in Aponte's retable at Granen, the condemned malefactors tugging up the hill of Golgotha, and showing us in the Betrayal, as in the rendering by Pedro's follower at Uncastillo, two Apostles climbing in fright an eminence in the distance. So the holy women descend a slope to ascertain eventually the fact of the stupendous miracle of the Resurrection occurring in the foreground, and perhaps by his own invention the Salient painter introduces behind the Agony in the Garden the dramatic incident of the approaching Judas with the soldiers finding one group of the 10 11

Ibid., 273. Abizanda, ibid.,

2;.

Fig. 36. M A R T Í N GARCÍA AND ANTONIO DE PLASENCIA. AGONY IN THE GARDEN. HIGH ALTAR. SALLENT DE GÁLLEGO

{Photo. Mas)

FIG. 37. MARTÍN GARCÍA. FLAGELLATION. HIGH ALTAR. SALLENT DE GÁLLEGO {Photo.

Mas)

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Apostles sunk in unwatchful slumber. It is particularly in these smaller figures in the backgrounds that the master of Salient indulges to a greater degree than Aponte in one of the characteristics of mannerism, an affection for strident contrasts of bright color, but in general he does not permit himself the extreme violence and capriciousness that mark the ultimate stage of Aponte's development. One of the reasons, among many others, tending to forbid us to see in the Salient retable the painter of Uncastillo at a subsequent date in his career is the greater proficiency of the panels in the later monument. I have long deliberated whether to treat at this point or to consign to the limbo of Aragonese works of unascertained attribution two panels from a single retable now in the Koenigsberg Collection, Buenos Aires, displaying the effigies of Sts. Anthony Abbot and Stephen, paired between columns of the Renaissance, and St. George's discomfiture of the dragon, but I have finally decided, perhaps rashly, that there are enough links with the retable of St. Martin at Uncastillo to discuss them in connection with its no more than probable author, Martin Garcia. The imitation of Pedro de Aponte's distinctive chiaroscuro and, to a certain extent, of his types places them in his school, and the similarities to the presumptive Martin Garcia in this school certainly deserve consideration. Most impressive is the resemblance of the St. Stephen to the scourger at the right in the Uncastillo Flagellation. The glowering expression of the scourger is natural to his action, but the analogous grimness of the protomartyr does not accord with his true personality and may be interpreted as an example of general Aragonese sternness. The marked straight line through the forehead and the nose in St. Stephen is a common phenomenon in the Uncastillo panels, illustrated, for instance, by the seated man holding Christ's rope in the scene before Pilate, but the closest parallel, curiously enough, appears in the youth at the right in the Crowning with Thorns in the retable at Salient de Gallego, a point that may be taken for what it is worth as an argument for assigning to Martin Garcia in this retable the role of chief performer. To get the St. Anthony you have only to lengthen the beard of many of the actors in the Uncastillo altarpiece, especially the man at the left in the balcony who looks down upon the Flagellation; but here again the nearest approximation is found at Salient de Gallego, namely in the Christ of the Agony in the Garden. The less strongly characterized St. George is a kind of youth not hard to duplicate in the paintings

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ascribed to Martin Garcia, but the princess in the background is a type in Aragonese art that goes back to Bermejo and agrees somewhat with the women depicted by the Huesca Master, who, however, is not in general so persuasive a candidate for the attribution.

2.

T H E EGEA

MASTER

For another member of Aponte's circle, not the same as the painter or any one of the painters of the altarpieces of St. Martin at Uncastillo and of the Virgin at Salient, we may choose the nome of the Egea Master because his retable is more advanced and technically better than another of the early sixteenth century at Egea de los Caballeros which has concerned us in a former chapter.12 Both are in the church of Sta. Maria, and the example by our Master is now placed at the right of the high altar. The central theme is the Coronation (Fig. 38), and round about are six other Joys of the Virgin, her Birth (anomalously substituted for the usual first member of the series of Joys, 13 the Annunciation), the Epiphany, Resurrection, Ascension, Dormition, and Pentecost. The author, whose attainments, though superior to those of his rival in the church, were scarcely above those of an honest caterer to the pious trade, takes Aponte's figures and partially empties them not only of their distinction in craft but also of incisiveness in characterization. The dependence of the types upon Aponte is particularly tangible in the Christ and puffy-cheeked angels of the Coronation. The nature of these types, especially their dryness, would imply a date as tardy as the second decade of the sixteenth century, but their creator reveals no cognizance of Aponte's eventual sympathy with mannerism. Plainly we owe to the Egea Master, perhaps at a slightly prior moment in his career, two paintings of the Nativity and Epiphany in the episcopal palace at Tarazona but of undivulged ultimate provenience.14 The Virgin and Child in the Epiphany (Fig. 39), for instance, practically repeat the corresponding actors in the retable of the Coronation j the St. Joseph in the Nativity belongs to a class of older men with shaggy beards for whom the artist has a predilection; the Pentecost at Egea de los Caballeros affords several examples of 12 P. 18. " Vol. V I I I , p. 294. 14 It is hard for me to believe that, as has been alleged, they are painted on copper or that they are not relics of another retable.

FIG. 38. T H E EGEA MASTER. CORONATION. L A T E R A L A L T A R . STA. MARIA, EGEA DE LOS CABALLEROS (Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 39- T H E EGEA MASTER. EPIPHANY. EPISCOPAL PALACE, TARAZONA {Photo.

Mas)

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St. Joseph's excited eyes; and the child-angels adoring their newborn Lord are like the putti in the compartment of the Coronation at Egea. The relation to Aponte is vividly brought forth in the St. Joseph of the Epiphany, who is a faithful, albeit somewhat weakened, edition of the St. Anthony at Santa Maria de Buil; and the actual composition of the scene appears to have been suggested by Aponte's version in the altarpiece at Bolea. In this compartment, the Egea Master exerted himself a little more than was his wont, drawing with a bit greater care and enlivening the left background with a portico of the Renaissance under which a few of the Magi's suite are beguiling their time in conversation, while one of their number naturalistically peers round a wall to interlope upon the sacred scene. With his breadth of knowledge of even the remote corners of Spanish art and with his lynx-like eyes, Angulo 15 has justly detected the Egea Master's craft in two pieces from a retable in the Museo de Navarra, Pamplona, seated figures of Sts. Bartholomew (Fig. 40) and Quiteria, fitting iconographic companions because the former has the emblem of the fettered devil and the other the attribute of the chained victim of hydrophobia. Purchased for the Museum by the eminent scholar, Don José E. Uranga, to whose unremitting kindness my studies owe so much and in this case the photographs, they afford probably another of the few instances of the percolation of Aragonese art into Navarre, since it is likely that the seller resided in this part of the peninsula and thence obtained his wares. Without causing any discord, St. Bartholomew, even with the locks falling upon his forehead, could join the company of the Apostles in the Ascension and Pentecost at Egea or be substituted for the standing Apostle at the foot of the bed in the Tarazona Dormition ; and it is to be noted that on the Apostle at the lower right in the Ascension the drapery at the bottom assumes precisely the swirl which we observe beneath St. Bartholomew's leg. A close analogue for the St. Quiteria emerges in the Virgin of the Tarazona Epiphany. T o the rather exiguous deposit of this Master's works that time has spared us I should like to add a whole retable which I have but recently come to know, in the parish church of Orés, just north of Egea de los Caballeros (Fig. 41). Dedicated to St. Bartholomew, it displays him seated in the principal compartment, flanked in lateral compartments by two likewise sitting Apostles, Sts. Peter and James 13

Pintura del Renacimiento, p. 76.

FIG. 40. THE EGEA MASTER. ST. BARTHOLOMEW. MUSEO DE NAVARRA, PAMPLONA {Photo.

Uranga)

FIG. 41. THE EGEA MASTER. RETABLE. PARISH CHURCH, ORÉS {Photo.

Mas)

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iii

Major. The Crucifixion finds its regular place in the central pinnacle, and at its sides are two common scenes from St. Bartholomew's life, his exorcism of the daughter of King Polemius and a somewhat less sanguinary than usual representation of his flaying. The predella marshals another series of seated saints, reading from left to right Fabian, Sebastian, Michael, a bishop with the emblem of a sword whom I cannot identify, and Barbara. The distinctive chiaroscuro at once brings the retable into the circle of Pedro de Aponte's followers, among whom the Egea Master is proved the author especially by the human types. The St. Bartholomew in the main compartment, as well as in the scene of exorcism, vividly recalls, even in the matter of the straggly bangs, several of the Apostles in the Ascension and Pentecost of the Egea altarpiece. Very similar is the St. Bartholomew in the Museo de Navarra, Pamplona, although the chained demon is somewhat varied. The St. James at Ores belongs to the same masculine category. The St. Peter, especially in the play of light and shade, reveals many analogies to the St. Joseph in the Tarazona Epiphany. The flayers of St. Bartholomew have a counterpart in the St. John of the Egea Dormition.

3.

W O R K S OF U N A S C E R T A I N E D A U T H O R S H I P IN P E D R O DE A P O N T E ' S C I R C L E

The parish church at Bolea contains not only the great retable over the high altar by Aponte but in a chapel to the left of it a sculptured retable to which is attached a predella painted by a member of his immediate entourage. The style is so close to Aponte's early modes as to compel us to weigh the possibility of his personal craft, but, after much pondering of the problem, I have come to the conclusion that, although he may have received the commission and even done a very little of the execution, the panels are, at least in the main, the work of a pupil not equivalent to any of the other followers whom we have isolated, unless just conceivably but very far from certainly he might eventually have developed into the mannerist of Salient. He exhibits resemblances to the Egea Master, but in the end I have been obliged to reject the idea of identity. Despite the fact that the majority of the compartments in the predella are divorced in theme from the sculptures in the body of the retable, the consideration that two of them set forth episodes in the

ii2

SCHOOL O F P E D R O D E A P O N T E

story of St. Sebastian, who is the central figure above, strongly implies that the predella was a part of the original structure and not imported from another, otherwise lost altarpiece, especially since, in size, pattern of the Gothic frames, and date assignable by style, the paintings correspond with the carvings. The subjects of the five statues, carried out by some competent but as yet unrecognized artist of the commencement of the Renaissance (although the surmounting canopies and frames remain Gothic), are in the middle division St. Sebastian as the chief recipient of honor and, in the lateral sections and in slightly smaller scale, Sts. Roch, Nicasius,16 Fabian,17 and a canonized monk without any distinguishing emblem. The centre of the predella displays the subject frequent for the spot, Christ of the Passion between two angels. The two scenes from the story of St. Sebastian are his arrest, while he is encouraging Sts. Marcus and Marcellianus at the instant of their martyrdom amidst the sorrowing women of their family, 18 and his indictment before Diocletian. If, as I believe, the paintings and statues were from the first a single assemblage, the intent appears to have been a not infrequent one, namely to honor a heterogeneous galaxy of heavenly advocates. Another pair of panels in the predella are dedicated to St. Vincent, depicting his arraignment 19 and torture on the eculeus, but the two additional pieces extend still farther the hagiological inclusiveness, depicting the stigmatization of St. Francis and a theme that I do not remember having encountered before, the Guardian Angel of the Kingdom standing upon a rock and worshipped by a group of diversified mortals kneeling at a lower level. The stylistic achievement embodied in the predella so edges upon Pedro de Aponte's own accomplishments that we may hazard at least 16 St. Denis also carries his severed head as an emblem, but I take it that thè' sacred personage meant is St. Nicasius who was more generally popular in Spain. For some reason that I cannot explain, St. Nicasius was often represented in conjunction with St. Sebastian: cf. vol. II, p. 1 2 1 (in a retable now in the Museo Arqueológico, Madrid), vol. VII, p. 254, in the contract of Martín Garcia in 1 5 1 6 for a lost retable in S. Agustín at Saragossa (Abizanda, Documentos, II, 1 9 ) , and my article in the Gazette ¿es beaux-arts, December, 1954, p. 325. 17 A bishop with the iron instrument of the woolcombers would naturally be thought St. Blaise, but St. Fabian, who likewise carries this object as an attribute, is a regular iconographic companion of St. Sebastian and is sometimes represented as a simple bishop rather than as pope: cf. vol. X , p. 460. 18 Vol. VII, p. 291. 19 Since, however, St. Vincent is ordinarily represented as arraigned with his bishop, St. Valerius, it is possible that the prisoner in the Bolea compartment is rather St. Lawrence and that the number of celestial patrons in the altarpiece is thereby increased.

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113

the hypothesis that the undertaking was carried out under his supervision and that here and there he may actually have taken upon himself some slight part in the manual labor, as in the witness in the foreground against St. Sebastian or as in the figure of the Guardian Angel. In general, however, the drawing seems to my eyes less sure, the contours less firm, and the whole effect, if I may be allowed the word, "fuzzier." The soldier behind the arraigned St. Vincent and under the window is derived from the strange type of humanity, with receding chin, incorporated by Aponte at Granen in the correspondingly placed guard in the scene where St. John is brought into the presence of Domitian; and, although the predella still clings in the main to the more archaic modes of the retable of the Bolea high altar, yet there are other factors to show that it could not have been painted prior to Pedro's activity on the Granen commission, the nascent mannerism of which, nevertheless, failed to arouse for the most part the author's interest. A much less intimate kinship with Aponte's style is revealed by a subordinate retable in the church of S. Martin at Uncastillo, an edifice that thus proves to contain no less than three works 20 related to the master; but it necessitates only a little looking to perceive that Pedro's attainments constituted the fundamental inspiration of the author, by whom I have as yet discovered no other production. The central section is reserved for a synchronous and by no means negligible statue of the Madonna under an elaborate, carved canopy. Correspondingly rich baldacchini surmount the two paintings at the sides, at the left the Anna selbdrtit and at the right, against a setting of architecture of the Renaissance and of landscape, St. Catherine together with the virgin martyr St. Eurosia,21 so popular in northern Aragon, where she had suffered as a victim of the Moors. In the predella, about the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, there are ranged the scenes of the Annunciation (Fig. 42), Nativity, Purification, and Flight into Egypt. The heritage from Aponte is decidedly modified, especially in the types of humanity; but even some of these bespeak their derivation, for instance the woman who, looking at the Virgin in the Purification, reiterates a curious kind of haggard countenance that Pedro much affected. The painter of Uncastillo also preserves a good deal of his inspirer's distinctive chiaroscuro. The 20

See above, p. 94. Vol. XII, p. 3381 and below, p. 1 6 2 . In the Uncastillo panel she carries no identifying- emblem but is named in the inscription in her halo. 21

FIG. 42.

CIRCLE OF PEDRO DE APONTE. LATERAL RETABLE. ANNUNCIATION. SAN M A R T f N , UNCASTILLO

{Photo. Mas)

SCHOOL OF P E D R O DE A P O N T E

"5

modification of Aponte's manner seems to have taken place under the influence of Esteban Solorzano and his followers, who partly controlled the market in the region of the province of Huesca adjacent to Uncastillo. The composition for the Annunciation appears in the retables of Lascasas and Loarre, which belong to this division of the Aragonese school and the latter of which provides also examples of the odd haloes of combined straight and zigzag rays often employed in the Uncastillo altarpiece. The Flight into Egypt is the only composition really similar to any known one connected with Aponte, the version in the Olite retable, which, to be sure, postdates the Uncastillo rendering and was actually executed by an assistant but would embody Pedro's design and may reflect an earlier, lost treatment of the subject by him. Don Diego Angulo, 22 however, with his detective's eye for discerning the traces of the influence of German prints in Spanish art, espies in the retable reminiscences of Diirer; and indeed the compositions of the Purification and the Flight into Egypt appear to be based definitely upon the Teuton's woodcuts of these subjects in the cycle of the Life of the Virgin, and somewhat less manifestly the Annunciation and Nativity. Nevertheless, in all such cases of works done in the same region, it remains a question how far a given painter took directly from the prints or from the generally diffused, compositional models in his district for which only one or two artists may have gone directly to the German sources. Some contact with Antwerp mannerism is also felt by Angulo in the Uncastillo retable, which quite possibly incorporates such a relationship in matters like the thin, elongated forms and the hazy landscapes. For this reason we could be permitted the venturesome surmise that the Uncastillo painter might just conceivably be the Juan de Lovaina (Louvain) whose style is not known to us by any preserved documented or signed achievement, but we shall find another claimant for the identification. 23 22 23

Pintura

del Renacimento,

See below, p. 1 7 1 .

p. 76.

CHAPTER V ANTONIO DE

ANIANO

W i t h only a high degree of probability, since the documentation is not adequately specific, we recover the personality of this painter through the capacious retable over the high altar of the parish church at Castejón de Valdejasa, north of Saragossa; but no sooner have we thus with almost certain clarity added the style of a new artist to the annals of Aragón than we are balked by a failure to recognize more than one or two other extant works by his hand, although rivals of his to whom we cannot give a definite name are more extensively preserved. T h e documentation 1 consists merely of two receipts given by him on December 10, 1523, and March 31, 1526, for partial payments for a retable at Castejón de Valdejasa upon which at least in 1523 he was still engaged. T h e nature and subjects of the retable are not stated j but, since it was ordered by the municipal council of the town, it must have been for the parish church, and the amount of the two payments, 1000 sueldos each, and the declaration that a larger sum is to follow, would have added up to a sum, in comparison with the prices for other retables at the time, sufficient for the large structure over the high altar. Furthermore, inasmuch as it is most unlikely that two important retables should have been ordered for the church at the same time, the twenties of the sixteenth century to which the style assigns the work in question, we can scarcely doubt that the monument at Castejón de Valdejasa discovers for us Antonio's manner. O u r earliest acquaintance with him occurs on July 6, 1 5 1 1 , when his wife receives partial payment for a (lost) retable in the church of S. Agustín, Saragossa. 2 T h e next date in his life is that of his arrangement of a partnership with Pedro de Aponte on September 16, 1 5 1 1 , which we have had occasion to discuss in our treatment of the latter artist 3 and the results of which have not been preserved. In November of 1 5 1 1 , which appears to have been a busy year for him, A b i z a n d a y Broto, Documentos, I I , 31. F o r the documents specifically on Antonio de A n i a n o , see A b i z a n d a , ibid., 24—27, and II, 29—31. 3 See above, p. j o . 1

2

I,

ANTONIO D E

ANIANO

117

he agreed to paint a retable for the town of Beteta in the northeastern corner of the province of Cuenca on the border of Aragon. H e must have been a leading figure in the artistic circles of Saragossa because at the end of 1 5 1 7 we find him playing a prominent role in the reform of the regulations promulgated by the Confraternity of Painters. 4 On January 7, 1 5 1 7 , he is recorded as witness to a document,5 and on November 22, 1526, he was remunerated for assistance on a retable in the town of Salcedillo in the province of Teruel, which, so far as my knowledge goes, no longer exists. More important, as we shall see, is the information that in 1 5 2 1 , now in partnership with Martin Garcia, he was doing the polychromy of the extant sculptured retable of St. Augustine in L a Seo, Saragossa, which was designed by Gil de Morlanes and executed by Gabriel Joly. February 10, 1 5 2 2 , increases his multiple activity by showing him as appraiser of art,6 and our last mention of him is on August 29, 1 5 2 7 , once more in the capacity of a witness.7 T h e retable of Castejon de Valdejasa exhibits at the centre a statue of the Madonna, to whom the church is dedicated, contemporary with the paintings, which, in the upper of the two rows in the body of the structure, represent scenes from her story, reading unusually from right to left, the Meeting at the Golden Gate, Annunciation ( F i g . 4 3 ) , Nativity, and Epiphany. T h e second row aligns four standing effigies of saints: M a r y Magdalene; 8 Onuphrius; a virgin martyr with the attribute of a knife, who is probably not Eurosia, although she was honored in the region, but Christina, who also is distinguished by a knife and was the patroness of the great monastery of Santa Cristina de Sumo Portu, at Canfranc north of Jaca, an institution of which Castejon de Valdejasa was an appanage; and Ursula (Fig. 44). T h e Crucifixion takes its regular position in the central pinnacle. T h e middle of the predella is lost or hidden by the present tabernacle, and at the sides are six saints, each magnificently enthroned in the old Aragonese fashion, Babiles, 9 Lucy, Peter, Paul, Roch, and, as a pendant to Babiles, another canonized bishop whom it defies my 4 5

6 7

See above, p. 8. Abizanda y Broto, o f . cit., I,

Ibid., II, 29. Ibid., I, 131.

114.

8 T h e handles of her vessel of ointment look like serpents, but I do not know of any female saint who has an emblem a cup from which snakes issue. T h e Magdalene, though not a martyr, sometimes bears the palm: cf. my vol. V I , p. 2 4 8 , n. 1. 9 See below, p. 2 9 2 .

FIG. 43. ANTONIO D E ANIANO. A N N U N C I A T I O N IN T H E HIGH A L T A R . CASTEJÓN D E VALDEJASA (Photo. Mas)

FIG. 44. ANTONIO DE ANIANO. ST. URSULA IN THE HIGH ALTAR. CASTEJÓN DE VALDEJASA {Photo. Mas)

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ANTONIO D E

ANIANO

powers to name. Nor can I descry more than a few of the subjects of the guardafolvos. T h e Eternal Father, as frequently, is at the top, and of the half-lengths on the two cross-pieces the one at the left displays a pair of angels with symbols of the Passion and that at the right two feminine saints with what is apparently the escutcheon of Castejon de Valdejasa between them. T h e principal uprights are occupied by six full-length figures of sacred personages, among whom I recognize only two, an angel with the veronica at the upper right and, of the five others, all haloed women, at the upper left St. Martha with her pot of holy water. T h e style, already edging upon the High Renaissance, owes little to Antonio's predecessors of the fifteenth century or to his contemporaries and is very Italianate. Ignorant as we are of his antecedents, we may permit ourselves, perhaps wrongly, the assumption that he was trained in the Italian Veneto. Both his types and his sfumatezza suggest that he may have been cognizant of Romanino's attainments. It is hard to find any artist in the rest of Spain with whom he seems closely affiliated or thus to deduce that, like Pedro de Aponte, he was an immigrant into Aragon. Possibly, if any of his early productions had come down to us, we could learn something of his origins. Not an artist of the first rank, he yet possesses distinctive qualities that he has the capacity for realizing. In his feminine saints, he shows some feeling for heroic, Sophoclean women. Although the compositions for the narrative are traditional, he conceives some of his actors originally. T h e St. Joseph in the Nativity is not the usual bearded old man, but younger, clean-shaven, and curly-headed. T h e St. Roch departs from the staid solemnity of his companions in the predella and assumes an agitated pose, perhaps under the influence of nascent mannerism. Despite the fact that the human types and the architectural settings belong to the Renaissance, he still retains the brilliant old textiles as hangings behind his single effigies. In our paltry legacy from the presumptive Antonio de Aniano, the only other work that with confidence I can assign to him is a small panel 1 0 in the Provincial Museum, Saragossa, coming from an unascertained place in the city or its province and depicting paired, seated saints, Faith, the young French virgin martyr rarely encountered in Spanish art, and Catherine of Siena ( F i g . 4 5 ) . St. Faith belongs to the class of his nobly conceived maidens, but the clinching 10

T h e dimensions are 63 centimetres in height by 4 1 in width.

FIG. 45. ANTONIO DE ANIANO. ST. FAITH AND ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA. PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA {Photo. Mas)

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ANTONIO DE

ANIANO

proof is the St. Catherine who absolutely repeats a highly individualized stern feminine type peculiar to Antonio and illustrated by St. Anne and her attendant in the Meeting at the Golden Gate in the retable of Castejón. T h e countenance of St. Faith herself is closely paralleled at Castejón in the angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin in the Epiphany. T h e hands of both saints are precisely the rather loosely delineated, flaccid specimens characteristic of Antonio and constituting one of his defects or negligencies. Francisco Abbad Ríos 11 suggests that Antonio de Aniano may have done, in the chapel of St. Augustine in L a Seo, Saragossa, the painted base of the sculptured retable which was designed by Gil de Morlanes and executed by Gabriel Joly, probably because he acted as surety for the sculptors when they made the contract in 1520 and because in 1521, together with Martín Garcia, he was doing the polychromy of the carvings; 12 but the argument would apply practically as well to Martín Garcia, and the paintings afford little evidence since they consist merely of passages on either side of the altar, plaques of arabesques surrounding a medallion of the L a m b of G o d and framed by narrower compartments harboring erect figures of the four Fathers of the Church, not distinctive in style. I am ashamed to confess that in my visits to the cathedral I failed to study the base, and there are no adequate photographs. Moreover, it is generally stated by Aragonese writers on art, without giving any real authority for the attribution, for instance by Abizanda, 1 3 that it was painted instead (necessarily as an early work) by another master, Jerónimo Cosida Vallejo. 11 12 13

La Seo y el Pilar de Zaragoza, See above, p. 1 1 7 . Of. cit.y I I I ( 1 9 3 2 ) , 23.

M a d r i d , 1948, p. 60.

CHAPTER VI THE

SIJENA

MASTER

In the consideration of this artist, who quite or more than vies with Pedro de Aponte for first place in the annals of Aragonese painting of the early Renaissance, we are confronted at the beginning with the unhappy obligation of undoing the tendency that has recently been growing among the local scholars of his part of the peninsula to identify him with the sculptor Damián Forment, whom we have found 1 to have exercised also the trade of a painter. L o n g ago the great French pioneer in the scientific investigation of the Gothic centuries and of the Renaissance in Spain, Bertaux, 2 was led by the Sijena Master's solid forms and by his architectural settings 3 to suggest that Damián Forment as a sculptor was his teacher. In 1933, the Aragonese critic, Soldevila Faro, 4 went a little farther, proposing, to be sure as a mere conjecture, that the Sijena Master might be Damián Forment himself. T h e third and final step in the endeavor to equate the Sijena Master and Forment was taken in 1942 by Abizanda y Broto, 5 who very definitely championed the opinion and tried to support it by proclaiming a stylistic identity between the Sijena Master's productions and the one documented work of Forment as a painter, the predella from San Mateo de G á l l e g o now in the M u s e u m of Saragossa. But by performing the invaluable service of publishing the contract for the panels from S. Mateo de Gállego and by thus establishing the style of Forment as a painter, Abizanda brought about a result the diametrical opposite of what he intended: the Sijena Master and the painter Forment are, contrary to Abizanda's contention, so remote from each other in manner that they could not conceivably be one and the same artist. O u r previous analysis 6 of Forment's style in painting demonstrates not only that his mild Valencian mood in this phase of his activity is entirely different from the 1 See my article in Miscellánia Puig i Cadajalch, Barcelona, v o l . I ( 1 9 5 1 ) , and my v o l . X I , p. 143. 2 C a t a l o g u e of the Exposición retrospectivo de arte, Saragossa, 1908, pp. 65—66. 3 See b e l o w , p. 140. 4 Aragón, November, 1933, pp. 2 1 2 and 2 1 4 . 5 In his m o n o g r a p h on Damián torment, Barcelona, 1942, pp. 25—26. 6 C f . above, n . i .

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MASTER

hard, bold nature of the Sijena Master, in essence Aragonese whatever his geographical origin, but also that their types and technical procedures are sharply contrasted. Abizanda's divulgation of the predella from San Mateo de Gallego even proved that Soldevila had not been right in his no more than cautious supposition. T h e language of Abizanda was perhaps meant to suggest that the manner of the predella, if it were on a larger scale, would resemble more closely the style of the Sijena Master; but the fundamental modes of an artist do not vary whether he works in big or little compass, and the remains of the predella of the Sijena Master's retable for the high altar of the church at Sijena reveal that he maintained here precisely the same style as in the major compartments. I have also rejected in a previous publication 7 Abizanda's less enthusiastic endeavor to ascribe to the Sijena Master (for him, Forment) the paintings in the now destroyed retable at Binefar. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Sijena Master is proved not to be identical with Forment, the strange thing is that he exhibits some characteristics which we should have expected Forment to embody in the field of painting. T h e compositions of the Sijena Master are not those of Forment when their themes coincide, and the actual human types are even less similar to Damian's sculpture than are the figures in the predella from San Mateo de Gallego; but the keen vision of Bertaux was right in discerning the powerfully blocked out forms and sharp contours that might imply a sculptural training, and we shall discover an iconographical peculiarity in the Sijena Master's production justifying the guess that, like Forment, he had perhaps emigrated from the Valencian school into Aragon. A natural deduction would be that he may have been a member of Forment's shop who had accompanied the head of the organization from Valencia to the new seat of activity; but, since no painter of Aragon at any period possessed a style that was more solidly and entirely Aragonese, he must quickly have succumbed to the aesthetics of his new home, or, as a matter of fact, it is just as likely that he was an Aragonese who joined Forment's atelier after the great sculptor's arrival in the province and that he acquired from him or from some other source the iconographical detail. W e shall subsequently find that the stylistic relationship between him and the Alcira Master of Valencia cannot be used to support the hypothesis of his provenience from this 7

My article in Miscellania Puig i Cadafalch, I.

T H E SIJENA

MASTER

125

city. In any case we have no grounds for recognizing in the Sijena Master the Mateo Ferrer of Lérida who is documented as frescoing the refectory of the convent of Sijena in 1502 8 and whom Gudiol Ricart 9 states to have been a son of our old friend, the painter Jaime Ferrer I I . 1 0 It is quite possible that Mateo should have survived the fifteen years or so that intervened before the dates of the Sijena Master's retables; but, since the whitewash that long ago was spread over his frescoes in the refectory had in modern times peeled off only in a few slight and indeterminate spots 1 1 and since, I believe, even what could be seen of the frescoes perished in the almost complete destruction that befell the convent during the Spanish civil war, we lack the means of investigating whether their style jibed with the Sijena Master's panels. Tormo 1 2 surmises that the Master's initials may be embodied in the Roman capitals I E N on the escutcheon over the Golden Gate in the panel of the meeting of Sts. Joachim and Anne that from his retable for the high altar of Sijena has entered the Museum of Huesca j but he finds no artist to whom they could refer, nor have I had any better luck in the search. Certainly they cannot be the initials of the princess María Jiménez de Urrea under whose incumbency the retable was made. Just as plausibly we could wish to discern painter's initials in the M R on the similar escutcheon, upheld by two angels, over the Gate of the H o l y City in the panel of the Entry into Jerusalem, which is among the sections of the retable that used to be preserved at Albelda. Equally baffling, in the Albelda series, is the P clearly inscribed on the builder's rule of St. Thomas, and, in reverse, on the axe of St. Matthias, as well as the S visible on the point of St. Matthew's spear. So far as we are acquainted with the Sijena Master's production, the retable over the convent's high altar formed his major achieve8 T h e contract is published by Mariano de Pano in the Revista de Aragón, January, 1904, p. 56. Ricardo del Arco misprints the surname as Pérez in an article in Veil i nou, J u l y i, 1 9 1 9 , p. 250, and again as late as 1 9 4 2 in his Catálogo monumental de España: Huesca^ p. 408, but meanwhile in another article of 1 9 2 1 in the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X X I X , 53 and 59, he adopted the form Ferrer. 9 Historia de la pintura gótica en Cataluña, Barcelona, 1 9 4 4 , p. 4 7 . 10 M y vols. VII, p. 5 2 5 , and V I I I , p. 643. 11 Mariano de Pano, El real monasterio de Sijena, Lérida, 1 8 8 3 , p. 4 5 . 12 Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones, X V I I ( 1 9 0 9 ) , 236. See also Catálogo de los objetos que contiene el Museo Provincial de Huesca, second edition, Huesca, 1 9 0 J , p. 5.

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MASTER

ment and was one of the vastest of all Spanish altarpieces, with a tremendous number of compartments. T h e lowest tier had already been painted by a predecessor as early as about 1 3 2 0 but has long since entirely disappeared, and it was the second and third tiers that, after a lapse of two centuries, the Sijena Master executed, completing his task in 1 5 1 9 . 1 3 Dedicated to the Virgin, the convent's patroness, the retable was dismantled to give place to a sculptured, baroque structure of the early seventeenth century, and the parts by the Sijena Master, so far as preserved, are now dispersed through many collections. A considerable group of pieces, proved by internal evidence to have been undisputably sections of the retable over the high altar at Sijena, were at some unrevealed date and for some undiscovered reason relegated to the parish church at Albelda, near Tamarite de Litera in the same province and not too far distant from Sijena. Bertaux does not seem to have been cognizant of the Albelda series; but they were all fortunately photographed by the enterprising Señor Mora of Saragossa and partly also by the Archivo de Arqueología Catalana before they tragically perished in the civil war, and I myself enjoyed the privilege of studying some of the originals on the spot in 1933. Of the ten large panels of the Virgin's life from the main body of the structure which were known to Bertaux 14 in 1908, four have been in the Museum of Huesca for a great number of years, the Meeting at the Golden Gate, Nativity of Our L a d y , Annunciation (Fig. 46), and Visitation. T h e compartment of the young Christ Among the Doctors is one of the most precious among the many treasures of the Muntadas Collection at Barcelona and has now passed with the rest of the Collection to the Museum of Catalan Art in that city ( F i g . 4 7 ) , and the Birth of Christ, which Bertaux saw still at Sijena, belonged, at my last acquaintance with it, to M r . Tomas Harris in London. T h e Presentation of the Virgin ( F i g . 48) and the Ascension (Fig. 49) have recently emerged in an English collection, after a long absence from our knowledge. Bertaux states that the Epiphany had already been sold, before he wrote his article, to an unascertained destination, and it has not since come forth from its hiding-place. Inasmuch as at my first visit to the convent in 1926 the kindly nuns were very generous in opening to me all parts of the institution and their contents, it is to be deduced that by this time the remaining 13 Mariano de Pano, El real monasterio de Sijena, p. 74. Unfortunately he does not state his authority for the date 1 5 1 9 . 14 Of. cit., p. 66.

FIG. 46. T H E SIJENA M A S T E R . ANNUNCIATION. MUSEUM, HUESCA {Photo. Emile Bertaux)

PROVINCIAL

FIG. 47. T H E SIJENA M A S T E R . CHRIST AMONG T H E DOCTORS. MUSEUM OF C A T A L A N A R T , BARCELONA {Photo. Mas)

FIG. 48. T H E SIJENA MASTER. PRESENTATION OF T H E VIRGIN. PRIVATE COLLECTION, ENGLAND

Fig. 49. THE SIJENA MASTER. ASCENSION. PRIVATE COLLECTION, ENGLAND

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large, narrative panel seen there by Bertaux, the Purification, had also found a purchaser, but I have not been able to ferret out who he was. In the church at Albelda there were two further (photographed) narrative panels by the Sijena Master depicting the Entry into Jerusalem and the Noli me tangere (Fig. 50) which, since the other pieces in the church can be securely demonstrated to have come from the high altar of Sijena, must have the same source. This pair were among the four pieces which, having been packed away at the time of my visit to the town, I could not see when I examined the parts that were visible as consigned, in the church, to the sacristy. I therefore do not know their size, nor has anyone else, so far as I can find, ever gone to the town and accurately described them; but the subjects do not belong to a cycle from the life of the Virgin (which often included even the above-mentioned Ascension), and, if they were large pictures, they would have been lateral additions in the body of the retable to the congeries honoring Mary. Bertaux saw at Sijena pieces of scenes of the Passion from the predella, two of which, Christ before Pilate and St. Veronica meeting the Saviour on the Via Dolorosa, are now in the Museum at Saragossa (having in their itinerary passed through the Museum of Barcelona), and, although the Albelda panels are obviously shown by the photographs to have been higher, they may very well have been similar, smaller compartments and parts of the predella, since the Saragossa pictures plainly betray that they have been truncated both at top and bottom. The Entry into Jerusalem is a scene of the Passion, and, inasmuch as a cycle from the Passion was often continued by Christ's triumph in the Resurrection, the Noli me tangere might well have been comprised within the predella. If Bertaux meant that he saw at Sijena episodes of the Passion besides the Christ before Pilate and the Via Dolorosa, their present location has not been ascertained, unless they included the Albelda pieces. The huge retable contained also a series of the Apostles. The fulllength effigies of Sts. Peter and Paul, which I saw still in a small room at Sijena in 1926 and which probably, as the orthodox themes for such spots, constituted the doors at the sides of the altar, have finally, subsequent to 1933, obtained a haven in the Diocesan Museum of Lérida. Between these two extremes, the half-lengths of the other Apostles, preserved until the Spanish war at Albelda, evidently

FIG. 50. T H E SIJENA MASTER. NOLI ME TANGERE. ALBELDA (Photo. Mora)

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made a kind of sub-predella, like the Prophets in the retable by Martin de Soria at Pallaruelo de Monegros. 15 They are shown to have belonged to the same series as Sts. Peter and Paul by the similarity in the figuration of the haloes and gold backgrounds and by the fact that they were accompanied by scrolls with the verses of the Creed intermediate between its beginning and end on the scrolls of the two full-length figures. T h e scrolls flutter forth from the hands of Sts. Peter and Paul, but at Albelda they framed the half-lengths at the bottom. Since Sts. Philip and Thaddeus were absent from the Albelda series and since there was missing also the verse of the Creed, "Inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos," it is certain that the series originally included the bust of one of these two Apostles, now lost. St. Thomas ordinarily carries this verse, but, inasmuch as at Albelda he displayed instead the words usually assigned to St. Philip, "Descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis," it may perhaps be guessed that the planners of the iconography simply interchanged the verses commonly attached to the pair and that therefore it is the St. Philip which has disappeared. St. Paul has usurped the verse generally accompanying St. Thaddaeus, " E t vitam aeternam," but it is nevertheless just conceivable that St. Thaddaeus found a place in the Afostolado in a curious way by means of another panel that was preserved at Albelda and will engage our attention in the immediately succeeding paragraphs. T h e half-lengths at Albelda comprised nine Apostles; the lost St. Philip and the possible St. Thaddaeus would make eleven; St. Peter, on one door, would be the twelfth; and to these St. Paul on the other door would be added. In the panel in question at Albelda, a lady, who may be guessed to be the prioress María Jiménez de Urrea, was depicted as kneeling in veneration of a presumptive, lost image of the Virgin in the retable and as under the patronage of a standing saint in the pseudoclassic garb regularly employed for the Apostles and exactly analogous to the dress of the Apostles whom we have already discussed. Since, moreover, the panel was of precisely the shape and size as the Apostolic half-lengths, although, in order to be fitted into the space, the standing figures of the saint and the kneeling one of the lady had to be made of lesser proportions, we have reason at least to assume that this panel, despite the variation in composition, was thus queerly meant to be the final member of the series and that, on the basis of 13

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what we have argued in the last paragraph, the saint would be Thaddaeus. But there are several flies in the ointment. I am familiar with no story about him or for that matter about any of the other Apostles which would explain the strange emblems of the saint with the prioress, a nail pressing the spurting blood from one eye and a spike driven into his head and only dimly visible because rendered in gold against the gold halo. Nor was the figure distinguished by any of the identifying appurtenances that revealed the personalities of the half-lengths. H e was destitute of their scrolls that contained not only the verses of the Creed but their names. 16 The borders of their garments were embellished with letters as well as passages of pure design, but, if the letters were anything more than decorative and meant to be legible, I have not been able to decipher, from the photographs, their significance, except in the case of the names of Sts. John Evangelist and Thomas inscribed upon their collars (as also upon their scrolls). The edges of the standing saint's mantle exhibited also rows of characters looking like letters, but I can make no more of them than of the enigmatic conglomerations of letters scattered through the retable on such places as St. Paul's book or tiles of the pavements. The early, canonized bishop of Barcelona, St. Severus, has a nail as attribute, since he was martyred by one driven through his head, but I cannot imagine that, contrary to the whole iconographical usage of Spain in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, he would have been depicted in the costume reserved for the Apostles and without the episcopal regalia. Besides, there is no apparent reason why he should have been the patron of María Jiménez de Urrea. Exactly the same difficulty, however, confronts us in trying to recognize St. Thaddaeus in the standing figure, since neither the prioress's name nor anything else that we know about her implies any devotion on her part to this Apostle. Still, one possible explanation can be suggested. Thaddaeus usually is placed at the end of the representations of the Apostles, displaying the last verse of the Creed (here taken over by St. P a u l ) , and so at Sijena he might have stood at the conclusion of the aggregation (but before the St. Paul of the door) in the role of a delegate of the whole College of Twelve as the lady's patrons. That she is the prioress, María Jiménez de Urrea, 1 6 The photograph of the scroll of St. James Minor preserves only the tops of a few letters of his name.

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is most probable. H e r attire can easily be interpreted as the habit of the Sijena nuns of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem 5 the cross of the Order appeared upon her bodice instead of the shoulder of her mantle, the place where it is introduced in the series of sepulchral effigies of the nuns; 17 and abbesses or prioresses, such as St. Clara and St. Scholastica, 18 were often represented as crowned. Panels of the four Evangelists and of the four Fathers of the Church, somewhat smaller than the Sts. Peter and Paul of the doors, were also included in the capacious assemblage, with the figures relieved against gold backgrounds like those of the Apostolic series. I saw at Albelda the Sts. Matthew and M a r k ; but all trace of the other two Evangelists seems to have been lost, and they were not known even to Bertaux. From the group of the Fathers, the Sts. Ambrose and Augustine are saved, having reached the Diocesan Museum at Lérida sometime after 1933 subsequent to their sojourn for a period, like the compartments now at Saragossa, in the Museum of Barcelona. Similarly vested, they can be differentiated from each other, despite their lack of distinctive attributes, by the inscriptions of their names in the haloes, St. Ambrose being the figure with his right elbow raised high in the air. 19 T h e Sts. Jerome and Gregory existed at Albelda until the conflagrations of the Spanish war, and were demonstrated to be companions of the two Fathers at Lérida and therefore to derive from the Sijena retable by the identity of the gold appurtenances and of the sort of frame that we shall find the Master using also in his second retable at Sijena. Corresponding analogies bind the Evangelists to the same congeries. T h e keynote of the style is a faithful translation of the temper of Aragonese painting, as it manifested itself during the fifteenth century, into terms of the early Renaissance and of the Sijena Master's own distinctive nature. Indeed, no artist of the fifteenth century or no contemporary of the Sijena Master, not even the Huesca Master, who directly depended upon Miguel Jiménez, was so completely impregnated with the traits of the Aragonese aesthetic attitude which I have endeavored to enumerate in the first chapter of my volume 17

V o l . V I I I , pp. 5 2 0 if. See, f o r instance, vols. I I , fig. 1 9 1 , and V I I , fig. 1 3 4 . T h e book carried by St. A u g u s t i n e is inscribed w i t h letters, a m o n g w h i c h the only ones that I can decipher are S O M . Since these could have to do w i t h none of his w o r k s that I k n o w , the likelihood that m a n y of the inscriptions on the other personages are merely ornamental, w i t h o u t intended meaning, is increased. 18

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V I I I ; 20 but these essential Aragonese qualities are illuminated by a pronounced originality in the painter himself, by his personal characteristics, and, as we shall see, perhaps by contact with the circle of Mantegna in Italy. The robust and powerful bodies of such predecessors of his as Miguel Jiménez and the Alfajarin Master appear once more, largely filling the space of each panel and marked by the same angularities of pose and gesture. They crowd particularly the two pieces of the predella in the Saragossa Museum, in which also the bravo at the left of each panel betrays the stiff Aragonese articulation of corporeal activity passing into veritable jerkiness. Amidst the general tendency in the retable to such rigid gesticulation, two other primal instances are afforded by the handmaid with the roses in the Huesca Visitation and by the Sts. Peter and Ambrose of the Lérida Museum. The St. Peter indeed, with his crossed legs, betrays a not infrequent velleity of the Sijena Master for eccentric postures. The whole retable is permeated likewise with what seems to have been a natural neglect by the Aragonese of ordinary standards of pulchritude in the countenances. Their substitution of an admiration for hardihood rather than for formal beauty often becomes, to our modern way of thinking, actually uncouth in the Sijena Master's figures, as, for example, in the St. Veronica of the Via Dolorosa or, possibly under the influence of Mantegna, in a beardless type of mature man that he affects, illustrated particularly by the Albelda St. Gregory, the sage with open book above Christ in the Muntadas panel, or the foremost Apostle at the left in the Ascension. In general, his specimens of humanity seem to be based so largely upon those of Bernat, Jiménez, and the Alfajarin Master that it is legitimate to wonder whether at some moment of his life he may not have been a pupil of one of them as well as of Forment. His forerunners of the fifteenth century had accentuated their predilection for the massive by clothing their hulking figures in great expanses of draperies of heavy material that largely concealed the body and its movements and were disposed in intricate, angular folds according to the Aragonese proclivity for asperity in every element of art. An outstanding example is Martin Bernat's St. John Baptist in the Lérida Museum, 21 but the tendency is ubiquitous in the region, 20 21

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not only among the followers of Bermejo but even among the painters under Catalan influence. Damián Forment himself in his earlier works, the only ones that the Sijena Master could have known, had not yet exhibited in any high degree the proper desire of a sculptor of the Renaissance to call forth the body from enveloping draperies, and it was not to be expected that the Sijena Master, despite his strong plastic feeling for tridimensional form, should have gone any farther in this direction than the sculptor whom he evidently held in respect. His figures are still hidden under copious expanses of ponderous stuffs. Their folds continue to take complicated involutions, and the only difference is that, under the influence of the aesthetic principles of the Renaissance, the old Gothic sharpness and angularities have loosened into congeries of curves. T h e Aragonese fondness for sturdy and hardy physiques coalesced with his sculptural propensities and, not incredibly, with an admiration for Mantegna, stimulating him to prefer brawny physiques, to model them vigorously in three dimensions, and to give them strong outlines. Bertaux 22 states that the Sijena Master transmits the impression of "a foreign and somewhat barbaric pupil of Mantegna," specifying as evidence for such an affiliation the "excess of details and the pronounced modelling with a metallic hardness"; and he further ventures the opinion that our artist "from afar might have perceived Leonardo da Vinci in northern Italy." Certain elements in the Sijena Master's productions, indeed, make it hard to elude the conclusion that he had been in Italy and there come into contact with the achievements of Mantegna and the large coterie in the north of that peninsula who fell under his domination. The nature of these elements is such that he could not have learned them from the slight Mantegnesque tinge of Rodrigo de Osona the elder or in the Master of the Knight of Montesa in the school of Valencia, where I surmise that he may have lived as a younger man. A number of the human types insistently suggest a derivation from Mantegna. The youthful Apostle prominent in the right foreground of the Ascension, with his hair curled all about the face, is the most pronounced example among many of a sort of head that the great Italian affects, as in the angels of the Copenhagen Pietà. His pendant has the pitilessly 22 In André Michel's Histoire de l'art, Paris, IV, 1 9 1 1 , 2, 916, and in the pages of his Catalogue of the Saragossa Exposition of 1908 to which we have already referred.

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virile modelling of the Ludovico Gonzaga in the Mantuan fresco of his meeting with his son, the cardinal. A source for a kind of man with a long dark beard, as in the Joachim of the Virgin's Presentation or the Paul in the Lérida Museum, might be such figures by Mantegna as two of the saints in the left section of the San Zeno altarpiece. In the Lamentation over the Dead Christ ( F i g . 5 1 ) in a second retable at Sijena by our Master which we shall eventually study, the good thief, still hanging upon his gibbet, resembles very persuasively the Paduan's St. Sebastian in the Vienna Museum. T h e type with long beard, however, is likely to be stylized, particularly in the curling of the beard's hair and of the tresses on the head, to a point even beyond that cultivated by an artist of Mantegna's circle, Marco Zoppo, whose Pietà in the National Gallery, London, or St. Paul in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, should particularly be consulted for comparison. Moreover, one of the most defining characteristics of Mantegna and his circle, the "chartaceous" treatment of the draperies, is absent from the Sijena Master's productions. It is not, then, inconceivable, that the analogies which exist between him and the northern Italians were due merely to partially similar but independent aesthetic aims, stimulated, in the case of the Spaniard, by the natural Aragonese affection for strongly realized forms and lavish decoration and that Italy had never been included in his travels. T o Leonardo, I find it hard to detect distinct and convincing parallelisms, and the Sijena Master perhaps knew no more of the Renaissance than what he gleaned from its timid beginnings in his own peninsula. The breaths of the Renaissance have banished the gold embossings of the past, but the old Aragonese fondness for brocades of a more garish brilliance than in the rest of the peninsula retained enough potency to make such ornamental passages conspicuous in many of the Sijena Master's panels. There still persists even the convention of presenting to us ostentatious patterns of the brocades in arbitrary frontality and of thus subordinating reality to purely decorative effect. So in the Annunciation, Gabriel displays such a brocaded design on his hip; another stands forth boldly on the skirt of the Virgin's mantle in the Visitation; the armor of the jerkily posed henchman in the Via Dolorosa is similarly embellished; but the most salient specimen confronts us on the back of the robe of the Doctor in the Muntadas compartment who thus faces away from

Fig. s i . THE SIJENA MASTER. LAMENTATION (DESTROYED). FORMERLY IN THE PANTEÔN REAL, SIJENA {Photo.

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T H E SIJENA MASTER the spectator partly for the express purpose of flaunting the resplendent pattern in the stuff. The Muntadas panel indeed becomes one of the most brilliant of the series through the echoing of the Doctor's brocade in the fabric that adorns Our Lord's seat. The conspicuously striped wings of the angels in his works are also used as formally decorative accents, but, with the emphasis upon design and pattern inherited from the Spanish past, one of the wings of the celestial trumpeter on the right in the Presentation of the Virgin is even more frankly schematized into a very large ornamental block in the composition. In general, the Sijena Master's color reveals that toning down and harmonizing of bright hues into a Spanish richness which characterized his immediate predecessors in both Aragón and Castile. In accordance again with Aragonese feeling, the architecture of the Renaissance in the settings is of a nature at once both ponderous and decidedly ornate but nevertheless filled with details revealing that one aspect of the Sijena Master's originality was a vivid architectural imagination. Bertaux 23 is scarcely accurate in deriving his architecture from Damián Forment. As a true sculptor, Forment fills his spaces mainly with powerful forms, reducing the setting to almost its lowest terms and by no means exhibiting the individuality and even fantasy of the Sijena Master in the constituents of edifices or his love of the gorgeous. The French scholar can hardly have in mind the frames of Forment's altarpieces as the source of the Sijena Master's backgrounds, since up to this time the sculptor had clung in these pieces almost wholly to the moribund Gothic. Practically the only architectural analogy is found in the shell-shaped semidomes that Forment had already been prone to introduce as cappings of the niches in which he ensconced his separate effigies of saints, but we do not need to resort to the theory of the sculptor's influence to account for the Sijena Master's occasional use of this frequent element in the repertory of the Renaissance. There are really no sure means of determining whether he took his affection for embellishing architecture with simulated statues in niches from the altarpieces of Forment or from those of other sculptors. The Golden Gate of Jerusalem is flanked by two such figures, at the right an aged saint or a patriarch and at the left, with that juxtaposition of sacred and classical themes so typical of the Renaissance, what looks like an effigy of Pomona. A statue of St. Paul adorns a niche at the left side of the 23

See above, p. 1 2 3 .

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apartment in which St. Anne gives birth to the Virgin j the tympanum over the door of the Temple to which M a r y climbs in her Presentation exhibits an escutcheon containing the words Sanctum Sanctorum and upheld by two carved angels, and the cornice and the arch's summit are decorated with statuettes of animated female shapes the identity of which I cannot elucidate; and the elaboration of the wall that constitutes a background for the Visitation is achieved partly through the introduction of the sculptured forms of a nude St. Sebastian and an unrecognizable woman. Alert artist that he was, however, the Sijena Master could hardly have failed to be impressed by Forment's retable of 1509 in so prominent a spot as over the high altar of the great church of the Pilar at Saragossa, and that he was so impressed, is strongly suggested by his introduction of a simulated relief of a feminine profile in a medallion at the base of the pier at the left of the room of the Virgin's Birth, whether or not intended as a portrait in the mode of the medallions at the bottom of Forment's structure. A natural deduction would be that he caught from the sculptor's retables also the idea of decorative statues. T h e bizarre column or candelabrum-shaft that, above the medallion, supports the image of St. Paul at the side of the room of the Virgin's Birth is a typical example of the Sijena Master's capriciously original architectural conceptions, which vie with the most whimsical vagaries of the Plateresque style. In the same almost freakish spirit he interrupts the very foreground of the Temple in which Christ confutes the Doctors with a huge, mottled column. Correspondingly, in the Virgin's Presentation, he divides her ascent to the Temple from her parents and spectators by setting at the front of the space and overemphasizing the oddest sort of tapering column, patterned with a design as of the leaves of an artichoke, and he perversely violates the functional nature of architecture by crowding a semidome, patterned like a shell, under the flight of stairs. T h e wall before which the Visitation is enacted displays a whole, complicated passage of an elaborate architectural repertory, centred about the most extraordinary element of all, a round window from which a lady views with amazement the sacred mystery of the meeting of Our L a d y and St. Elizabeth. H a d the Sijena Master seen perchance the analogously opulently framed tondo of the Madonna similarly looking down from the summit of Antonio Rossellino's tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal in S. Miniato at Florence or the circular representation of the Virgin

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and Child depicted as if hanging behind and above Sts. Cosmas and Damian in the panel of the Prado sometimes ascribed to Fernando del Rincon? 24 Moreover, a group of persons gaze from a round window at the Crowning with Thorns in the cathedral of Valencia by Vicente Juan Masip, 25 a work probably executed early enough for the Sij ena JVlaster to have known and so perhaps witnessing to a Valencian connection.26 Finally, in his treatment of the Annunciation the ornateness of the architecture reaches a point that may also be described as almost wanton. In the Ascension and in the Albelda panels of the Entry into Jerusalem and the Noli me tangere (Fig. 50), he betrayed a tendency so to crowd distant views of cities with buildings that the result approximates a mannerism. The compositions themselves are sometimes original. Ordinarily in mediaeval Spain the young Christ Among the Doctors had been set at the centre of the space, but the Sijena Master transfers Him to an elevated throne on the right side of the panel and scatters the Hebrew sages about in various casually naturalistic activities. One of them baldly fills at the right the whole foreground of the composition but with his own back spread out rigidly toward us, but this, as we have seen, was partly for the sake of the decorative value of the brocade of his robe that is thus flatly and prominently extended across a large section of the picture. The great ellipse formed by Christ and His disputants is counterbalanced at the left by the bulky column which also we have had occasion to mention and by the three figures grouped round it, the Virgin and St. Joseph, fancifully represented as half hidden behind its shaft, and a young squire of theirs, according to the painter's occasional indulgence in odd postures, "draped" at the front about the pillar and with his back also projected partly at us. T h e composition of the Entry into Jerusalem was so much more anomalous that it required a moment or two before one recognized that this was the subject intended. There were no more than three persons in the foreground, Christ upon the ass accompanied by a single young Apostle and blessing a child who, leaning forth from behind a rock (like the half-concealed forms of Mary and Joseph in the Muntadas panel), broke off a branch of a young tree to strew in the way. It was only in the background and in diminished scale that we descried a few representatives of the "very Vol. IX, p. 272. See vol. X I , fig. 16. 26 See above, p. 124.

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great multitude" who welcomed H i m to the city, waving palms before an urban gate. T h e common motif of the boy who climbed a tree to gather branches was likewise relegated to the distance. T h e gigantic magnitude to which the erect Gabriel at the l e f t in the Annunciation is exaggerated creates another peculiar composition. A frequent peculiarity of the Sijena Master is a neglect of the proper, comparative size of his figures even when they are supposed to be closely connected in space with one another, but the Gabriel is extended to so tremendously a disproportionate height that the effect must have been purposed. A s in the case of the scene of Christ in the T e m p l e , the actuating reason was probably the desire for counterpoise, to which the painter arbitrarily sacrifices realism of dimensions in order to offset the strong attraction at the right, the great assembly of the Virgin and of her allegorical companions who will soon concern us. In another example of inordinate dimensions, however, the angel at the right blowing upon a wind instrument in the Presentation of the Virgin, the explanation can hardly be sought in considerations of balance, for the actual scene of M a r y mounting the steps at the left is rendered in a scale strangely smaller than that of her parents and the other angels, and, even if a slight bit of the panel has been lost at the left, it could have included nothing sufficiently important to have offset the huge member of the heavenly host. T h e queer column that has already called for our comment is not placed far enough to the left for the counteracting purpose. I scarcely think that we can resort to the idea of "occult" or spiritual balance by suggesting that the religious preeminence of O u r Lady's reception into the T e m p l e is of enough importance to compensate for the material size of the angel or even of Sts. Joachim and A n n e ; and I fear that in this and other compartments we must stress the Master's mere eagerness for novelty. It is very odd, to begin with, to give to the Virgin's entrance into the T e m p l e only a third of the panel's expanse and to fill the rest with what would be naturally the subordinate figures of her parents and the angels. N o r is it only for the sake of the ornamental effect of the brocaded pattern on her garment 2 7 that M a r y turns her back upon us, but here also the craving to break with compositional tradition must have been more than a contributory factor. T h e iconography itself is anomalous in the introduction of 27

See above, p. 139.

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a group of angels round about her parents. The series of panels contains other instances of the wind instrument which is blown by the colossal angel, and yet I cannot but think that a capricious passion for the unusual, as well as the desire for a protracted, decoratively undulating line, actuated in the Virgin's Presentation the enormous elongation of its tube. In general, however, the Sijena Master rather likes symmetrical compositions, thus again witnessing to his perpetuation of the spirit of the mediaeval Spanish school. An obvious and pronounced example is afforded by the Meeting at the Golden Gate, where the angel who brings Sts. Joachim and Anne together constitutes a definite central axis about which the Virgin's parents and their attendants are disposed in absolute balance. The symmetry extends to the angel's magnificently outspread wings and to the wall of Jerusalem behind, with the two pendant statues that have already occupied our attention. Another such formally symmetrical composition is the Nativity of Christ. The adoring shepherd at the extreme right behind St. Joseph finds a very curious pendant at the extreme left in the head of the ass, much emphasized for this purpose. Even the ass's eye is arbitrarily set in the middle of the head and featured in order to accentuate the balance to the shepherd in sufficient degree, and a subordinate formal arrangement is created by the two contrasting obliquities of this head and that of the ox. In the Ascension, the Apostles are ranged in a compact mass about the Virgin in the middle, each one at the right offset by a comrade at the left. My friend, the distinguished critic, Mr. Walter H. Siple, has been struck by the arbitrary pattern that their curiously interlacing haloes are made to constitute. The Master's compositional originality here finds expression in the reduction of the soaring Christ's form to unusually small size for the sake of emphasizing the already great height to which He has risen above His followers. Nor is the Sijena Master impervious to the old Spanish love of genre. As a most exceptional factor in the Annunciation, in the left background he has made much of the kitchen of the Casa Santa, with the cook exhibiting a ladle, with her other utensils neatly hung on the wall, laid away in a cupboard, or set upon the floor, and with the cat complacently crouching before her. In like diminished scale, an unusually youthful St. Joseph rests upon his staff in another apartment of the house in the background, apparently musing on

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high thoughts but unaware of his wife's angelic experience. H e is also distinguishable again in the offing at the right of the Visitation, having lagged behind Mary on the journey to her cousin Elizabeth's home. Accompanied by a trudging groom, he is mounted on a horse who careers in his restiveness at the delay. W e have already noted another element of genre in the panel, the woman who eavesdrops upon the scene from an upper window. In one of the pieces at Albelda, through the fine gate of the Renaissance leading out of the garden in which Our Lord met the Magdalene, a young man was to be observed, perhaps St. John Evangelist who "did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre." W e should probably interpret as pure genre the man punting a boat in the landscape of the Ascension and the peacock strutting on the battlements in the background of the Presentation of the Virgin. The Annunciation is remarkable not only for its architecture, composition, and genre but even more for its iconography, which indubitably establishes some kind of affiliation on the part of the Sijena Master with Valencia.28 The kneeling Mary is encircled by the allegorical figures of the three theological and four cardinal Virtues, each inscribed with the first letters of her Latin name ; but Prudence, behind Hope, is imagined as entirely hidden by her thronging sisters, with only the P R U of her title visible above her. It was Tormo 29 who first pointed out the source of this extraordinary cortège of Our Lady, the Vita Christi written in the Valencian language by the highborn Valencian nun, Isabel de Villena, and published in 1496, a wholly delightful work that we have discovered more than once 30 to embody or to have influenced the iconography of the school of the region of Spain to which she belonged. Her imaginative and gentle mind conjures up a lovely aggregation of Virtues as attached by God to Mary from the moment of her conception and as constantly playing important parts in the drama of the Incarnation; but she includes personifications of Virtues, such as Patience and Mercy, See above, p. 124. In an article called Un vie jo texto de lengua y arte valencianos, El de Soror Isabel de Villena, in the Valencian annual, Almanaque de "Las Provincias," 1915, p. 169. T h e four cardinal Virtues frame the M a d o n n a by M a r t o r e l l in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia ( c f . my v o l . V I I I , p. 624.), a painting done considerably before Isabel de Villena's days and of no iconographie significance to our present purpose, since the nun's idea o f their actual companionship w i t h the V i r g i n in the events of her life is a very different thing. 30 Vols. V I , p. 75, n. 2 ; p. 2 7 0 ; and p. 276, n. IJ and v o l . X I , p. 129. 28

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besides the standard theological and cardinal groups, and, as a matter of fact, she specifies, among the cardinal Virtues, only Prudence and Fortitude. In contrast to the escutcheons in the Meeting at the Golden Gate and the Entry into Jerusalem, the inscription on the example in the central tympanum of the house of the Annunciation is clearly discernible, the beginning of the salutation, " A v e , Regina," just as we can read on the lintel of the door that the Virgin approaches in her Presentation the words from the Song of Songs, IV, 7, often applied to her, "Tota pulchra es." W e can scarcely take as evidence of the Sijena Master's original Valencian background a fact pointed out to me by the omniscient Catalan scholar, Juan Ainaud de Lasarte, the partial stylistic kinship between our artist and the painter of Valencia to whom I have given the name of the Alcira Master, 31 for the latter's activity somewhat postdates that of the former and is still further subsequent to the days when the Sijena Master as a youth may be supposed to have dwelt in the southern city. T h e analogies to the Sijena Master seem too concrete to be merely coincidental. T h e Magdalene in the triptych by the Alcira Master in the Diocesan Museum, Valencia, for instance, appears to be derived from a favorite type of the Sijena Master, embodied, for instance, in the St. Veronica of the Via Dolorosa in the Museum at Saragossa. T h e Christ in the Noli me tangere of the triptych, with the violently schematized locks of hair, is a reflection of the distinctive kind of person in the Sijena Master's production illustrated by the Albelda Apostle with the Prioress. In the youthful Magus of the Epiphany at Alcira itself, the painter even apes the Sijena Master's idiosyncrasy of exaggerating one of the actors to an inordinate size. What may we surmise to have been the explanation of the marked similarities? Is it possible that the Alcira Master, conceivably as once a member of the Sijena Master's atelier, had seen his works in Aragon and then, moving to Valencia, fused this strain with a dependence upon Yanez and Llanos? Or are the facts that no other productions of the Sijena Master besides those at Sijena have been found in Aragon and that he left there no followers to be elucidated by the hypothesis that he himself returned to Valencia, doing there lost works that captured the Alcira Master's fancy? Until the almost total destruction wrought by the civil war in the 31

Vols. X I , p. 289, and X I I , p. 75 j .

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institution, there remained actually at Sijena in the church of the convent a second retable by the Sijena Master, the altarpiece of the Panteón Real, also called the chapel of S. Pedro. The lengthy inscription on the base of the predella asserted that the retable was made in 1 5 1 7 for the same prioress who ordered the monumental example over the high altar, María Jiménez de Urrea, and who must thus have been an enthusiastic admirer of the painter; but another nun, Lucrecia Porquet, composed the inscription, asserting in it faith in her resurrection and adding the statement that María Jiménez de Urrea had commissioned the retable, so that it is usually supposed that the undertaking had not been finished at the time of the prioress's death in 1 5 2 1 and was completed under Lucrecia's patronage. The armes parlantes of the latter, a black pig on a gold field (since porquet means in Catalan a little pig) were prominent on the major, right upright of the guardapolvos, but I have never been able to find the escutcheon of María Jiménez de Urrea, which Ricardo del Arco 32 declares also to have adorned the guardapolvos and was perhaps hidden under the repainting of the major upright at the left. In the greater part of the inscription Lucrecia adapts to herself the magnificent verses, proclaiming immortality and the resurrection of the body, from the book of Job, X I X , 25-26, and from Psalm C X V I I I , 17-18.« The centre of the structure contained a niche for a statue that had long since disappeared,34 and at its sides were two panels of standing, paired saints, at the left Peter, to whom the chapel is dedicated, with Jerome and at the right, in iconographical balance, another Apostle, James Major, with a second Father of the Church, Augustine. Above this tier and extending across its whole space, a large representation of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ constituted the most interesting part of the retable and the sections upon which here the painter put forth his most serious effort (Fig. 5 1 ) . It was flanked, at a slightly lower level, by the much smaller scenes of the Via Dolorosa and, as an uncommon theme in Spanish art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the phase in the story of the Resurrection in which 32

Catálogo de Huesca, p. 401. The inscription was largely deciphered by Mariano de Pano ( E l real monasterio ele Sijena, p. 84), but, failing- to recognize the source, in Psalm CXVIII, he did not rightly read the words, "Castigans castigavit me, Dominus, et morti non tradidit me." 34 Mariano de Pano {op. cit., p. 85), writing in 1883, states that the niche then contained a statuette of the Virgin of the Pillar. 33

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the angel addresses the holy women.35 In the corresponding spots beneath (and thus beside the compartments of paired sacred personages) there were introduced erect effigies of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. We should perhaps interpret as further evidence for the hypothesis of the Master's Valencian connections the devotion of the retable's central pinnacle to the subject of the Trinity. The predella aligned the Seven Joys of the Virgin in the themes of the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Assumption. In addition to the escutcheons of the two nuns who were the donors, the guardafolvos were decorated with arabesques of the Renaissance and, at the summit, with the cross of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which was repeated just below in the carved cresting above the Lamentation. The universally accepted attribution of the retable to the author of the much ampler one that used to adorn the high altar is so selfevident as to require no demonstration, but it must be pointed out that he left the execution of at least the major part of the predella to a servile follower, who was more advanced in the ways of the Renaissance but certainly less gifted and addicted to a deader tonality of color. When I studied the retable on the spot, I got the impression that the Sijena Master might have had something to do with the painting of the Annunciation and of the angels in the Assumption; but the impression may well have been fallacious, and, although Gabriel in the Annunciation, the posture of Christ in the Ascension, and the placing of a young shepherd directly behind St. Joseph in the Nativity seemed reminiscent of these details in the retable of the high altar, it is very likely that the Sijena Master was not even responsible for the designs of the predella's generally dull and entirely conventional compositions. It is possible that the assistant at least collaborated in the episode of the holy women at the Sepulchre in the main body of the structure, but the Trinity in the pinnacle was not sufficiently accessible to my vision to allow me a valid judgment in the question of the Master's own handicraft. This second altarpiece contributed no really new factors to our understanding of his personality. It did affirm even more emphatically his genesis in the style that immediately preceded him in Ara3 5 The words inscribed as issuing from the angel's mouth were "Quern quaeritis?", a pluralization of Christ's question, in the episode of the Noli me tangere, to the Magdalene, who indeed was the most prominent of the women in this Sijena panel.

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gon. The Lamentation was one solid mass of his sturdy and wellknit Aragonese physiques, and the St. Damian, in the compartment at the extreme right in the lower tier, was scarcely differentiated, except for an even still greater Aragonese stockiness and stubbiness, from such a figure by Miguel Jiménez as the St. Sebastian in the altarpiece from Pastriz. 36 The henchman behind Our Lord in the Via Dolorosa belonged to the class of brawny youths that the patrons of art in the province admired as incorporating an indigenous type with which they were familiar in their every-day existence. Since the Aragonese who ordered pictures took more satisfaction in the hardy treatment of a subject than in inventiveness, the Sijena Master here made no effort to enliven the compositions with the bits of originality that we have analyzed in the panels from the high altar, but he gratified the aesthetic demands of the province, especially in the Lamentation, by the strong plastic relief with which he powerfully endowed the forms and by the vigor of his draughtsmanship. The Augustine almost duplicated this Father of the Church in the other retable, and, although the Jerome, James Major, and Peter were not treated in quite the same way as in this retable and Peter in particular was now conceived as a pope, no one of the three figures was made into anything more than a conventional representation of a saint. The fact that the Sijena Master was only just emerging from the mediaeval fashions of Aragón was also betrayed, as in his other retable, by his retention of gold accentuation. Peter, Jerome, Santiago, and Augustine stood against delicately tooled gold backgrounds like those of the Albelda and Lérida series of Apostles, Evangelists, and Fathers; in the Lamentation, the Magdalene, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathaea wore the old auric brocades; and behind Cosmas and Damian there hung as settings the rigid fabrics that had served a like purpose for so many figures of sacred personages in the Middle Ages. Vol. VIII, fig. 39.

CHAPTER VII SEVERAL PAINTERS OF EASTERN NORTHERN ARAGON I.

AND

T H E SAN VICTORIAN M A S T E R

T h e principal work of this artist, which supplies us with a name for him, the capacious retable that from the great monastery of San Victorian, near Ainsa east of Boltana in the province of Huesca, has now been moved to the cathedral of Barbastro (Fig. 52) would have left us in doubt as to whether he belonged to Aragon or Catalonia, especially since the monastery is situated on the frontier between these two parts of Spain; but the second production that we can assign to him reveals unmistakable Aragonese traits. W e have already had occasion to refer to the retable as containing at the centre the panel of the enthroned St. Victorianus by the Alfajarin Master, whether the beginning of the altarpiece the rest of which was subsequently carried out by his successor, or whether he did a whole altarpiece for which the successor substituted a more modern production and kept only his forerunner's main compartment depicting the saint as a glorified abbot,1 or whether, as we shall soon debate, the San Victorian Master did a main compartment which is preserved elsewhere and in place of which someone later put the Alfajarin Master's achievement. Much iconographical interest attaches to the retable, consisting in the fact that, in addition to a surmounting Crucifixion and a predella of four episodes from the Passion (Fig. 5 3 ) , the stratum of the Renaissance, set in a gorgeous baroque frame, exhibits as many as ten scenes from the life of St. Victorianus that otherwise are unknown to me as represented in art and perhaps not now disposed in their original order. Despite my assiduous perusal of the ordinary accounts of him and especially the Vita published by the Bollandists under the day of his feast, January 12, I have not found any events that with absolute definiteness seem to be depicted in the retable, although some of the compartments bear a close relation to several of his 1

See vol. XII, p. 692.

FIG. 52. THE SAN VICTORIAN MASTER. RETABLE. BARBASTRO {Photo. Mas)

CATHEDRAL,

FIG. 53. THE SAN VICTORIAN MASTER. FLAGELLATION. CATHEDRAL, BARBASTRO {Photo.

Mas)

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON

153

chronicled experiences; and I suspect that the artist based himself upon a narrative which is even more legendary than the regular sources but has not come within my ken. At least the majority of the scenes relate his life in the northeastern part of the province of Huesca after he had fled Italy and then France in fear of the corrupting influence of popularity. Taking up a hermit's existence in a grim cave near the monastery of Asan (not far from Ainsa), he built a rough chapel to St. Michael, and two of the compartments appear to have to do with this foundation, since they show an angel (Michael himself?) indicating to him the rock where he is to construct the shrine and engaging in some activity in connection with the foundation in the presence of Victorianus and his co-pilgrims. T h e Vita speaks of a brook coursing through the cave, and another scene ( F i g . 54) perhaps depicts him miraculously creating the stream from water gushing out of his staff, again surrounded by his followers, one of them haloed and so possibly Gaudiosus or Nazarius. 2 On an eminence in the left background a canonized youth, Victorianus himself at an earlier moment in his emigration or again one of his disciples, points downward as if to the region where Providence means Victorianus to establish his hermitage. T w o further panels relate episodes while he still dwelt in his rude retreat. H e celebrates mass (according to the Vita, in tears), and he is seen walking with a book amidst a concourse of persons in front of the altar in his cell. In the rest of the compartments the events look as if they were occurring in the monastery of Asan, whose abbacy he had finally been persuaded to accept and which eventually came to be known as San Victorian, although some of them perhaps antedate his arrival in Spain. T h e third scene from the top on the left may be one of his meetings with his royal friend and admirer, Theudis, a happening that was possibly included in the retable by the painter's predecessor, the A l f a j a r i n Master. 3 T h e others I cannot interpret, even as among his miracles of healing and exorcism, except that the second from the top at the left is plainly his burial, which the Vita describes as taking place in a tomb that he had made for himself. T h e not incompetent creator of the retable from San Victorian exhibits some resemblances to the modes of Catalan artists employed in the region, such as the Canillo Master, Pedro Nunyes, or even 2

Vol. X I I , p. 692.

3 ibid.

FIG. 54. THE SAN VICTORIAN MASTER. MIRACLE OF ST. VICTORIANUS. CATHEDRAL, BARBASTRO {Photo.

Mas)

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON

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Juan Gasco, but these analogies are deceptive, since the other work attributable to him is plainly characterized by an Aragonese burliness, although the San Victorian Master may have owed something to contact with his colleagues in Catalonia. Indeed a presumption in favor of his Aragonese blood is created by the consideration that at some time the monks employed for the principal effigy, a production surely by an artist of Aragon, the Alfajarin Master. T h e other work is a large panel that, having passed from the Collection of Don Romulo Bosch, Barcelona, to the Munoz Collection in the same city, is of unknown original provenience ( F i g . 5 5 ) ; but the subject, the coronation of a bishop or mitred abbot, may guide us below into a surmise as to what this source was. T h e types reiterate those of the retable now at Barbastro. T h e congregation of monks that form the background of the ecclesiastical ceremony are precisely the same group who take part in Victorian's funeral, and the bishop who hands to the principal personage the pastoral staff does not differ at all in countenance and even in chiaroscuro from the type used for the saint in the altarpiece. There emerge, however, rough and ill-favored characteristically Aragonese visages scarcely to be discerned in the retable and stamping the San Victorian Master as a son of Aragon. Outstanding examples are the kneeling prelate at the right, his companion at the left, and the monk at the right with his nose pressed against the curving top of the throne. T h e reader will already have perceived toward what this discussion has been partly leading, the possibility that the panel from the Bosch Collection was once the centre of the retable for which the earlier piece by the Alfajarin Master was at some time substituted. T h e chief objections to this supposition are the facts that the ecclesiastic who is being crowned wears beneath his cape a dalmatic, the prerogative of a bishop rather than of a mitred abbot, and that St. Victorianus enjoyed only the latter rank in the hierarchy. T h e artist or his patrons might not have been well informed in this matter of ritual, nor is any difficulty obtruded by the consideration that it would be an abbot who receives an exalted position at the hands of two clerics of episcopal status. Certain components can be used in favor of St. Victorianus. An aggregation of monks are spectators of the solemnity, and the kneeling churchmen at the front of the picture show the monastic habit beneath their capes and so could be the Victorianus's chief disciples, Gaudiosus and Nazarius, who would be en-

FIG. 55. T H E SAN VICTORIAN M A S T E R . CONSECRATION OF A BISHOP. MUNOZ COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo. Robert)

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON

157

titled to pastoral staffs as eventually exalted to ecclesiastical eminence.

T h e haloes in the retable are very often different but in

some cases like that on the head of the saint being honored in the M u ñ o z panel. T h e question of dimensions does not come into the argument since the original condition of the retable has been altered and the sections adapted to later frames.

Nevertheless it remains

quite possible that the panel, although by the San Victorian Master, does not represent the saint from whom he takes his name but comes from another of his productions.

2.

E S T E B A N SOLÓRZANO AND H I S S C H O O L

T o the list of painters of the M i d d l e Ages and beginning of the Renaissance active entirely or partly in the region of Huesca, whose actual names and artistic personalities have been revealed by the research of D o n Ricardo del Arco, and by signatures, i.e., Pedro de Zuera, Juan de la Abadía, Bernardo de Aras, and Pedro de Aponte, we may happily add the man who heads this chapter and who flourished in the first half and middle of the sixteenth century. T h e earliest notice of him occurs on June 23, 1520, 4 when, evidently still a young man and residing at Saragossa, he arranged to serve four years as apprentice to no less a personage than Damián Forment. W i t h Spanish pride of race, he describes himself in the document as a Castilian coming from Solórzano, a town in the valley of Trasmiera, just southeast of Santander; and he expresses his desire to learn from Forment the art of "sculpture and of all else that in your house and atelier is made, executed, and done," but it turned out that almost immediately, as our acquaintance with his subsequent career shows, he devoted himself to painting, which his teacher also practiced. 5 F r o m the documents, which we know chiefly through their publication or summarizing by Ricardo del Arco in articles or books and from a signature, we are informed of a series of his works, one of which survives in photograph and another in fragments now in the Diocesan Museum, Huesca. Perhaps he was still in Forment's shop when on February 24, 1521, he contracted to do the polychromy of a lost, sculptured retable of St. Catherine by Nicolás de Urliéns which 4 5

Abizando y Broto, Documentos, II ( 1 9 1 7 ) , 150. Vol. X I , p. 143.

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was to be set in the new sacristy of the cathedral of Huesca and in which there was to be inserted a crucifix that hitherto had stood over the high altar of the church. 6 B y 1532 he was so well established an artist as himself to take an apprentice, 7 and in 1537 he signed a work that existed until the civil war, i.e., to a late enough moment to be visited by modern students of art and to be photographed, a retable in the Ermita de la Virgen del Monte at Liesa, just east of Huesca. Again together with Urliéns he was paid on December 13, 1544, for work of unspecified character in the chapel of the Sacrament in the cathedral of Huesca, 8 and the year 1545 carries the notice of the marriage of his daughter to another painter, Pedro de Tapias. 9 Much more importantly for us, the next record brings us to an achievement of Solórzano, partly preserved, the retable of the high altar of the now demolished church of the Magdalena, Huesca, which D e l Arco, 10 without quoting the document, states him to have executed in the middle of the century. H e was still active as late as September 12, 1556, when, having contracted on M a y 24 of this year to do a nonextant retable for the Carmelite nuns at Huesca, he renewed the agreement; 11 and D o n Federico Balaguer, kindly informs me in a letter that an unpublished record exists showing that Esteban, at his own request, was buried beside the tomb of his colleague in the art of painting, Pablo R e g . Finally D e l Arco 12 ascribes to him a work destroyed in the recent Spanish civil war, a retable in the Ermita de S. M i g u e l at Lascellas, east of Huesca on the road to Barbastro, but in this case he reveals neither the date in Solórzano's development to which it belongs nor the evidence for the attribution. It is fortunate indeed that parts of Solórzano's documented retable for the church of the Magdalena, Huesca, have survived, for 6 T h e document is published by Gabriel Llabrés y Quintana in the short-lived periodical Revista de Huesca, Huesca, I ( 1 9 0 3 - 1 9 0 4 ) , 342—343. 7 D e l A r c o in Veil i nou, F e b r u a r y , 1 9 2 1 , p. 392, n. i , and his Catálogo monumental de Huesca, p. 102, n. 1. 8 D e l A r c o , ha catedral de Huesca, Huesca, 1924, p. 1 9 1 . 9 D e l A r c o , Archivo esfañol de arte, X X ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 230. 1 0 D e l A r c o , Arte esfañol, I V ( 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 1 9 ) , 193, and Catálogo monumental de Huesca, p. 136. In Archivo esfañol de arte, X X , 230, and in Memorias de los Museos Arquelógicos Provinciales, 1 9 4 1 , p. 90, he dates the retable " a b o u t 1 5 2 0 " ; but I take it that this is a misprint for 1550, the time that he gives in the other t w o references, and the style indeed seems too mature f o r the beginning of the twenties or earlier. W e have already studied ( c f . my vol. I X , p. 892) the dispersed retable of St. Catherine f r o m the church of the M a g d a l e n a by Juan de la A b a d í a . 11Boletín de la Sociedad Esfañola de Excursiones, X X I I I ( 1 9 1 5 ) , 189 and 196. 12 Memorias de los Museos Arqueológicos Provinciales, 1 9 4 1 , p. 90.

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON we should have obtained an inadequate idea of his style from the signed retable at Liesa, which was very limited in its subject-matter and which, after its destruction in the Spanish civil war, is now known to us only through scholars' dim memories and in the not too clear illustration published by Del Arco in his Catdlogo monumental of the province of Huesca. Located in the Ermita de la Virgen del Monte at Liesa over the antependium of the thirteenth century that we studied in volume I, 1 3 the retable bears on its base an inscription to the effect that it was ordered by the municipal council of Liesa, completed in 1537, and painted by a Master Esteban ("Maese Estevan me fecit"). 14 That Master Esteban can be no other than Esteban Solorzano and that he was frequently and admiringly called only by the former title, is proved by the fact that in the contract for the lost retable of the Carmelites at Huesca 15 both of these appellations are used for him. Furthermore, in the extensive, published records of Aragonese artists during the first half of the sixteenth century no other painter emerges whose Christian name was Esteban. The iconographical program of the retable is uncomplicated. The centre of the structure is a niche containing an early Gothic cult-image of the Madonna, about which the paintings are grouped: in the pinnacle, a simplified version of the Crucifixion; in the four lateral compartments, standing figures of Sts. Lawrence, Vincent, Quiteria,' 6 and Agatha; and in the predella, the form of the Virgin assumed into heaven by angels, flanked by two compartments with seated representations of Sts. Catherine and Lucy. Despite the competent training that Solorzano must have received from Forment and despite his Castilian pretensions, neither at Liesa nor elsewhere does he exhibit any more than commonplace ability and proves to be only a respectable craftsman and supplier of the religious market rather than a man of consciously higher, aesthetic ambitions. H e lacks a true artist's strong individuality. His types, especially those of the women, are perhaps derived from Forment, but they have lost their Valencian delicacy and taken on a certain provincialism and Aragonese practicality. Although in other works he now and then struck chords more in harmony with the Renaissance, 13

P. 253. The inscription is quoted by Del Arco in an article in Arte esfaiiol, 1913)) 3Ji15 See preceding paragraph. 16 With the attribute of a mad dog. 14

I (1912—

i6o

EASTERN AND NORTHERN

ARAGON

the style of the Liesa retable is so retrogressive that one would scarcely have suspected so tardy a date as 1 5 3 7 . T h e whole approach of Solorzano to the undertaking and his mode of delineating the forms still hark back to the Middle Ages, and really the only important change that has occurred is a partial — but no more than a partial — alleviation of the cramped manner of the primitive and of Hispano-Flemish asperity in favor of the more facile delineation and the idealization of the Renaissance. H e even retains the modes of presenting single figures of saints that had prevailed in the late mediaeval school of Aragon, standing those in the body of the altarpiece against parapets, interposing between them and the parapets the convention of brocaded canopies, seating their companions in the predella upon thrones, and setting behind both parapets and thrones pairs of cypresses to frame the sacred personages symmetrically. In the pieces that have come down to us from his retable for the high altar of the church of the Magdalena at Huesca ( F i g . 56), he has attuned himself more to the strains of the Cinquecento. Now the Mass of St. Gregory is an orthodox subject for the middle of the predella, and of the sacred personages in three-fourths length in the flanking spaces we scarcely could have expected any other in the adjoining panels than the mourning Mother and St. John Evangelist whom we see. As so often in the predellas of Solorzano's immediate predecessors in the region, Pedro Garcia de Benabarre and Pedro Despallargues, to whom in general he reverts, the spaces at the ends are occupied by coupled saints, at the left the iconographic pair, Fabian and Sebastian, and at the right two virgin martyrs whom I do not surely recognize 17 because the old photograph of the Mas Archive, by which alone I know the retable, is dim at this point, even in the identifying inscriptions which occur in all the lateral pieces of this part of the structure. Enough can be seen in the photograph to show that there are or were preserved the two painted doors at the sides of the altar with their regular subjects, Sts. Peter and Paul, and yet the clarity is not sufficient to reveal whether their creator was Solorzano or someone else. T h e analogies in the Montearnedo retable to the Liesa altarpiece in types of women and angels afford adequate substantiation for Solorzano's claims to the authorship, but the seal is impressed upon the attribution by the consideration that there is practically no variation in the two renderings of 17

One of them appears to be St. Catherine of Alexandria.

FIG. 56. ESTEBAN SOLÓRZANO. MAGDALENE. DIOCESAN MUSEUM, HUESCA

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EASTERN AND NORTHERN

ARAGON

the Crucifixion. His activity at Montearnedo looks as if it were about coetaneous with the date of the Liesa commission, although the form of Christ in the Resurrection is cast in a mannered curve. The combined evidence of the altarpieces of Liesa, Montearnedo, and of the Magdalene strongly suggests that Solorzano was the author of the second and third tiers from the bottom in the extant, conglomerate retable 18 over the high altar (Fig. 57) in the parish church of Yebra, east of Jaca, which curiously fuses the somewhat diverse modes of the signed and of the documented work. The figures of four saints perched in tabernacles on the top of the retable flanking the sculptured Crucifixion, Michael, the Magdalene, an aged worthy, and a virgin martyr, should likewise perhaps, so far as they are visible at the height, be registered under Solorzano's name. The subjects of his contribution to the structure in the two rows are: about the episcopal statue, the Annunciation (Fig. 58), Nativity, Epiphany, and Purification and at the ends the two familiar deeds of the young heroes of Christianity, St. Martin's charity to the beggar and St. George's triumph over the dragon; and likewise at the ends of the upper row, the Via Dolorosa and Resurrection. The human types are persuasively similar to those of Liesa and Montearnedo. Since Solorzano's range does not appear to have been broad, he scarcely varied the kind of face and coiffure in the virgin martyrs of his signed retable, and this conception of a youthful feminine head is consistently used for the Madonna in the Yebra scenes of the Infancy. In the Epiphany, especially, she should be compared with the Liesa Sts. Catherine and Lucy. T h e negroid Magus tilts up his head in precisely the manner of the St. Agatha, and the St. Martin belongs to the same class of humanity as the Liesa Sts. Lawrence and Vincent. A number of the figures, however, are approximated to the style of the Roman Renaissance that characterizes the retable of the Diocesan Museum, notably both actors in the Annunciation, where the Virgin's body assumes an undulating contra-pfosto like that of 18 T h e other tiers are by painters of the seventeenth century. T h e themes in the lowest tier are the Assumption, the martyrdoms of Sts. Stephen and Lawrence, and the Flight into Egypt. A different artist of the same general, later period did the compartments in the two uppermost tiers, scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin, including another rendering of the Assumption. I cannot imagine by what confusion, Del Arco (Catalogo monumental of the province of Huesca, p. 380) arrived at the idea that the retable depicted the story of St. Eurosia, for whom see above, p. 113. Beneath the Crucifixion at the centre of the assemblage are statues of St. Lawrence and a canonized bishop.

FIG. 57. E S T E B A N SOLORZANO. R E T A B L E . PARISH CHURCH, Y E B R A {Photo. Mas-Penarroya)

FIG. 58. E S T E B A N SOLORZANO. A N N U N C I A T I O N . PARISH C H U R C H , Y E B R A (Photo. Mas)

E A S T E R N A N D N O R T H E R N ARAGON

165

the Magdalene, the St. Joseph in the Nativity, the Christ of the Resurrection, and even the beggar receiving St. Martin's cloak. The Yebra panels, moreover, betray several examples of Solórzano's manneristically lackadaisical hands; and the backgrounds often contain landscapes similar to the vista behind the Magdalene of the Diocesan Museum, more than one of them overspread with analogously dramatic chiaroscuro. The interest in the new architecture of the period, however, is very restricted. To the examples at Montearnedo the Yebra retable adds an opportunity to assess Solórzano's talents (if he is indeed the author) in compositions consisting of a number of figures, but he fails to emerge from the trial with much éclat, since he does not break with the traditional cartoons for the themes or punctuate them with relieving pieces of invention, not even in any tangible degree availing himself of the treatments of the subjects by his old teacher, Damián Forment. His partially conservative tendencies manifest themselves in a retention of the old embossed, gold haloes of rings, and the correspondingly decorated borders of garments and appurtenances. The Virgin in the Annunciation sits beneath an auric, brocaded baldacchino like those of Sts. Quiteria and Agatha at Liesa. The compositional similarity of the Annunciation to the version in the Catalan retable at Balaguer is probably induced by a joint dependence on Diirer.19 There was a time when I sought to convince myself that the Catalan Balaguer Master might deserve the credit of a panel of the Anna selbdrittj the relic evidently of an otherwise lost altarpiece, in the sacristy of the former Colegiata at Alquézar, northwest of Barbastro; but, although I still descry analogies to the Catalan painter, I have gradually come to believe, only in part by reason of Alquézar's geographical situation, that Solórzano or a capable member of his immediate circle is a more likely candidate. I do not find any reference to the picture in the notes that I took at the time of my study in the town in 1930, so that I know it only in the rather dim illustration which is published by Ricardo del Arco in his Catálogo monumental of the province of Huesca; 20 but even this illustration is enough to arouse a presumption in favor of placing the panel in Solórzano's vicinity. Both he and the Balaguer Master are fond of feminine types like the Virgin at the left of the composition, and the 19

20

Vol. X I I , p. 2S2.

Fig. 423-

166

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON

scarf is wound about her head and shoulders in a mode that both artists often affect; but she seems to look a little more like the Aragonese's conceptions of women. The composition differs from the usual contemporary Spanish treatments of the theme, and was perhaps freely adapted from Diirer's woodcut which is illustrated on page 351 of the volume on the artist in the series, Klassiker der Kunst. The style of Solorzano was widely imitated in the province of Huesca in anonymous works at a still lower level of attainment which we may therefore designate as of his school. A close kinship, particularly in the type of the Virgin, is shown by what the disasters of the civil war have left us of an altarpiece in the church of Lascasas, namely only the predella with panels of the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany (Fig. 59), Resurrection, and Ascension, all of which have now found a home in the Diocesan Museum of Huesca, directly to the south of which the town of Lascasas lies. The gold embossings are here abandoned as out of date, and the painter shows a slightly greater consciousness of the architecture of the Renaissance. A different but no better a member of this division of Aragonese painting which is most worthily exemplified by Solorzano did one of the retables in the parish church of Loarre, northwest of Huesca. 21 The central niche is now occupied by a statue of a lay martyr in the masculine costume of a gentleman of the early sixteenth century who has no emblems other than the palm in his right hand but may have once held an arrow in his left hand and so represent St. Sebastian. The inscription, however, on the plinth beneath him, the themes of the predella, and the fact that the figure is too tall for the space imply that the niche contained originally a sculptured image of the Virgin. The words of the inscription are: "Beata viscera Mariae Virginis quae portaverunt aeterni Patris Filium." The other parts of the retable, set in the gorgeous Plateresque moldings that constitute the structure's frames, are: flanking the statue, the standing forms of the Baptist and St. Barbara; and, in the predella, the scenes, at the centre, of the Epiphany (Fig. 60) and, at the sides, of the Annunciation and Nativity, which, alone of the three, exhibits any real variation from the compositions of Lascasas. Again, the mediaeval decorations in raised stucco have been abjured. 21 Not, of course, the retable of St. Peter, which is the only one listed in the church by Ricardo del Arco in his Catalogo monumental of the province of Huesca, p. 175.

FIG. 59* FOLLOWER OF ESTEBAN SOLORZANO. EPIPHANY FROM LASCASAS. DIOCESAN MUSEUM, HUESCA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 60. SCHOOL OF ESTEBAN SOLORZANO. EPIPHANY. PARISH CHURCH, LOARRE (Photo.

Mas)

EASTERN AND NORTHERN ARAGON 3.

T H E MÍANOS

169

MASTER

W e are justified in isolating the author of a retable of St. Sebastian in the parish church of Mianos in the northern corner of the province of Saragossa on the border of the province of Huesca, not only because with some credibility we may assign to him another extant work but also because we will indulge in a guess, though no more than a guess, what his real name was. T h e centre of the retable is occupied by a statue of the saint, unusually high in quality,22 but the rest consists of paintings. At the sides of the carved effigy are two scenes from his life, his arraignment and flagellation (Fig. 61), and the outer compartments are devoted, at the left, to the Mass of St. Gregory and, at the right, to St. Sebastian's co-defender against the plague, St. Roch, here having his sore dressed by an angel. Beneath the scenes there have been subsequently attached pieces of paper identifying the subjects, but unfortunately these apparently conceal earlier inscriptions. Above the statue a magnificent canopy of Plateresque woodcarving takes the place of the customary Crucifixion, but the baldacchini over the lateral panels have been lost. T h e Crucifixion is relegated to the predella, which aligns four other related events, the Deposition, Lamentation over the Dead Christ, the Entombment, and Resurrection. T h e painter yields to the sculptor in talent but nevertheless possesses considerable merit. H e was obviously familiar with Antwerp mannerism, which he translates, however, into Spanish terms. T h e scenes from the Passion are felt with a Spanish intensity. T h e flagellators of St. Sebastian perform their task with a sadistic brutality. The composition for this scene is very original, since the person suffering the punishment does not stand, as ordinarily, between his cudgellers but has been beaten prostrate to the ground. The change helps to make one of those formal compositions beloved in Spanish art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in which St. Sebastian's body frames the picture at the bottom and the staves of the executioners break the uprightness of the panel by two oblique parallel lines. In the delineation of the dog in the scene of the arraignment and in the way that he has thus been able to transmit to us his affec2 2 A b b a d Ríos (Catálogo monumental of the province of Saragossa, p. 685) compares it with the statue of St. Sebastian in the retable of Pedro de Aponte's school at Bolea (cf. above, p. 1 0 9 ) , a piece of sculpture which, however, is not by the same hand and somewhat less distinguished.

FIG. 6I. THE MIANOS MASTER. FLAGELLATION OF ST. SEBASTIAN. PARISH CHURCH, MIANOS {Photo. Mas)

EASTERN AND NORTHERN

ARAGON

tion for such animals, he surpasses his by no means negligible gifts of draughtsmanship. T h e acquaintance with Antwerp mannerism which he exhibits has caused me to entertain the wholly unprovable and bare possibility that he might be identical with a Belgian artist known to have been active in Aragón in the first part of the sixteenth century, Juan de Lovaina (Louvain). In March, 1 5 1 0 , 2 3 he is documented to have done at least some painting in the retable of the high altar at Bujaraloz, east of Saragossa but on the edge of the province of Huesca. T h e irreplaceable evidence that would have been provided by this retable was destroyed in the civil war, and I am ashamed to confess that prior to the conflagration I did not possess the information which would have led me to visit the town. H e was dwelling in 1 5 1 0 at Pertusa southeast of Huesca, and it is to be remembered that Mianos was under the patronage of a great monastery in the northern part of the province of Huesca, San Juan de la Peña, and that it belongs to the diocese of Jaca. W e have already, 24 however, hesitatingly proposed another candidate for identification with Juan de Lovaina. Our legacy from the master may with something approaching certainty be augmented by the wings of a small and handsome altarpiece that, with the rest of the Muntadas Collection, has been acquired by the Museum of Catalan Art, Barcelona ( F i g . 62). T h e central painting is a landscape of Jerusalem as a background for an ivory figure of the Crucified on an ebony cross, whether or not this or another Crucifix originally occupied the spot. T h e subjects of the wings are Sts. Jerome and Onuphrius standing in landscapes. T h e outsides of the wings are unembellished, but the whole is set in a magnificent frame of architecture of the Renaissance, showing that the altarpiece must have been intended for the chapel of a person of means. In addition to the general stylistic accordance with the Mianos retable, the specific factors indicating execution by the same hand are twofold. T h e Sts. Jerome and Onuphrius conform very closely in scowling countenance and treatment of the beard with the Master's types of old men, especially the emperor and his conspicuous retainer in the scene of the arraignment 5 and the prominence given to trees in the compartments of the flagellation and St. Roch is repeated, with much the same arbored formation, in the solitudes of the hallowed hermits. 23 For our few data on the master, see Ricardo del Arco in Archivo de arte español, X X ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 227-228. 24 See above, p. 1 1 5 .

Fig. 62. THE MIANOS MASTER. ALTARPIECE. MUSEUM OF CATALAN ART, BARCELONA {Photo.

Mas)

CHAPTER VIII SEVERAL PAINTERS OF WESTERN

ARAGON

I. THE GOTOR MASTER Although the artist whom I thus designate is preserved to us, so far as my knowledge goes, in no large number of works, he highly merits the remembrance of posterity through the distinction of receiving a specific name because, like Aponte and the Sijena Master, he is a better technician than the majority of his Aragonese rivals. T h e name that I have chosen for him is derived from the town Gotor, north of Calatayud, where the sacristy of the parish church harbors a thoroughly characteristic achievement by him, a Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Fig. 63). T h e outstanding qualities of his style, which reveals few affinities with his predecessors or contemporaries in Aragon, are a clean-cut draughtsmanship, a very tangible interest in the play of light and shade, particularly over countenances, a continuing and plainly perceptible relationship to the general Spanish modes of the fifteenth century, for instance in the still Flemish character of the sorrowing Mother, and a notable participation in a very common distinction of the painting of Spain in the early Renaissance that is not yet sufficiently stressed by historians of art, a sensitiveness, in the backgrounds, to the beauties of varied landscapes accompanied by an ability to express this feeling with expertness of the brush. T h e Master was not given scope to reveal so many of his talents in his second, recognizable work by reason of its restricted subject, a Madonna of the Milk in the sacristy of the parish church of Ibdes, southwest of Calatayud and so in the same general region as Gotor (Fig. 64). T h e attribution is attested by the practical identity of the Virgin's head with that of the Magdalene in the Lamentation or even by the general facial similarity to the Joseph of Arimathaea standing above St. John. It is to be remarked also that the branch depicted at the left of the Madonna's throne exhibits precisely the same kind of elaborate contortions as the specimen protruding from a rock in the background of the painting at Gotor, T h e date of the

FIG. 63. THE GOTOR MASTER. LAMENTATION. PARISH CHURCH, GOTOR {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 64. THE GOTOR MASTER. MADONNA AND CHILD. PARISH CHURCH, IBDES {Photo.

Mas)

WESTERN

176

ARAGON

panel would probably be subsequent to the erection of the new church at Ibdes between 1517 and 1526, 1 and, if it had not been cut off at the bottom, it would possess the iconographical interest of signalizing the entrance into Aragon of the half-length renderings of the Mother and Child that are conspicuous by their rarity at this time in all parts of the peninsula.2 By some strange vicissitude two pieces from a retable of the Virgin by the Gotor Master have found their way into the Carreras y Candi Collection at Barcelona, a compartment depicting her Birth (Fig. 65) and a mere fragment of another scene, probably the Circumcision or Purification (Fig. 66), since figures that may be St. Joseph, Our Lady, and a handmaid stand by what looks like an altar on a step of which a child is seated as no more than a supernumerary, or just possibly, instead, it is a bit from Mary's own Presentation in the Temple, in which case the haloed personages would be Sts. Joachim and Anne. T h e most inescapable proof is afforded by the child in the fragment who is literally a replica of the Infant held by the Ibdes Madonna, but this Madonna herself is almost as exactly repeated in the woman holding the newborn Mary and in the attendant bringing sustenance to the parturient St. Anne. T h e Carreras pieces also exhibit a number of instances of the closely plaited headdresses that constitute a peculiarity in the Master's costumes. The panel of the Virgin's Birth has a special interest as incorporating a characteristic not preserved to us in other works, a pleasant concern with homely genre illustrated in the actual tickling of the baby by the woman holding her and in the prominence given to two other midwives spreading out a cloth to heat it over a brazier. T h e ascription of a single figure, especially when represented or at least preserved to us only in half-lengths, is a precarious business, but the Gotor Master's manner is so distinctive that I retain few or no doubts that he deserves the credit for a fine panel of St. Anthony Abbot in the Collection of Don Antonio Pedrol Rius at Madrid (Fig. 67). The Lamentation at Gotor itself affords enough evidence. T h e Nicodemus at the extreme right is little more than a replica, in profile, of the St. Anthony, even in the nature of the cap, and above Nicodemus and the great hermit similarly foliaged trees are stressed and brought down almost into the foreground. 1

For the date of the church, see José Galiay in Seminario ie arte aragonésì

(i94s)» 72

Vol. IX, p. 122.

II

FIG. 65. T H E GOTOR MASTER. BIRTH OF T H E VIRGIN. CARRERAS Y CANDI COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 66. THE GOTOR MASTER. PURIFICATION ( F R A G M E N T ) . CARRERAS Y CANDI COLLECTION, BARCELONA

{Photo. Mas)

Fie. 67. T H E GOTOR MASTER. ST. ANTHONY ABBOT. DON ANTONIO PEDROL RIUS, MADRID (Photo.

Castellanos)

i8o

WESTERN

ARAGON

M y own conscience is not troubled by daring to assign to the Gotor Master a more comprehensive and fairly well-known monument, the retable of Sts. Peter and Paul ( F i g . 68) near the chapel of the Virgen del Carmen in the church of S. Pablo at Saragossa; but, since there is not much absolutely concrete proof to persuade those who have lacked the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Master's style, I will not distress them by making the attribution categorical but will place a mark of interrogation after the caption under the accompanying illustration. In the central compartment the two Apostles stand side by side beneath a shell-patterned semidome; the space above is decorated merely with a sculptured ornament in the Plateresque manner of the carved frames of the altarpiece j and in the surmounting pinnacle there is painted St. Peter's reception of the keys from Christ. Of the lateral scenes, the two devoted to St. Peter are his calling (Fig. 69), together with his brother St. Andrew, by Our Lord, and an episode for which I have not been able to find the authority, his exorcism (or resurrection?) of a potentate's daughter; and the pair honoring St. Paul represent his conversion and one of his sermons (on the Areopagus?). Their stories continue, in sets of two, on either side of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, in the predella, displaying St. Peter accomplishing the fall of Simon Magus and undergoing his reversed crucifixion (Fig. 70) and, in the case of St. Paul, the arraignment before Nero and decapitation. Beside the main pinnacle of the delivery of the keys there are two subordinate capping pieces with half-lengths of St. John Evangelist and the Magdalene. If we scan often and intensely the works at Gotor and Ibdes and then come to the retable in S. Pablo, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that we are in the presence of a single artist. Precisely the same stage is reached in the evolution from the manner of the fifteenth century into that of the sixteenth, and the technical methods, especially the chiaroscuro of the faces, which is always a distinctive touchstone for a painter's style, are identical. Continual examination of the retable gradually elicits actually tangible analogies. T h e most provocative occur in the compartment of St. Peter's martyrdom, the likeness of Nero to Nicodemus at the extreme right in the Lamentation at Gotor and the still more impressive resemblance existing between the countenances of Nero's attendant who looks out at us and of the Joseph of Arimathaea at the left in the Gotor panel. If

Fig. 68. THE GOTOR MASTER ( ? ) • RETABLE OF STS. PETER AND PAUL. SAN PABLO, SARAGOSSA (Photo. Mas)

FIG. 69. THE GOTOR MASTER. CALLING OF STS. PETER AND ANDREW. SAN PABLO, SARAGOSSA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 70. T H E GOTOR MASTER. MARTYRDOM OF ST. PETER. SAN PABLO, SARAGOSSA {Photo.

Mas)

WESTERN

ARAGON

one strains his eyes, he will discover a youthful Apostle inclining his head at the back of the episode of the delivery of the keys akin to the Ibdes Madonna; and there is an analogy between the Magdalene at the top of the retable and the Mother in the fragment of the Purification ( ? ) in the Carreras Collection at Barcelona. T h e retable shows the Master's predilection for headdresses consisting of narrow folds of cloth and, in the compartment of St. Paul's conversion, a landscape similar to the setting of the Lamentation. Indeed our appreciation of the Master as a landscapist is increased by the really delightful view of the Sea of Galilee and its jutting shores to which he treats us in the scene of the calling of Sts. Peter and Andrew, recalling to our minds, in all probability fortuitously, the vista in the miraculous draught of fishes in one of Raphael's tapestries for the Sistine Chapel; and it is to be noted that the bank edging the water in the foreground of the scene in the retable assumes precisely the oblique line of the lower border of rock and herbage in the Lamentation at Gotor. W e need not be troubled by the fact that in the Lamentation of the retable the composition is varied; and, were it not for the risk of boring the reader, still more evidence could be amassed in favor of the ascription, for instance the reappearance of the kind of halo, consisting of an outer wide and inner narrow gold ring, that the Gotor panel employs. A lingering allegiance on the part of the Master to the practices of the preceding century is signalized in several instances in the altarpiece by the retention of brocades in the costumes.

2.

T H E BORJA

MASTER

Another competent painter who is very scantly preserved but whose style lies at the opposite pole from that of the Gotor Master takes his sobriquet from the presence of a Lamentation over the Dead Christ by him in the sacristy of the Colegiata de Sta. Maria at Borja (Fig. 7 1 ) . Documents of 1538 3 tell us of a retable of St. Sebastian that was being made in this year for an unnamed spot in Borja by the sculptor Juan de Moreto in collaboration with the painters Juan Fernandez Rodriguez and Antonio de Plasencia, and, since the task of the two latter artists comprised not only polychromy of the carvings but also a number of painted panels, particularly in the predella 3

Abizanda y Broto, Documentos

I, 1 5 1 , and II, 39 and 274.

Fig. 71. THE BORJA MASTER. LAMENTATION. COLEGIATA DE STA. MARÍA, BORJA {Photo. Mas)

186

WESTERN

ARAGON

where the Lamentation would have been a natural theme, the extant picture might be a relic of the enterprise, into which its style would fit even chronologically 5 but there is no proof whatsoever that such was actually the picture's source, and we are thus compelled to coin the pseudonym of the Borja Master. If the picture should ever be demonstrated to come from the retable of 1 5 3 8 , we should recover the personality of a painter, Antonio de Plasencia, who was much the vogue in the Aragonese Renaissance, since the style is not the well-known manner 4 of the other collaborator, Juan Fernandez Rodriguez; but the Lamentation is certainly not executed in the modes of the retable at Salient de Gallego whose author Antonio may possibly have been.5 Although the panel clearly shows that the Borja Master should be numbered among the exponents of the Renaissance, yet there still lingered on in him much of primitive formality of composition and rigidity of posture. In addition to the gold haloes, the old auric brocades are more conspicuous than in the works of the majority of the contemporary painters who still cling to such decorative brilliances of the Middle Ages. T h e design of the brocade of the Virgin's mantle takes a form otherwise almost confined to Andalusia, 6 though not absolutely unknown in Aragon, 7 with the diaper spotted over the fabric rather than, as on the Magdalene's vesture, continuous. T h e general feeling, however, of the Hispano-Flemish school of Aragon in the late Middle Ages persists in a kind of bluffness, in the robust bodies, and in ample spreads of drapery. Without too much trepidation we can hazard an ascription to our Master of a St. Luke in the cathedral of Tudela, which, though in Navarre, lies close to Borja ( F i g . 7 2 ) . Perhaps a piece of an otherwise lost retable, the panel shows him as seated and writing his Gospel, in which he has reached the words at verse 26 of chapter I, "Missus est angelus." 8 It cannot be denied that at the beginning one is led to the Borja Master by the externalities of the picture, the same kind of widely spotted brocade, rare in Aragon, in the Evangelist's gown as on the Virgin's mantle in the Lamentation, the un4

See below, p. 204. See above, p. 98. 6 Vol. X , p. 24. 7 See, for instance, vol. X I I , fig. 309. 8 According to the loose spelling of the time, the first word is written and he is realistically depicted as having just begun the word angelus. 5

misus;

FIG. 72. T H E BORJA MASTER. ST. LUKE. CATHEDRAL, TUDELA {Photo.

Mas)

18 8

WESTERN

ARAGON

usually broad gold border in both costumes, and the balancing of the halo on the head, like a plate, at the same angle. T h e gold border in both instances has a pattern in which slightly embossed dots play a part, and it assumes a rather angular undulation. St. Luke possesses the hardy, Aragonese character that I have stressed in the participants in the Lamentation, and he finds even a facial counterpart in the left of the two men holding the shroud in the background of the Borja panel. In an Annunciation belonging to a private collection at Madrid (Fig. 7 3 ) , I was first struck by such a startling resemblance in countenance between the Virgin and the St. John of the Borja Lamentation that I could not believe different persons to have painted them; and thus guided, I commenced to detect enough other parallelisms to render the attribution to the same Aragonese artist at least exceedingly probable. T h e features of Gabriel vary but slightly the cast of countenance, and over his shoulder there billows a flight of drapery significantly like the expanse that St. John's haste has caused to flutter forth behind him. Although the hair of M a r y and the angel have been subjected to more artificial crimping than in the case of the participants in the Lamentation, yet the tresses are parted in exactly the way characteristic of the St. John, Magdalene, and Christ; and the glance of the eyes is similarly rendered in both panels. Even the figuration of the halo of the Virgin Annunciate acquires considerable force in the argument in its analogy to the specimens in the Lamentation. Haloes of projecting, closely gathered rays are not uncommon in Spanish paintings of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, but examples with the line of a circle binding the outer circumference of the rays, as in the Lamentation and Annunciation, are less frequent. T h e archaism of ostentatious brocades is likewise retained in the Madrid panel, to which is added the old custom of reducing the donor, here a lady, to diminutive scale. According to the long-standing predilections of the Aragonese school and again as in the Lamentation, the brocades are woven into copious draperies serving to clothe the burly forms admired by the inhabitants of the province. I have long hesitated whether to discuss at this point or to postpone to the chapter that takes up works of uncertain attribution two panels in private collections, but I have finally decided that there are enough links with the Borja Master's style to justify their treatment in

FIG. 73. T H E B O R J A M A S T E R .

ANNUNCIATION. MADRID {Photo. Mas)

P R I V A T E COLLECTION,

190

WESTERN

ARAGON

connection with his production, although I place a double mark of interrogation after his name in order to signify my serious doubts about his authorship. I am not sure, as a matter of fact, that they belong to the Aragonese school at all, and yet I have searched in vain through the works of all the artists of the rest of Spain and even through the anonymous paintings without finding their counterparts. One of the panels, at least formerly in the Romero Rodrigales Collection, Madrid, depicts St. Peter walking on the waves to Christ by the Sea of Tiberias after the Resurrection ( F i g . 74). In certain moods the Borja Master manifestly was fond of movement, as in the representation of St. John unnecessarily rushing to the support of O u r Lord's body in the work that supplies a name for our artist j and the St. Peter exhibits precisely the same animated posture, intensified, with a like tilt of the head and surging of the drapery. T h e hair of the Saviour is parted in the way and falls in the lines that seem to have been characteristic of the Master, and H i s left hand assumes very much the appearance of the right hand of the dead Redeemer in the Lamentation. T h e stormy clouds hovering in the sky resemble in their form and chiaroscuro those on which Gabriel kneels in the Annunciation privately owned at Madrid. T h e landscape recalls the Giorgionesque vistas in the works of the Huesca Master, who, however, cannot be advanced in other respects as a candidate for the ascription; but, among the paintings connected with the Borja Master that we have hitherto treated, we have merely the setting of the Lamentation to use for verification, and I can imagine a single painter varying his natural backgrounds so far as to compass the really not very great divergences in character between the hilly views that the two paintings unfold. T h e schematization of the waves of the sea would be a new element in what we know of the Borja Master, but here again our material for comparison is very limited. St. Peter's halo is little modified from the sort that has already called for comment as typical of the painter. In the other work that I am considering, perhaps rashly, at this point, a St. Michael in the Perdigo Collection, Barcelona ( F i g . 7 5 ) , the two details arousing a presumption in favor of the Borja Master are unfortunately subordinate, the peculiar figuration of the halo and the same fling of drapery over the archangel's shoulder that we have stressed in the case of the St. John in the Lamentation, the Gabriel in the Annunciation, and the St. Peter walking on the waves;

FIG. 74. T H E BORJA MASTER (?)• ST. P E T E R WALKING ON T H E WAVES. ROMERO RODRIGALES COLLECTION, MADRID {Photo.

Moreno)

Fig. 75. T H E BORJA M A S T E R ( ? ) . ST. MICHAEL. PERDIGÓ COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo. Mas)

WESTERN ARAGON

193

but the rest, if supplying no strong affirmative proof, at least obtrudes nothing absolutely contradictory to the proposition. Although St. Michael's countenance fails to duplicate the cast of features in any of the few figures with which our study of the Borja Master provides us, the face of the Magdalene in the Lamentation, as a matter of fact, and even to a certain extent her straggling hair are not very different from those which we see in the Perdigó panel. If we could with confidence assign the picture in the Romero Rodrígales Collection to the Borja Master, the arresting analogy of the landscape would go far in classifying the St. Michael among the artist's authenticated achievements. It is to be noted finally that his affection for clouds could be taken as exemplified by the nebulose streaks above the archangel.

3.

THE TENA

MASTER

One of the earliest painters of the Renaissance active in western Aragón is so lame a performer that he would scarcely deserve a section of the book unless the recognition of more than a single work by his hand made him into a definite personality. H i s outstanding production is a retable ( F i g . 76) on the north side of the church of the Virgen del Rosario at Ambel, a town that the presence of a commandery of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem caused to be adorned with many paintings. 9 O n the retable's base there runs an inscription to the effect that it and its chapel in the church were ordered in 1517 by the nobleman, the Magnificent Sebastián de Tena, 1 0 thus supplying us with a sobriquet for the artist. In the central compartment stands St. John Baptist ( F i g . 7 7 ) , the patron of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and at the sides St. Sebastian, the celestial protector of the donor, and St. Roch. O f the three corresponding and smaller divisions above, the middle one contains a representation of the Madonna enthroned between two angels, and the lateral panels unfold the scenes of Salome's reception of the Baptist's head from the executioner and of her exhibition of the gruesome object to the banqueting H e r o d and Herodias. T h e r e is the usual pinnacle of the Crucifixion, and the predella aligns a series of busts of sacred personages, Christ of the Passion set between four V o l . V I I I , p. 66. "Este retablo i cappilla (sic) fancón, anio 1 J 1 7 . " 9

10

fizo

fazer el M a g n í f i c o Sebastián de T e n a , In-

FIG. 76. T H E T E N A M A S T E R . R E T A B L E OF ST. JOHN T H E B A P T I S T . VIRGEN D E L ROSARIO, A M B E L (Photo. Mas)

Fig. 77. THE TENA MASTER. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. VIRGEN DEL ROSARIO, AMBEL (Photo.

Mas)

W E S T E R N ARAGON

196

canonized women, accompanied by no distinctive attributes to make them identifiable. T h e idealizing proclivities of the Renaissance and the author's own flaccidity have reduced the forms to such anaemia, despite their distinctive nature, that it is difficult to detect with surety his origins, but here and there certain factors, such as the Baptist's head and the angular breadths of the drapery, imply that he had been trained, without absorbing much of their hard virility, in the circle of Bermejo's Aragonese followers. His faltering craft is particularly unequal to the narrative from the story of the Baptist. As might have been anticipated in so unenterprising a temperament, he clings to the mediaeval embossing of the gold in haloes and borders of garments, and for the backgrounds of his saints he abides by the old formality of stiff plaques of gold brocade. T h e pattern of repeated, stereotyped flowers in the background of the bust of Christ in the predella and in the bits of the frame above the two pieces of narrative is unusual for this part of Aragón, although sometimes employed by the author's predecessors, the Catalans Pedro Despallargues and Pedro García de Benabarre and the painter of eastern Aragón, Juan de la Abadía. 11 Differently stylized blossoms are embossed on the guardapolvos. Nothing could be more patent than the Tena Master's right to the authorship of two panels that from the town of Talamantes just south of Ambel have found a home in the Pedrol Rius Collection, Madrid. T h e subjects are standing figures of Anthony Abbot and Thomas the Apostle (with his emblem of the builder's rule). T h e latter saint falls exactly within the class of the John Baptist and Roch in the Ambel retable, and even his gold-bordered drapery assumes almost the precise lines of the Precursor's coat, with the amplitude and angularities that had lived on from the harshness of the Aragonese school at the end of the Middle Ages. His bare feet are delineated and modelled in a peculiar chiaroscuro according to just the highly individual mode betrayed by St. John's lower extremities. Like the Sts. Sebastian and Roch at Ambel, the figures from Talamantes are set in front of the rigid gold brocades of the mediaeval past, relieved against parapets, and they stand upon pavements whose tiling displays the very same design, even in the em11

Vol. IX, p. 892.

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ployment of a six-pointed star, as the floors supporting their two counterparts in the altarpiece ordered by Sebastian de Tena.

4.

P R U D E N C I O AND J U A N DE LA P U E N T E

When we are ignorant of the real names of so many Spanish painters of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and find ourselves obliged to designate them by pseudonyms as Masters of This or That, it is exasperating to be able to connect a cognomen with a definite monument and then to perceive not only that it can apply to one of two brothers but also that apparently no works besides the single monument have come to light which incorporate the identical style. However, of three brothers, Prudencio, Juan, and Francisco de la Puente, all of whom were painters, we shall discover that what little evidence we possess indicates the first to have been the creative spirit in the family. Round the chapel of S. Caprasio in the church of S. Miguel at Tarazona there runs a Latin inscription to the effect that a Juan de la Puente, a painter, had, together with his wife, erected the chapel but that, when all the edifice had been destroyed by fire, his sons Prudencio and Juan de la Puente rebuilt their father's donation and decorated it with a retable, the whole undertaking being completed on October 3, 1 5 3 3 . 1 2 It seems impossible to doubt that the sons themselves actually painted the retable ( F i g . 78), since at the bottom of the compartment depicting St. Caprasius it is again stated, now in Spanish, that the chapel and the altarpiece were their creation. It is only from the Spanish inscription that we are justified in believing Juan I I to have followed the paternal profession, and in any case the mention of Prudencio in two other places in the archives and as a painter indicates that the style which we associate with the surname depended upon him and that he was the most prominent of the brothers. In 1524, then at Saragossa, he ceded legal powers to his brother Francisco by a deed in which the latter is also called a painter, 13 and on January 24, 1 5 3 6 , he contracted, together with the still enigmatical Antonio de Plasencia, 14 for the polychromy and gilding of the sculptured retable carved by Juan de Moreto and 12 13 14

Abizanda y Broto, op. cit., I l l , 251—252. Ibid., II, 32. See above, pp. 9 8 - 1 0 0 , 184.-186.

Fie. 78. PRUDENCIO AND JUAN DE LA PUENTE. SAN MIGUEL, TARAZONA (Photo.

Mai)

RETABLE

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ordered by the bishop of Lérida, Jaime Cunchillos, in the cathedral of Tarazona. 15 The original arrangement of the retable signed by Prudencio and Juan de la Puente has been somewhat disturbed. The principal compartment of St. Caprasius, seated and protecting a triad of the physically afflicted, has been pushed upward in order to give place at the centre of the structure to a more modern shrine containing a statuette of the Madonna holding the Child. The honor paid thus in Spain to an essentially French saint, Caprasius, the martyred bishop of Agen, is explained by the consideration that, as the inscription round the chapel asserts, the altarpiece contained the relic of his head.16 With iconographic harmony, the panel of St. Caprasius was flanked by the erect figures of two other episcopal worthies (labelled with their names in Spanish), St. Blaise, who enjoyed such popularity in the peninsula, especially in Aragón, and, still more closely agreeing with the main theme, another French bishop, St. Remigius of Reims.17 The middle of the predella is occupied by a half-length of the Salvator Mundi in larger scale than the rest of the paintings, perhaps originally the front of the tabernacle; the adjoining themes on either side are the Nativity and Epiphany; and at the extremes Sts. Christopher and Sebastian stand in landscapes. A small version of the Crucifixion caps the monument. Parts of the retable give the effect momentarily of a somewhat earlier style than the others. In the case of the three episcopal effigies this is only because they are still conditioned by the hieratic tradition of Spanish mediaeval art for such cult-figures, just as in the representation of the Salvator Mundi the desire for benign majesty restrains the rather advanced, manneristic tendencies evinced in the rest of the panels; and a careful examination demonstrates to my eyes that all the paintings incorporate a single style and that Juan de la Puente could have been, metaphorically, no more than a second brush of Prudencio or mayhap responsible merely for the polychromy 15 Abizanda y Broto, o f . cit., II, 270, and F. Abbad Ríos in Archivo español de arte, X V I I I ( 1 9 4 5 ) » 3 2 3 - 3 2 4 16 Perhaps under the influence of near-lying Tarazona, he is represented also in one of two companion-pieces of c. 1500 in the church of S. Juan at Agreda, the subject of the other being St. Gregory the Great, works for which I have been unable to arrive at a sure attribution. The inscription at Agreda designates St. Caprasius in Spanish as Sant Cabras. 17 A retable of the late sixteenth century dedicated to him is the Hospital at Pamplona.

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of the frames. In view of the situation of Tarazona, we might have expected in Prudencio a dependence upon Pedro de Aponte, but, although he may have been generally influenced by Pedro's achievements, the retable exhibits no specific imitation of his forms. T h e most pronounced concession to mannerism is embodied in the St. Sebastian. O f average merit or less, he reveals nothing further of his capabilities in the simple, painted landscape of the carved Crucifixion in the sculptured retable by Juan de Moreto in the cathedral of Tarazona, if indeed he did it instead of his partner in the polychromy, Antonio de Plasencia. T h e retable that I am about to discuss, once in the Weissberger Collection, Madrid, I hesitate to take up at all because I know it only in an old and not too revealing a photograph by Moreno ( F i g . 79). For a long time I was not entirely convinced that the retable is from Aragon, but, having excluded one by one the other schools of Spain, I now believe that I perceive distinct Aragonese characteristics and even such marked resemblances to the style of the retable of St. Caprasius in the church of S. M i g u e l at Tarazona by Prudencio and Juan de la Puente that we can tentatively classify it in their circle. If the dominating spirit in the Tarazona retable was, as I have surmised, Prudencio, we are at liberty to amuse ourselves with the guess that the altarpiece which at present concerns us might have been done by one of his brothers Juan or Francisco. In any case it merits consideration by reason of its quite respectable quality and the iconographical interest of one of its panels. W h e t h e r or not larger originally, it consists of two rows of compartments in fine Plateresque frames. T h e middle of the two upper rows is reserved for the old Aragonese composition of the Madonna holding the Child and sitting on a throne whose arms are occupied by a pair of musical futti, but to these is added on the throne's base the young Baptist anomalously offering a book to the sacred twain. In the compartment at the left the stock subject of St. Sebastian already pierced by arrows is freshened by being given a narrative form in which one executioner holding his bow directs through a gesture of an arrow his companion to tie (or untie?) the martyr's legs. T h e balancing panel at the left contains the other defender against the plague, Roch, with his emblems of the dog and the angel, who also imports narrative by toying with the saint's sore. T h e theme of the centre in the lower row is the Mass of St. Gregory in the pres-

FIG. 79. PRUDENCIO AND JUAN DE LA PUENTE. RET ABLE. FORMERLY IN THE WEISSBERGER COLLECTION, MADRID {Photo.

Moreno)

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ence of the kneeling clerical donor. The panel at the right honors St. Catherine who displays all her attributes, the wheel, sword, and Maximin crushed beneath her feet. It is the pendant at the left that is iconographically unusual, depicting, from right to left, the haloed tribune St. Acacius, his fellow martyr the dux Eliades, and a third figure whose identity will concern us when forthwith we analyze the subject. In two of the compartments there are inscriptions so far concealed in the photograph as not to be entirely legible and probably somewhat garbled by a subsequent tamperer. In the one surrounding the Madonna's throne I can decipher only the end, "la edad de (seemingly spelled di) niño á lo (for la} ) que vino y nosotros (with the rest invisible)" — "the age of a child at which he arrived and us (or we)." The inscription at the base of the panel of St. Acacius is clearer: "Acacio con gran ferber (for fervor?) con el duque de Aliandes (an unlearned Hispanicization of Eliades) y el (though written al) condestable Teodor ( ? ) venceron (for vencieron) al Emperador y quebrantaron sur (the concluding word or words hidden by the shadow in the photograph)" — "Acacius with great fervor, together with the dux Eliades and the constable Theodoras conquered the Emperor and broke his (what?)." The general story 18 related about Acacius and his ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat, who are not uncommonly met in Spanish art, 19 runs as follows. Together with Eliades and the nine thousand soldiers under their command he gained, through the aid of the God of the Christians declared to them by an angel, a great victory for the Romans over rebels near Armenia during the reign of Hadrian.20 Completely converted to Christianity as a consequence, they were threatened with martyrdom by the commander in chief of the Roman legions, with the unexpected result that another military officer, Theodorus, and his thousand soldiers joined the undaunted zealots. The dénouement was that the whole ten thousand were crucified by being transfixed to trees on Mount Ararat. Only the dor of the presumptive Teodor can be seen, but by reason of the rôle that Theodorus plays in the story the identification seems certain. He is Hispanicized into a condestable, just as the Latin dux of the rank of Eliades becomes duque. The martyrdom is symbolized by a figure crucified on a tree in the landscape. 18 See the Bollandists under the day of their feast, June 22, and Guérin, Les fetits Bollandistes, VII, 209. 19 Cf., for instance, my vol. XII, p. 288. 20 According to another tradition, it was under the Emperor Antoninus.

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The chief analogies to the Tarazona retable in types occur, curiously enough, in the infants. The young Christ and especially the Baptist, as well as the futti on the throne, are quite strikingly similar in their pert winsomeness to the Child carried by St. Christopher and the little angels and the Saviour in the Nativity; and it is to be noted that a fold of the Baptist's garment flies out behind him in the mode of the flutter of the cloak of St. Christopher's burden. The bearded, mature men in both altarpieces are somewhat alike, and the enthroned Madonna is not too different from her representations at Tarazona. More persuasive is the exact repetition, in the bravo tying St. Sebastian's legs and in the Maximin beneath St. Catherine, of the oddly intense, wild-eyed gaze of the St. Christopher, the shepherds in the Nativity, and the St. Joseph in the Epiphany. The rocky landscapes have resemblances to one another, and particularly that behind St. Acacius and his comrades should be compared in its sjumatezza in the fashion of Antwerp mannerism and in the edifice nestling in the background with the setting of the Tarazona St. Sebastian. The foliage of the tree on which in the landscape one of the martyrs hangs recalls the specimen at the right behind St. Christopher. The haloes, with their two light rings, find counterparts in the majority of examples in the retable of St. Caprasius. The two St. Sebastians are, of course, very different in physiques, but the thinness of the one in the Weissberger altarpiece could be partially explained by the necessity of getting two other figures into the restricted space, like the attenuated forms of Sts. Acacius, Eliades, and Theodorus in contrast to the Aragonese sturdiness of the personages in the other compartments. Nevertheless, despite all these parallelisms, there remain so many obvious differences that the Weissberger altarpiece cannot be assigned more definitely than to the circle of Prudencio and Juan de la Puente, and even so only conditionally. The composition of the panel of the Madonna discloses no sure Raphaelesque reminiscence. 5.

J U A N FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ

Although the rather sprightly-minded artist thus named already cast his lot with the exponents of the High Renaissance to a greater degree than the majority of those who fall within the stage in the evolution of Spanish painting that now concerns us, he still moved sufficiently in past tradition to entitle him to a place in the present

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volume. His personality is revealed by a retable of St. Lawrence in the cathedral of Tarazona for which he contracted in 1536. It can scarcely be doubted that he is the same individual as the Hernando Rodriguez who also is described as a resident of Saragossa, who in 1 5 3 8 , together with Antón de Plasencia, did the paintings and polychromy in a non-extant retable of St. Sebastian at Borja, the carvings of which were executed by the sculptor Juan de Moreto, and who in 1 5 4 1 was given a corresponding commission at Saragossa itself in a likewise lost retable of St. Alexis for the monastery of S. Agustín. 21 T h e extant, documented retable is still in the place in the cathedral of Tarazona for which it was made, the chapel of St. Lawrence that, founded in 1462, had passed at the beginning of the sixteenth century under the patronage of the merchant of the town, Juan Carnicer ; and it was one of his relatives, Jerónimo Carnicer, a canon of the cathedral and a liberal fosterer of the Fine Arts, who paid for the retable as a memorial of the then deceased tradesman, uniting with himself in the enterprise another member of the family, Antón Segarra Carnicer, and also a Juan de Cervera. T h e handsome Plateresque frames had been ordered from the sculptor Esteban de Obray as early as 1 5 3 2 , and it was not until four years later, on December 5, 1536, that Juan Fernández Rodriguez was assigned the task of their polychromy and of filling them with paintings. 22 T h e subjects of the panels conform to the very specific terms of the contract much more exactly than was usual in such cases, where there were often considerable departures from the original stipulations} and we shall find indeed that the program for the Carnicer retable was violated in only one small detail. T h e principal compartment is naturally occupied by the standing effigy of St. Lawrence, and the slightly lower divisions at the sides contain corresponding erect figures of St. John Baptist, the merchant's celestial pro21

Abizanda y Broto, op. cit., I, 1 5 1 , and II, 39, 5 8 , and 2 7 4 .

T o m á s Biurrun

Sótil (La escultura religiosa y las bellas artes en Navarra durante la éfoca del Renacimiento, Pamplona, 1 9 3 5 , p. 2 0 1 ) by stating that the paintings in the retable of St. Lawrence at Tarazona are by Hernando Rodriguez seems to recognize the identity with Juan Fernández Rodriguez, but he errs in ascribing to him on stylistic evidence the retable of St. Joseph in the cathedral of Tudela. W e have seen (p. 1 8 4 ) that it is just possible that a panel by Antón de Plasencia from the commission at Borja is preserved. 22 T h e documents were kindly copied by the eminent historian of Tarazona, Don José M a r í a Sanz Artibucilla, for an article by the equally distinguished scholar of Navarre, José Ramón Castro, on the sculptor Esteban de Obray in Príncipe de Viana, v (1944), 17-39-

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tector, and of St. Thomas a Becket, who seems otherwise to have enjoyed no cult in Spain since the days of the late Romanesque period and of the sensation that his murder caused in Christendom. 23 Above St. Lawrence there is a tondo of the Madonna of Montserrat, with the Child depicted as sawing through a peak of the mountain according to what may have been one of the regular iconographic modes of the subject 24 (Fig. 80); and at this level the lateral themes are St. Michael, in compliance with the curious iconography demanded in the contract pursuing, instead of crushing, the devil, and St. Onuphrius fed by the angel. The pinnacle, as customarily, is reserved for the Crucifixion, and in the predella the Deposition (Fig. 8 1 ) is set between saints in landscapes (reading from left to right) Bartholomew, the penitent Jerome, Clement, and Emilianus (San MilIan), all, except the kneeling Jerome, represented as seated. The single departure from the prescriptions of the contract is that the central St. Lawrence is not accompanied by the portrait of Juan Carnicer that is demanded in the exact and fine phrases of the apposite lines in the document: " A n elderly gentleman on his knees, as the worshipful Juan Carnicer appeared in life, with his hoary locks and white hair, somewhat individualized and of handsome countenance." Instead, there is introduced into the tondo of the Virgin of Montserrat a personage not mentioned in the document, a young layman in adoration, probably either Anton Segarra Carnicer or Juan de Cervera, who may also have been a kinsman. Juan Fernandez Rodriguez reveals himself as an exponent of the characteristic Spanish style of the High Renaissance that, already passing into mannerism, is incorporated in countless examples throughout the whole peninsula, but he gives to the style an expression somewhat superior to the general provincial average. This is not only by reason of his sounder gifts of craftsmanship but also because he curbed the excessive elongations, undulations, and flutterings of the style through his links with the sterner art of his immediate predecessors. The conservative side of his nature is less apparent in the Tarazona retable than in some of his other works; but to a certain extent it still endows the Sts. Lawrence, John Baptist, Thomas a Becket, Clement, and Emilianus with the persistent gravity of cult-images, and bestows 23 M y vol. I, pp. 1 4 9 - 1 5 1 . A special reason occasioned his appearance in the Luna Master's retable of 1 4 8 8 at Toledo: vol. I V , p. 3 7 2 . 2 -> Vol. I X , p. 8 1 1 .

FIG. 80. JUAN FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ. MADONNA OF MONTSERRAT. CATHEDRAL, TARAZONA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 8I. JUAN FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ. CATHEDRAL, TARAZONA {Photo.

Mas)

DEPOSITION.

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upon the Virgin of Montserrat the good old solidity of the earlier Aragonese school. T h e formal composition used for the Deposition may be interpreted as a continuation of a pronounced tendency of mediaeval Spanish painting, but the symmetry and geometric lines are emphasized to such an extreme degree that they are probably also an expression of the alertness of R o d r i g u e z to purely artistic experimentation. T o mention only the most tangible aspects of the mathematical treatment, the composition of the upper triangle of the actual lowering of the sacred body, a geometric concept accentuated by the rigid lines of the balancing ladders, is closely based upon Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of the subject} 25 but the Spaniard has very much modified the Italian's rendering of the faithful sufferers beneath the cross by making a second triangle out of them, and he has increased the symmetry of the scene by framing the Deposition with the still suspended two thieves whose postures actually repeat each other. A n important centre of Juan Fernandez Rodriguez's activity proves to have been Ambel where a commandery of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem afforded patronage to so many artists 26 and where no less than two well-preserved retables are indisputably demonstrated by internal evidence to be his creations. One, a huge affair, dedicated to St. L u c y , over an altar at the left of the nave in the parish church, is stated by an inscription on its base to have been ordered in 1533 by a confraternity of the virgin martyr. T h e principal compartment contains her sculptured effigy in three-fourths length, but the rest is painting. T h e two spaces above the statue are assigned to the Assumption and at the top the Crucifixion, and in the nearest upright divisions at the sides there are ranged six episodes from St. Lucy's story (reading, as occasionally in retables, alternately from the left and right), the distribution of her dowry to the poor, her arraignment before Paschasius, the ineffectual attempt to drag her by oxen, the henchman raising his sword to her neck for the death-blow (instead of the more usual treatment of her martyrdom by stabbing in the throat) ( F i g . 82), her consolation by angels in prison 27 after the 2 5 D i e g o A n g u l o , Princife de Viana, I V ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 4 3 1 , and Federico T o r r a l b a , La catedral de Tarazona, Saragossa, 1 9 5 4 , p. 38. 2 6 See above, p. 193. 27 I have not seen this episode represented elsewhere, nor can I find any authority f o r it in h a g i o l o g i c a l literature. Since after the w o u n d i n g she is said to have been visited by f a i t h f u l Christians and, as often shown in art, to have reecived her last

FIG. 82. J U A N FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ. M A R T Y R D O M OF ST. LUCY. PARISH CHURCH, A M B E L {Photo. Mas)

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execution but before her final expiration, and the resort of the faithful to the shrine of her relics. The structure becomes lower as it expands to second vertical tiers of two compartments on each side exhibiting a pair of standing canonized prelates and above them the penitent St. Jerome, practically a replica of the version in the documented retable, and St. Onuphrius, not conceived as in this retable but merely as praying in the wilds. A representation of the veronica in the middle of the predella is set, in harmony with the main dedication, between seated figures of four other virgin martyrs, Barbara, Apollonia, Catherine, and Agatha. Slightly broader compartments complete the predella at the ends, with half-lengths of the Baptist and ( ? ) St. Peter. The Eternal Father, as so frequently, blesses from the summit of the guardapolvos; at the next level come two adoring angels; then, Sts. Justa and Rufina, whose cult in Aragon we have already had occasion to notice; 28 but at my visit to Ambel I neglected to identify each of the continuing series of haloed maidens who maintain the altarpiece's dominant note. The authorship of Juan Fernandez Rodriguez is so manifest that I will not weary the reader with more than a few outstanding proofs, in addition to the virtual identity of the two St. Jeromes. He should compare the various figures of St. Lucy, especially in the scene of the arraignment, and the other virgin martyrs with the Madonna of Montserrat in the Tarazona retable; the youthful spectator of the execution (St. Lucy's disappointed suitor?) with the donor beside the Madonna; the canonized prelate on the left side of the altarpiece with the St. Thomas a Becket; and, in countenance, the Baptist of the predella with the correspondingly placed St. Bartholomew. It is probably not only because the retable of St. Lucy dates from three years earlier but also because the old strain lingered in the author's heart, that the connection with late mediaeval painting is more palpable than in the altarpiece of St. Lawrence, for instance in the very character of many of the human types and in the stiff articulation of their movements, and I find in my notes taken before the original that I was struck by this archaism in the midst of a general adherence to the lessons of the fully evolved Renaissance. Even a few touches of the old naturalism relieve the dryness of the classic Communion prior to her actual death, angels may merely be substituted f o r her co-religionists in the retable at Ambel. 28 Vol. V I I , p. 356.

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modes: a parrot on its perch violates the dignity of the court before which St. Lucy is summoned, while a dog that looks oddly like a dachshund fixes the martyr with a stare of curiosity; and in the scene of execution a prominent witness shields his face from the gruesome sight. The second work by the master at Ambel (Fig. 83) rises above an altar in the church the decoration of which more than once demands our attention in this volume, the Virgen del Rosario. Less ambitious in size than the example in the farroquia and undated by any inscription, it is chiefly devoted to the Magdalene whom he has depicted as standing in the principal compartment and two scenes from whose life flank the surmounting Crucifixion, her penitence and levitation. H e has kindly identified the other saints by labels. In the main lateral divisions the companions of the Magdalene are Emilianus and Dominic. Of the half-lengths in the predella, the figure in the middle is, as usual, the Saviour, here conceived as in the subject of the Ecce Homo, and the surrounding saints are (reading from right to left) Ursula, Genesius (of the two so named probably the actor commonly represented in Aragon), 29 Matthias, and a martyred St. Bridget (in all likelihood, by reason of the juxtaposition, the virgin who was martyred together with St. Ursula). 30 The right to be placed in Rodriguez's canon is sufficiently established, without need of further analysis, merely by the type of the central Magdalene and by mountainous landscapes precisely like those in the retable of St. Lawrence. It would have been geographically consistent to have discussed immediately after the documented retable another production of the artist at Tarazona, a panel in the church of the Magdalena painted on the front with the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and on the obverse with the Last Judgment 5 but I have postponed its consideration because, although its claims to registration among his authentic works seem to me conclusive, the evidence is less obvious than in the case of the altarpieces at Ambel. The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception exhibits practically the same composition as the rendering of the school of Pedro Diaz at Artajona and the version in a private collection by the Mambrillas Master, being accompanied by precisely the same multiplied symbols and inscribed 29 30

Vol. I V , p. 6 3 6 , and cf. also vol. X I I , p. 1 9 1 . Vol. V I I , pp. 2 3 9 and 366.

FIG. 83. JUAN FERNÁNDEZ RODRÍGUEZ. LIFE OF T H E MAGDALENE. VIRGEN DEL ROSARIO, AMBEL (Photo.

Mas)

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213

banderoles and including likewise, in the pinnacle, the blessing First Person of the Trinity. 31 The representation of the Last Judgment is scarcely less elaborate, for it even displays, among its teeming details, the unbaptized infants in limbo, a cortège of the redeemed issuing from the burning round-tower of purgatory, Santiago, as was fitting in Spain, plainly distinguishable behind the Baptist at the right in the glory of heaven, and one or two episodic bits of genre that will require our subsequent attention. In the matter of the attribution we encounter partly one of those cases in which the proof of the pudding is in the eating, since, after having intensively studied the other works of Rodriguez and then having come upon the panel in the church of the Magdalena, we spontaneously feel ourselves in the presence of his craft. Detailed substantiation, however, is by no means lacking. The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and the St. Michael beneath the Christ of the Last Judgment (Fig. 84) have heads that, except for slightly narrower faces, reproduce his characteristic feminine type, which, however, among the less conspicuous actors, is definitely repeated, with fuller countenances, in several of the redeemed women and in the central angel receiving a mortal newly risen from the sea. The unusual posture of St. Michael is the same as in the compartment of the documented retable where Rodriguez was directed to depict him as in pursuit of Satan. The man whom St. Michael rescues from a demon possesses a visage that the artist utilizes, for instance, in the Sts. Emilianus and Dominic of the retable of the Magdalene at Ambel. God the Father is represented in the same way as on the guardapolvos of the other Ambel retable and conforms in features to the standing episcopal saint at the left in this monument. The bleak mountains of Aragon stand forth against the horizon behind the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception as in the settings to so many other themes in the master's output. The subject of the Last Judgment lends itself to formal design, which Rodriguez's geometric interests accentuate by seating a hieratically rigid and frontal Christ upon the strictly mathematical curve of a rainbow and by casting His outstretched arms and the two trumpeting angels beneath in arbitrary lines as if to illustrate a theorem of Euclid. I suspect indeed that the seeming awkwardness of St. Michael's pose is the result rather of a desire to make out of him 31

Vols. I V , p. 440, n. 3, and I X , p. 629.

Fie. 84. J U A N F E R N Á N D E Z RODRÍGUEZ. L A S T J U D G M E N T . L A MAGDALENA, T A R A Z O N A {Photo. Mas)

WESTERN an obvious geometric

figure.

ARAGON

T h e painter's occasional

215 enlivening

naturalism declares itself in the Bosch-like details of the mortal escaping from a hircine fiend to the protection of St. Michael and of another goblin using a two-wheeled cart to drag the condemned to perdition. Beneath the countrified retable of c. 1500 in the chapel of the Rosary in the cathedral of Tarazona, there is a later and better antependium attributed by Federico T o r r a l b a 3 2 to the author of the altarpiece of St. Lawrence in the church, whom we now know to have been Juan Fernández Rodríguez.

In this example of the rare

persistence of a frontal with figured subjects to so tardy a date, 33 three compartments with standing effigies of saints fill the expanse, James M a j o r at the centre flanked by Bartholomew at the right and a partly obliterated and unrecognized canonized man at the l e f t j and even the old Romanesque custom of continuing a frontal with decorated pieces at the sides of the altar has lived on in panels embellished with two further, unspecified sacred personages combined with grotesques. Since, so far as I can remember or find in my notebooks, I never examined these works, I am forced to depend upon the small and dim photograph of the three compartments of the antependium included in the reproduction by the M a s Archive of the retable, which are insufficient to reveal to my eyes the hand of Fernández Rodríg u e z j but in all probability Torralba is right, for he has examined the originals and moreover independently of me discerned in the altarpiece of St. L u c y at Ambel the same painter as in the chapel of St. Lawrence in the Tarazona cathedral. 32 33

La catedral de Tarazona, See above, p. 208.

pp. 35, 38, and 39.

CHAPTER IX P A I N T E R S O F O T H E R SPANISH SCHOOLS A C T I V E I N ARAGON In the last century of the Spanish Middle Ages, the fifteenth, the style and even painters of Valencia had enjoyed a neighborly welcome in Aragón,1 and this hospitality continued to be cordial during the early Renaissance. I have devoted a separate article 2 to the discovery that at the beginning of the sixteenth century the great sculptor of Valencian origin, Damián Forment, also exercised himself as a painter and that preserved works show the Aragonese to have patronized him in both phases of his production. To these important facts about Forment I have returned in volume X I , 3 after the writing of which I have traced the panel of the Virgin of the Pillar to the Collection of Father Thomas Welch at Danville, Virginia. The number of pictorial productions that are like this and two others which he executed in Aragón may now be augmented with much equanimity by the simple retable over the high altar of the parish church at Berbedel, near Lucina de Jalón, west of Saragossa, a hitherto unrecorded work discovered through the enterprising activity of the Mas Archive of Barcelona. The Annunciation occupies the principal compartment, flanked by panels of the Meeting at the Golden Gate and of the paired Sts. Barbara and Margaret. The Epiphany is at the centre of the upper tier, and at the sides we see again paired saints, at the left John Baptist and Sebastian, at the right Onuphrius and Roch. The predella aligns busts of (reading from left to right) Sts. Stephen, Jerome, Francis, James Major, and Christopher. Would that we could recognize the elaborate escutcheon set amidst Plateresque decoration on the guardafolvos\ The style accords with no Aragonese painter whom we know and looks Valencian, so that we are almost driven, by a process of elimination, to Damián Forment. Factual evidence for the attribution, however, is 1 See vol. VIII, pp. 470 ff., and for a summary of the Valencian contacts, vol. IX, p. 7 7 ! . 2 In Miscellania Puig i Caiafalch, I. 3 P. 143-

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not difficult to find. It is most tangible in the two virgin martyrs, who repeat his regular feminine type. T h e St. Barbara should be compared especially with the flagellated St. Engracia in the predella from San Mateo de Gallego, with the enthroned Madonna and the angel at the left in the panel of the Viñas Collection, Barcelona, and with Mary in the Anna selbdritt of the Provincial Museum, Valencia. In particular, it should be noted that she, St. Margaret, and Gabriel have the very bright eyes of the angel at the left in the Viñas panel. T h e St. Margaret, like Our Lady in the Berbedel Annunciation, is a slightly more narrow-faced version of such figures as the woman watching the dragging of St. Engracia and the Virgin of the Pillar in the panel of the Welch Collection. In the Meeting at the Golden Gate we can select for a counterpart of the St. Anne the representative of the Virgin's mother in the picture in the Valencian Museum, and for the St. Joachim to a certain extent, the head of the same patriarch in the Viñas panel. But a more exact analogue for the Viñas patriarch emerges in the kneeling Magus of the Berbedel Epiphany, where the Virgin also agrees with Forment's standard for young women's countenances. T h e H o l y Child both here and on the shoulder of St. Christopher embodies the artist's translation of this form into the idealized charm of the Renaissance, especially as illustrated by the Infant in the arms of the Virgin of the Pillar. T o choose a Morellian detail, curiously for a sculptor he does not take the pains to model very definitely the hands, which betray exactly the same faults as in his other paintings. Gabriel's halo is of a Valencian sort, with an interior pattern of scallops, often used by such painters as the Martinez and Cabanyes Masters. Despite the general likeness of all compositions of the Meeting at the Golden Gate, the closeness of the Berbedel treatment to the sculptured rendering in the predella of his altarpiece in the church of Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Saragossa possesses some corroborative force in the argument. Of no more distinguished quality than a part of an honest artist's regular routine, yet the Berbedel retable has the importance of demonstrating that Forment was more widely recognized as a painter than we had realized. As possible further evidence of the popularity of Valencian pictorial wares in the region of Aragón, we may adduce the existence of two works in the part of Navarre on the Aragonese borders, a Madonna by Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina or a pupil in the parish church

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of Cintruénigo 4 and a Lamentation over the Dead Christ by a follower of Nicolás Falcó in the Seminario Conciliar at Tudela. 5 T h e reception given to the painters of western Spain had not been less friendly. Our previous volumes and even the present volume 6 have witnessed to the Aragonese vogue of Pedro Díaz de Oviedo, and in 1491 the Castilian Fernando del Rincón entered into a temporary partnership at Saragossa with the painter of this city, Martin Bernat.7 Hitherto no results of the association in any actual, joint production have appeared, nor have we come across any evidence of Rincón's employment in Aragón; and it is now only with reservations that I propose as a possible relic of an Aragonese interest in him a panel depicting the birth of St. John Baptist in the Museum attached to the Colegiata at Daroca. Be it said at once, however, that, if I am right in my attribution, the panel may not be due to the partnership with Bernat but to an independent commission for Rincón the focus of whose activity was the province of Guadalajara to the borders of which Daroca lies very close. T h e attribution itself rests largely upon the similarities to the panel of the miracle of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in the Prado, Madrid,8 a work which has been claimed for him merely on unsubstantial grounds but to which his right would be strengthened, if he could be declared to have done also the Daroca picture. T o begin with, the resemblances themselves to the Prado panel are not very concrete. W e can pretty definitely exclude the Daroca picture from Aragonese manufacture, for there is no personality or even phase in the contemporary school of Aragón that can be suggested as related to it. On the other hand, it fits very neatly, at the beginning of the Renaissance, into the manner of the school of Castile, in which Rincón enjoyed membership. Its quality is also superior to the average of Spanish pictorial production at the period and thus would justify Fernando's reputation. T h e general accord with the mode of the Prado panel is obvious, and even some specific analogies can be detected without much delving, in spite of the wide difference in themes. Backgrounds of ostentatious brocades frequently lived on in Spanish paintings of the early sixteenth century, but it " V o l . X I , p. 2 6 5 . 5 I b i d . , p. 1 3 7 . 6 See a b o v e , p. 6. 7 V o l . I X , p. 264. 8 I b i d . , p. 2 7 1 .

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219

is rare to find them baldly suspended in the rear of interiors in the way that both the Daroca and Prado pictures exemplify. The lively concern with still life exhibited in the introduction, non-essential to the story, of a cupboard of domestic objects and books on a table into the hall where Sts. Cosmas and Damian perform their prodigy of healing is duplicated by the emphasis upon the fireplace, with its carefully defined logs, flames, and steaming pot, in the chamber of St. Elizabeth's parturition, and by a painter's interest in the cushion lying upon a chest near to her bed. In both works also we can detect a tendency to introduce episodes extraneous to the main theme. The real subject of the Prado panel is the oft represented story of the hallowed physicians' substitution of an Ethiop's leg for the cancered limb of their votary, but in the lower right corner the artist has denoted another, very rarely shown, miracle of the twain by inserting the form of the husbandman from whose mouth we see issuing, through their intervention, the serpent that had slunk into it during his sleep. Somewhat correspondingly the left part of the Daroca picture is prominently occupied by a stripling warming himself at the fire and by Zacharias laying a hand upon the lad's shoulder, probably an episode of pure genre, since, except by a tremendous violation of convention on the part of the artist, St. Joseph would not be conceived at so youthful an age and as having remained in the house after the Visitation together with his wife, who, according to the usual iconography, is depicted as receiving the newborn Baptist in the foreground. We perhaps do not stretch our imaginations in descrying a partial facial kinship between St. Cosmas (at the left) and Zacharias. The thin, weak hands of St. Cosmas and the archaically spider-like fingers are so curiously repeated in Zacharias and his companion as to imply a mannerism of a single painter. If we can accept the two panels as productions of one man, the Daroca picture adds evidence beyond the arguments supplied by the Prado panel for identifying him with Rincon. The head of Zacharias is so far individualized as to give the impression of a portrait, recalling to us that Rincon, almost alone among his Spanish contemporaries, did separate likenesses, not as merely donors in religious paintings, and indeed the countenance of the Baptist's father resembles somewhat his portrait of Fray Francisco Ruiz in the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid. If the Prado and Daroca pictures are the creations of a single artist, the latter work would through its style nullify

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the hypothesis, partially suggested by the former, that he is equivalent to the Fuenteovejuna Master. 9 It would forestall also any thought of Rincón as the author of the retable at L a Granjilla where the subject of St. John's birth is treated diversely. 10 Into the endeavor that I am making in these pages to round out the personality of Fernando del Rincón we must bring a panel in the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid, grouping the figures of St. Sebastian, a canonized pope (probably his frequent iconographic companion, St. Fabian), and of St. Thyrsus (San Tirso), the only representation of him that I have hitherto encountered in Spanish painting, all three standing in front of a landscape (Fig. 85). Indeed he is so rarely depicted that the artist has felt it necessary to identify him by a label at his feet, Santo Tiso (for Tirso). A martyr in Asia Minor under the emperor Decius in the middle of the third century, he enjoyed a cult in Spain because he was supposed to have been a native of Toledo, where indeed a church is dedicated to him. His emblem is here a club, perhaps conceived as the instrument by which his face was disfigured at the beginning of the gruesome series of tortures to which he was subjected. 11 T h e objective reasons for ascribing the panel to Rincón are quite as good as those for the attribution of the miracle of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in the Prado, the obvious date in the early sixteenth century and the derivation from the church of a town, Ciruelas, 12 in the province of Guadalajara, a region of Spain where the master is known to have enjoyed favor; and to these arguments may be added the consideration that, as we should expect from Fernando, the painting surpasses the standard of the majority of his contemporaries. One seeks with difficulty any detailed analogies to the Prado panel and yet finds no actual obstacles to the theory of a joint authorship. T h e only very tangible link with anything that has been brought into connection with Rincón is the similarity between the heads of St. Sebastian and of the youth in the Daroca birth of the Baptist. W e should perhaps at the end not fail to stress the strong, sharp lines of drawing that seem to 9 Vol. X , p. 2 1 7 . At least part of this retable has now passed into the March Collection at Palma de Mallorca. 10 Vol. IX, p. 273. 11 Juan Ferrando Roig ( I c o n o g r a f í a de los santos, Barcelona, 19J0, p. 2 5 7 ) gives as his emblems a saw or a sword. The lower edge of his garment bears an inscription in which the familiar words, "tollere peccata mundi," are plainly legible, but I cannot explain what seems to be interjected after tollere, "corde his." 12 Consuelo Sanz-Pastor, Museo Cerralbo, Catálogo, Madrid, 1956, p. 20.

FIG. 85. FERNANDO DEL RINCÔN (?)• ST. SEBASTIAN, ST. FABIAN, AND ST. THYRSUS. MUSEO CERRALBO, MADRID

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have been characteristic of what we are trying to believe was Fernando's art. The possibily enlarged look provided by the Daroca and Cerralbo pictures upon the problematical personality of Fernando del Rincón tends to permit the attribution to him of a predella in the possession of Mrs. Elizabeth M . Drey, New York, whether done for Aragón or Castile, and at the same time to weld together the Daroca and Prado panels, since the predella shares in characteristics of both works. Long a puzzle to me and one of the paintings in connection with which I have been rewarded for withstanding the temptation to ascribe to some other well-known artist, the predella marshals in half-lengths at the centre Christ at the Column and at the sides Sts. Jerome, Peter, Paul, and James Major (Fig. 86). Although, of course, we require more definite proof, we are first led to the presumptive Rincón by a conformity with the broad traits of his procedures. Obviously belonging to the same moment in the evolution of the early Renaissance and to its Castilian phase, the predella pleases us with the unusually incisive and clean-cut outlines of the Daroca and Prado paintings and with the tendency to conceive the sacred figures like vital portraits. The retention of the brilliant hangings of the late mediaeval schools is signalized by the textiles against which the four saints are relieved, and the tiers of windows in what architecture is visible behind Christ and St. Peter remind us of the setting of the miracle of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The carefully rendered book on the ledge in front of St. James will not allow us to forget the fondness for dwelling upon details of interiors observed in the other two pictures. More definitely, the St. Jerome has the long, thin proportions of the St. Damian (at the right), and particularly to be stressed is the reappearance, on him and in several other instances in the predella, of the peculiar mannerism of the slender hands and aduncate fingers. And now that I am at it, I will take an additional shot in the dark and suggest that conceivably a piece of another predella 13 by Fernando del Rincón is preserved in a panel of St. Sebastian in the last place where one would expect to find anything of the sort, the Museum chiefly of the antiquities of Vermont in the town of Bennington in this state, an item in the Colyer gift to the institution (not the Museum of near-lying Bennington College). The evidence 13

T h e dimensions are 24 inches in height by 19 in width.

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here is a little more concrete (Fig. 87), the resemblance to the enigmatical lad warming himself by the fire in the Daroca birth of the Baptist. T h e similarity extends not only to the features and glance but, above all, to the hands, which are impaired by the characteristics that I have analyzed above and especially by precisely the unpleasant limpness that disfigures them in the Daroca youth. There are, however, other claimants for the authorship almost as provocative, for instance the Transito Master of Toledo or even, from a different part of Spain, the Catalan Monogrammist. It is even with a double point of interrogation after the name of Fernando del Rincon in the adjoining illustration of a small Nativity in the Carvalho Collection in the Chateau de Villandry that I register the picture at the present point in my volumes (Fig. 88). Subsequently to my study of the original I have for many years kept the photograph near me, floundering about with one idea after another for an attribution, ever in vain; but now, since the panel is patently the achievement of a Spanish artist of the early sixteenth century more distinguished in his attainments than the great majority of his rivals and since therefore other works of his could scarcely have failed to be preserved, it suddenly has dawned upon me that Fernando deserves serious consideration, particularly because the picture reveals at least two rather close analogies to the hypothetical productions that I have just mustered. One is that, as the companion of Zacharias warms his hands at the left in the Daroca painting, so in the same spot in the Carvalho Nativity St. Joseph has sought the heat of a fire. There is even some resemblance between their hands, though not as exact as could be wished, despite the fact that throughout the panel at Villandry the delineation of the hands is in general like that noted in the other works which we have brought into connection with the master. T h e second suggestive analogy is the somewhat arresting correspondence in pose, bodily proportions, bend of the head, and chiaroscuro of the countenance between the Virgin of the Nativity and the St. Damian (at the right) in the picture now in the Prado. Be it acknowledged at once that similarities in physical types are slight, but the opportunities for comparison are very limited, even if we accept the pieces that I have assembled in the preceding pages, and we must not confine the artist to the few who in these pieces act their parts. As a matter of fact, if we scrutinize the spectators in the balconies above the miracle of Sts. Cosmas and

FIG. 87. FERNANDO DEL RINCÔN (?). ST. SEBASTIAN. BENNINGTON, VERMONT {Photo.

Lloyd)

MUSEUM,

FIG. 88. FERNANDO DEL RINCÖN ( ? ) . NATIVITY. CARVALHO COLLECTION, CHÄTEAU DE VILLANDRY (Photo.

Giraudon)

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227

Damian, we discover some parallels to St. Joseph's old, bearded visage. Having once caught the idea that we might owe the Villandry picture to Rincón, we can ferret out what could be other traces of his authorship. T h e Virgin's lower draperies are modelled like those of the representation of her holding the newborn Baptist. T h e concentration upon still life that we have guessed to be characteristic of the painter would be exemplified by the candle burning before a mirror above St. Joseph, by the definition of his chair, and by the perspicacious rendering of the Babe's dilapidated manger which has been transferred from the stable to the pavement in the foreground. If by a happy chance I have hit upon the truth in the ascription, we learn more about his qualities. H e exhibits pronounced affection for the splendor of Plateresque architecture in the elaborate setting} and vying with the best of the many Spanish painters of the time who have, as yet without proper appreciation on the part of us moderns, excelled in their backgrounds of landscape, he displays in this respect the individual interest of treating the vistas seen through the arches with an impressionistic touch that foretells Pissarro. When I had the occasion to make passing mention of the picture in volume X I , 1 4 I classified it loosely as Flemish, but, although in this I was wrong, my mistake opens a new facet upon the hypothetical Fernando del Rincón, his indebtedness to Antwerp mannerism. I have argued 15 that the painter of the late international movement whom I baptized the Sigüenza Master but whose real name Gudiol has discovered to be Juan de Sevilla may have been trained in Aragón, despite the fact that the only place where with surety we know him to have been employed is Sigüenza in Castile but close to the Aragonese frontier; and in the Renaissance there is a painter, Juan de Pereda, who, it now turns out, may also have circulated between Sigüenza and Aragón and whom I had already advanced grounds for believing to have been characterized by some sort of Aragonese affiliations. 16 Since the two recognized works by him were done for sites in Castile, however near Aragonese territory, the logical thing, until information to the contrary might be forthcoming, is to make of him a Castilian, but the appurtenances of a picture which with some degree of probability can be ascribed to him, an enthroned Madonna, now in the Koenisberg Collection, Buenos Aires, 14 15

P. 296. Vol. X I I , p. 6 u .

16

Vol. I X , p. 701

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and originally a principal compartment of a retable, reveal that he may have received at least one commission within the limits of Aragon. 17 It was only the heavy opulence of Aragonese taste that found pleasure in the kind of throne upon which the Madonna is seated, a vast and solid expanse of gold, luxuriantly studded with embossed ornaments that give the effect of fine pieces of filigree.18 W e have registered numerous instances of this sort of throne in the late mediaeval painting of Aragon, 1 9 and its presence in the Koenisberg panel witnesses with practical certainty to an order from an Aragonese client. T h e internal evidence might be taken to imply that Juan de Pereda was the artist to whom this client turned. T h e types exhibit some resemblances to those of the Valencian interloper in the province, Damián Forment, but the analogies to Pereda's achievements are more arresting. Indeed it is rather difficult to believe that the same man should not have painted the Koenisberg Madonna and the central St. Liberata (Fig. 89), as well as some of the other maidens, in the altarpiece at Sigüenza. 20 T h e countenances, with their patently 17 The various Catalogues of the exposition of the Collection at Buenos Aires ascribe the picture to an unknown and probably mythical painter, "Jacobus Paulus." 18 Vol. VIII, p. 10. 19 See, for example, in vol. VIII, figs. 49, 71, 162, 163, 183, 1 9 1 , and 265. 20 For an outstanding instance of the Spanish exaltation of Hercules as an early righteous and civilizing sovereign of the country and as pillar of vigorous morality, Angulo in his really epoch-making book, La mitología y el arte esfañol del Renacimiento, Madrid, 1952 (p. 88), chooses the simulated sculpture on the architecture behind St. Liberata's effigy. Beneath the shell-patterned semidome there runs a frieze with four events in the life of Hercules (reading from left to right), his slaying of Geryon, his capture of the monster's oxen, Cacus stealing these beasts from the dormant hero and dragging them backward into his cave in order to escape detection, and finally his victory over the Nemean lion. Angulo notes that the first two of the exploits significantly occurred in Spain and that the third is related, though it took place in Italy. The struggle with the lion, as the first labor of Hercules, would naturally be selected to fill out the series. Three of the compositions are recognized by Angulo to be adapted from bronze plaquettes by the Italian goldsmith whom we know only by his pseudonym Moderno, but, not having yet received a good photograph of the central compartment of the Sigüenza retable when he wrote the book, he only deduced, though rightly, that the fourth, the affair of Cacus, had the same source; and the scenes thus add their testimony to the potent Italian influence on Juan de Pereda that I have singled out in my discussion (vol. I X , p. 700) of his stylistic components. According to the Spanish scholar's often undoubtedly justified desire to trace a parallelism in ideas between the principal subject of a work of art and the classical motifs in the setting, he discerns an analogy between St. Liberata's strength of character in the face of martyrdom and the virtuous fortitude that Spanish tradition ascribed to Hercules; and, if I interpret Angulo's words aright, he would take the two futti sculptured in the architectural façade as symbols of her chastity, Cupid with a broken wing at his feet and scanning his now useless dart, and the other nude boy holding a dead bird, perhaps a token of Venus' potency out-

Fig. 89. JUAN DE PEREDA. ST. LIBERATA. CATHEDRAL, SIGÜENZA (Photo.

Gudiol)

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Leonardesque reminiscences, are all but identical; there is the same sentimental tilt of the head; and the light and shade are not differently or less subtly gradated. Even the Child is closely paralleled, among the pieces in the Museum of Soria, by the Infant in the Nativity and Epiphany and the futto at the right within the mandorla of the Virgin of the Assumption but, above all, by the young Saviour in the Purification in the church of S. Pedro in the same city. T h e consideration that no Aragonese painter of the period can credibly be proposed to sponsor the Koenisberg picture increases the likelihood of its execution by a stranger. witted by the martyr's steadfast virginity. T h e r e remain other feigned sculptures in the retable that still await exegesis, especially the decapitated figure clasping a column on the summit of the throne of Catellius passing judgment upon St. Liberata and her sisters, and the careering horse that crowns the polygonal edifice before which she is decapitated.

CHAPTER X ARAGONESE PAINTINGS OF T H E EARLY RENAISSANCE BUT OF UNCERTAIN ATTRIBUTION On the borders oí Aragón and Catalonia there exists an anonymous work to which either of these divisions of the peninsula could assert rights, a retable in the Ermita de Ciérvoles, near Os de Balaguer north of Lérida. Although it is thus situated within a Catalan province, its stylistic relations with Aragón appear quite as palpable as with the part of Spain where the Ermita is located. The late mediaeval retable that from the same Ermita was moved to the parish church at Os de Balaguer I have classified 1 as Catalan and have even used it to supply a name for an anonymous painter of the school of Catalonia, the Ciérvoles Master, but it would be arbitrary and idle to rely merely on the present political divisions for determining the affiliations of the altarpiece still in the Ermita on the fringes of the two territories. The principal compartment displays St. Roch in a landscape, with his emblems of the angel and the dog made very prominent, and the two lateral sections are reserved for the Nativity of Christ and the Epiphany. As frequently, the Resurrection in the middle of the predella is set between four episodes of the Passion, the Agony in the Garden, Betrayal, Christ before Pilate, and the Via Dolorosa, but by an unusual arrangement there intervenes a painted frieze, resembling a second predella, between the main body of the structure and the capping Crucifixion. The subjects of the frieze are halflengths of saints, separated by colonnettes of the fine Plateresque architecture in which the whole retable is framed, at the centre the Magdalene, at her sides Dominic and Peter Martyr, then, balancing each other, Peter and Paul, and at the extremes another iconographic pair, the Virgin of the Annunciation and Gabriel. It goes without saying that, even while I was writing volume XII, I sedulously but unsuccessfully tried to detect whether we might owe the retable to one of the Catalan painters active in the region, such as the Balaguer Master, the Javierre Master, the Son Master, 1

Vol. VII, p. 503.

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ATTRIBUTIONS

or especially the unnamed author of the retable from Tornabous, 2 to which it bears some, in the end illusory, resemblances 5 but, although the possibility of a Catalan source is by no means to be set aside, the altarpiece strikes chords that could be understood to harmonize with the productions of Huesca and its vicinity during the early Renaissance, for instance the works of Solórzano and his circle, particularly the predella from Lascasas. 3 T h e Magdalene has an Aragonese breadth, which, however, might be occasioned by the desire to fill the wider space of the central division of the frieze 5 and yet the same tendency may be observed in the St. John of the Crucifixion. One of the author's marked traits is a predilection for bleak, rocky landscapes. W h e t h e r or not the Ciérvoles retable was executed by a son of Aragón, we can harbor no doubt in regard to the Aragonese nationality of the painter of an Epiphany once in the parish church of Tamarite de Litera, since there are very few works over which the bluff artistic characteristics of this part of Spain are so boldly written. It is said that there were three panels of the Renaissance in the same sacristy of the church which contained the vast retable by M i g u e l and Juan Jiménez, and the Epiphany was perhaps one of the triad; but I did not see them when I visited Tamarite and studied the retable or at least made no notes on them, and we have no means of verifying the possibility, inasmuch as the sacristy's contents perished in the uprisings of 1936. T h e painting itself is still largely mediaeval in nature and, like the works of the Huesca Master, lies only upon the edge of the Renaissance, which is indicated by little else than a slightly more knowledgeable rendering of the countenances and the shell-patterned ornament over an opening in the right background. Otherwise the harsh traits of the late mediaeval school of Aragón live on in their most pronounced form, the obtuseness to human pulchritude, the abrupt angularities of contours, and the violently broken folds of drapery. These qualities may not appeal to the usual run of mankind, but it must be granted that the author incorporates them with considerable force and competence, impressing us particularly with the powerful differentiation of the personalities of St. Joseph and the two Caucasian M a g i . Continuing in eastern Aragón, we encounter a retable which re2 3

V o l . X I I , p. 533See above, p. 166.

UNCERTAIN ATTRIBUTIONS

233

veals some general analogies to the modes of Solórzano and yet is by no means definitely attributable to him or indeed to any other known personality but at least does not raise, with its sturdy Aragonese forms, the question of possible Catalan execution. Situated in no less a spot than a chapel in the cathedral of Jaca, it exhibits in the principal compartment a sculptured group of the Anna selbdritt (Fig. 90) made by some gifted artist of the period, and indeed the frames throughout the retable, whether by him or someone else, constitute an outstanding example, as fine as it is florid, of Plateresque carving. T h e other compartments are reserved for painting, less distinguished but not negligible in quality. T h e two panels at the sides are intimately affiliated iconographically with the central Anna selbdritt, at the right St. Joachim leading the young Virgin and at the left, in balancing symmetry, St. Joseph (with the attribute of the flowering rod) 4 guiding the steps of the little Saviour. T h e Pietà at the middle of the predella is set between Sts. Mary Magdalene, Michael, John Baptist, and Catherine (all seated, except the archangel). Not only is Pedro de Aponte suggested by the style of the remains of a small retable in the Diocesan Museum, Lérida, with a central compartment of the Madonna of the Rosary and lateral panels of Sts. Roch and Sebastian, but the quality is quite worthy of his superiority to the average of Aragonese craft in the early Renaissance} and yet the correspondences to his authenticated works lack the concreteness that ought to support a definite attribution. T h e provenience is unascertained,5 but the inscription, still in Gothic letters, on the parapet behind the Virgin, "Mandóme facer Pere Fuster 6 (Pere Fuster ordered me)," shows, since the language is Castilian instead of Catalan, that the picture was painted for a place in the western, Aragonese part of the diocese of Lérida, although the patron who commissioned it bears a Catalan name. The most persuasive argument for an ascription to Aponte is afforded by a chiaroscuro that plays arbitrarily over the figures in precisely his individual mode, especially on the face of the H o l y Child, which indeed, in the matter See my v o l . X I I , p. 199, n. 63. See J. Soldevila F a r o in Aragón, February, 1933, p. 28. I cannot f o l l o w A n g u l o {Pintura del Renacimiento, p. 69) in seeing a relation to the retable of St. Helen in the cathedral of Gerona (see my vol. X I I , p. 1 5 6 ) . 6 See the short m o n o g r a p h , Museo Arqueológico del Seminario de herida-, published anonymously in 1933, p. 14, no. 447. 4

5

FIG. 90. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. R E T A B L E OF ST. ANNE. CATHEDRAL, JACA {Photo.

Mas)

UNCERTAIN

ATTRIBUTIONS

of types of human beings, is the countenance that can most easily be paralleled in the artist's production, since, with a strange disregard of infantile comeliness, it is puckered into a distorted expression which became characteristic of many mature visages in his late achievements. T h e Virgin herself bears a resemblance to such personages of his as the St. Michael at the tomb of Moses in the A g r e d a altarpiece and particularly the Madonna appearing to St. James in the Jaén panel j the St. Sebastian is not too different from the St. Martin in the retable of San Martín de Buil; his hands almost reiterate those of St. Michael in this retable; his mawkish look of piety was to be used again for the Christ of the A g o n y in the Garden at A g r e d a ; some facial similarity exists between the St. Roch and St. James of the L á z a r o panel; the angel pointing to Roch's plague sore opens his mouth in a way that the Master often affects; and he quite as frequently duplicates Sebastian's lower draperies, particularly in the violent high lights. So far, however, as the Morellian kind of connoisseurship is to be trusted, I am troubled by the absence, in Aponte's output, of any very exact resemblance to the curious treatment of the opening in the lobe of the Madonna's and the Child's ears in the form of a clover. If he be the author, the date would lie about the time of the Grañén retable before he evolved the well-defined manneristic tendencies of his activity in A g r e d a and Navarre. It is possible that we ought to recognize a belated work of the Armisén Master in the retable of the chapel or ermita, constructed in what is l e f t of the castle at Castejón de Monegros, south of Huesca ( F i g . 9 1 ) ; but the evidence is not sufficiently specific to consolidate the attribution. T h e retable perished in the conflagrations of the Spanish civil war, but I was fortunate enough to have studied it in situ during the summer of 1928. A n inscription on its lowest ledge revealed that it was a joint commission from the municipality and from a confraternity of Sts. Fabian and Sebastian and that it was finished in M a y , 1517. 7 T h e two popular Aragonese saints of the confraternity were paired in the principal compartment, but St. Fabian, as in other exceptional instances in Spanish art, 8 wore merely the mitre of a bishop instead of the papal tiara to which he was en7 Ricardo del A r c o ( A r t e esfañol, I, 1 9 1 2 - 1 9 1 3 , 3 4 6 ) and I read the month as M a y , but M . Usón ( D o s retablos góticos en Castejón ¿e Monegros, Huesca, 1924., p. 1 4 ) sees in the letters the month of M a r c h . D e l A r c o thinks that he can discern the actual day, the eighth of M a y . 8 See m y vols. V I I I , p. 699, and I X , p. 605.

FIG. 91. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. R E T A B L E (DESTROYED). FORMERLY IN T H E CASTLE, CASTEJON DE MONEGROS

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titled. T h e sacred personages in the lateral divisions, identified by inscriptions on the moldings beneath them, were St. Gregory the Great, whom in this case the painter consented to dignify with his rightful tiara, and the canonized Benedictine abbot whose cult was popular in the general region of Huesca, St. Victorianus.9 T h e predella displayed at the centre Christ of the Passion, between the Virgin and St. John, and at the sides the carding of St. Fabian and the subjection of St. Sebastian to the ordeal of the arrows. Although the date is as tardy as 1 5 1 7 , there was nothing to distinguish the retable from any secondary production of Bermejo's Aragonese following at the end of the fifteenth century, to which the Armisen Master indirectly belonged, except that in many of the countenances the asperities of the manner, perhaps under the first idealizing breath of the Renaissance, had subsided into what the author was incapable of making more than insipidity. As we move farther west, we encounter the problem of the largest and, oddly enough, most dimly known of the pictorial monuments of Aragon in the early Renaissance to which I am unable to affix any name, the vast retable of the Virgin at least formerly over the high altar of the parish church at Molinos, a village not far from the more important town of Castellote and belonging to the diocese of Saragossa, though to the province of Teruel. Lying very distant at the southeast from Saragossa, it is situated so near to Teruel that in my vain search for the author I have not failed to consider also the artists active in the latter capital. One of the reasons that the retable is dimly known to me is that I neglected to visit Molinos when before 1936 it would have indeed deserved the effort and that at the beginning of the Spanish civil war in this year, according to what information I have with the aid of my Aragonese friends been able to gather, the paintings either became one of the many sacrifices to the holocausts of the mobs or was saved and carted off to Valencia. None of the authorities at Valencia or even Madrid, however, has succeeded in uncovering any trace of the pictures in the former city, and it is quite possible that instead they were burned. Another reason for my dimness of knowledge is that the photographs taken long ago by the late Don Juan Mora of Saragossa are so inadequate in clarity as to be all but useless, however much he is to be lauded for having had the scholarly initiative to venture the long and difficult 9

See above, p. 150.

238

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journey, despite his physical infirmities, and to have made the negatives. So far as can be discerned in the photographs, the artist reveals vague and indeterminate resemblances to such men as the Gotor Master, to the authors of the retable at Salient de Gallego, Martin Garcia and Antonio de Plasencia, to the Hearst Master 10 in a later phase of his development, or even to followers of Yanez de la Almedina and Llanos like the painter of Alcaraz 11 or the man responsible for the predella belonging to French and Co., New York. 1 2 I had entertained the hope that the person for whom I was searching might prove to be the author of a distinguished panel of Pentecost in the cathedral of Teruel, which, however, has eventually appeared to my eyes a work of the more mature Renaissance. It is a pity that at least temporarily the artist of Molinos is shrouded in mist, since by straining our eyes over the photographs we can faintly glimpse a master of considerable merit, fond of gentler types of humanity and employing a more delicate touch than the majority of his rivals in Aragon and yet without displaying sensitiveness to the majestic architecture of the Renaissance in his settings. H e abides for the most part by traditional compositions, although now and then he indulges in original bits of iconography, for instance, in the Last Supper the representation of Judas not only, as sometimes, in isolation on the other side of the table but debased to the posture of squatting on the floor while he reaches up his hand to dip in the dish with the Saviour. It is worth while to itemize the subjects of the retable, many of which are discernible in the photographs, since the panels may in part have somewhere survived and thus could be recognized. A handsome, synchronous statue of the Madonna occupied the principal compartment, but all the rest, except for an angel at the lower end of each guardafolvo, was painting. Round about the statue were ranged representations of the Virgin's Seven Joys, in this instance the Annunciation, Nativity, Epiphany, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, and Assumption. In the fashion of Valencian altarpieces, the crowning piece was occupied, not by the Crucifixion, but by the Trinity, here girt by a host of adorers. T h e guardafolvos were stressed, again in the Valencian way, and decorated with many effigies of saints, only one of whom can I distinguish, Catherine flanking the Trinity at the 10 11

See above, p. 44. Vol. X I , fig. 1 4 8 .

12

Ibid.., fig. 150.

UNCERTAIN ATTRIBUTIONS left. The predella was devoted to episodes of the Passion, partly concealed by the later tabernacle and revealing surely no more than three themes, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, and the Via Dolorosa. In this elaborate retable the folding wings that could be used to cover the structure were also preserved, painted on the interiors with six scenes, three on each side, which the photographs at these points are too dark and blurred to disclose; but the subjects of the exteriors are clear, here divided into only four large spaces, in the lower register the Crucifixion and Lamentation over the Dead Christ and in the upper the Last Judgment spread over two sections. The church at Molinos at least once harbored another retable which had fallen into such a state of decay before Mora's visit that, even if his photograph were a good one, it would not have helped much in the author's identification. From what poor evidence remains, he does not appear the same as the painter of the retable over the high altar but of a slightly earlier date, and my nearest, though only most tentative, guess, if I were coerced into naming him, would be the Hearst Master,13 as I shall almost immediately endeavor to explain. The subject of the main compartment seems to be a standing effigy of St. James Major, surmounted, as commonly, by the Crucifixion. The two divisions at the left are consigned to a papal saint, whom I surmise to be the canonized pope very popular in Aragon, Fabian — below, his erect figure and, above, his flagellation, instead of the more usual scene from his life, the carding of his body prior to his decapitation. The corresponding personage at the right is certainly St. Roch, with his accompanying angel, but I cannot descry whether the episode over him is an event from his story or that of Santiago. The themes of the predella and guardafolvos are blurred by time and by the photographer beyond recognition, except at the summit of the structure the form of the Eternal Father. The principal reason for thinking vaguely of the Hearst Master is afforded by St. Roch's head, which recalls rather strikingly the thin face, heavily tressed and bearded, of the stern image that the cleaning has uncovered in the Christ of the Transfiguration in the retable that gives the Master his name. As a matter of fact, St. Roch is not very different in the representation of him 14 in the predella in the Seville Museum for which I have conditionally claimed the Hearst Master's 13 14

See above, p. 44. Vol. V I I I , fig. 1 1 6 .

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hand. Moreover, the two saints whom I cannot identify on the top uprights of the guardapolvos are nevertheless clear enough in general outlines in the photograph to exhibit some likeness to the similarly placed Vincent and Lawrence in the retable now among the possessions of the F o g g Museum. Out of the confusion of undocumented and unsigned paintings of secondary quality executed at the commencement of the Renaissance in central and western Aragon, it seems possible to elicit at least a beginning of order by dividing some of them into groups. T h e members of each group will prove to be related to one another in style and yet not so intimately as to permit with anything like surety attribution to a single artist. T h e outstanding specimen in one group is a retable ( F i g . 92) that from the town of Albalate del Arzobispo has been acquired by the Museum at Saragossa. Before analyzing its essentially artistic qualities, we must remark two ways in which it is exceptional in Spanish art of the period. First, the material upon which it is painted is not wood but, for some now irrecoverable reason, cloth ; and, second, most unusually a whole altarpiece is consigned to St. Joseph, whose cult did not become general in Europe until the seventeenth century. Very occasionally the foster-father of Christ occurs as a subordinate, separate figure in sacred assemblages in Spain during the late M i d d l e Ages and early Renaissance, 15 but I am acquainted with no example, other than the one from Albalate, in which at these periods he receives the honor of an entire retable. T h e fact that there is a church at Albalate dedicated to S. José will not explain the phenomenon because the title does not go back earlier than the middle of the eighteenth century, when the old church of S. Salvador was rebuilt and and renamed in honor of the Virgin's spouse. 16 T h e central compartment displays St. Joseph richly enthroned and holding his emblems of the staff and the flowering rod; 17 above, in its customary place, is the Crucifixion; and at the sides are four scenes from his life, the marriage with the Virgin, the angel reassuring him about the nature of his wife's pregnancy, and his presence at the Nativity ( F i g . 93), and Epiphany. A s in the case of the retable at Albalate possibly by R o i g and Rius, 1 8 the guardafolvos are 15 See my vols. VI, pp. 289, 298, and 38j, and V I I I , pp. 25 and 332; and above, p. 233. l S V . Bardaviu Ponz, Historia de Albalate del Arzobisfo, Saragossa, 1914, p. 129. 17 See above, p. 233. 18 Vol. VIII, p. 252.

FIG. 92. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. R E T A B L E OF ST. JOSEPH. MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA {Photo. Mas)

FIG. 93. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. N A T I V I T Y . R E T A B L E OF ST. JOSEPH. MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA (Photo. Mas)

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243

embellished with the escutcheon of the town, an extended wing on a red ground, which in the altarpiece of St. Joseph is repeated amidst a motif of arabesques. If the anonymous author obtained his education in either of the principal immediately preceding phases of the Aragonese school, the one under the domination of Bermejo and the other looking toward Catalonia, he fails to reveal any very tangible traces of such indebtedness, and he reminds us rather of the group of painters whom we analyzed in volume V I I I 19 as not clearly related to these two main currents, especially the Hearst Master. T o put it differently, he manipulates a generalized and not incisively defined style that cultivates types of humanity already slightly touched by the idealizing tendencies of the Renaissance and perhaps even by Italianism, although otherwise revealing an acquaintance with the new movement only in the arabesques of the guardafolvos and in the shell-patterned canopy of St. Joseph's throne, which remains preponderantly Gothic in its details like the settings of the narrative scenes. W h e n we have to do with a man of such moderate and provincial capabilities, it is impossible to specify how late in the first quarter of the sixteenth century he would have maintained this transitional manner. If one takes into account the stylistic variations that would naturally be caused by the differences in the materials of cloth and wood, the retable of St. Joseph exhibits enough correspondences with a fragmentary panel, N o . 482 in the Museum of Saragossa, to admit at least the hypothesis of execution by the same painter. Presented to the M u s e u m by D o n A n g e l Sangrós Gorriz but of unknown original provenience, it preserves, from the altarpiece to which it must once have belonged, only the scenes of the Annunciation ( F i g . 94) below and the Nativity above. Anyone can see that the fragment falls within precisely the same aspect of the very early Aragonese Renaissance as the Albalate retable, but there are also a number of specific likenesses. T h e bearded types are very similar, reaching virtual identity in the hooded shepherd peering over the wall in both Nativities, and it is to be noted that the predilection for giving scraggly bangs to masculine actors manifested in the retable can be detected also in the donation of Señor Sangrós to the Museum. T h e incompetently but appealingly drawn head of the ox in the Nativity of this donation reappears unchanged in the Epiphany of the retable and with scarcely 19

Chapter CI.

FIG. 94. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. ANNUNCIATION. SARAGOSSA

{Photo. Mas)

MUSEUM,

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any divergence in the Birth of Christ. T h e persistence, in the fragment, of embossing of haloes and other appurtenances would be alien to the medium of cloth upon which the retable is painted j and yet I would not press the ascription of both works to a single master any more than in corresponding instances in the present chapter. At the head of a second group we may set two large panels built into the later retable over the high altar of the Ermita de Sta. Agueda at Escatrón, southeast of Saragossa ( F i g . 9 5 ) , which were destroyed in the civil war. T h e subjects were coupled, standing saints, the frequent iconographic pair, Fabian and Sebastian at the left and the Magdalene and Quiteria at the right. A bound, kneeling, demented boy accompanied St. Quiteria as one of her regular attributes; but the Magdalene, in addition to the box of ointment, carried the emblem that frequently distinguishes her rather in the Valencian school but is not unparalleled in Aragón, 20 the crown of thorns, 21 and she protected both objects with a ritualistic veil. Inasmuch as the old parish church at Escatrón has been abandoned, the two panels were possibly once parts of a retable in that edifice and thence moved, as often happened, to constitute sections of the conglomerate altarpiece in the Ermitaj but we have noted in volume V I I I 2 2 that they cannot be relics of a retable ordered for the town from Miguel Jiménez at the considerably prior date of 1475. Letters inscribed in some of the tiles upon which the saints stood are as uninterpretable as generally in the many similar instances in Spanish paintings of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, and they certainly cannot be taken as a guide to the artist's name. Although the panels are not works of Jiménez, the types of persons appear to be descended from his conceptions of human beings, but they have become blander in accord with the proclivities of the Renaissance. I have sometimes felt that I discerned at least an affinity with the manner of Miguel Jiménez's pupil, the Huesca Master; but the evidence falls far short of establishing an identity, and likewise it seems impossible to equate the author with Miguel's son, Juan. 2 3 In view of the analogies to Damián Forment's paintings, especially between the female saints of Escatrón and the virgin martyrs in the Berbedel retable, it would not have been right to 20 21 22 23

Vol. VIII, p. 66. Vol. VI, p. 7 J . P. 91. Vol. VIII, pp. 82 ff.

FIG. 95. FOLLOWER OF MIGUEL JIMÉNEZ. STS. FABIAN, SEBASTIAN, MAGDALENE, QUITERIA. ERMITA DE STA. AGUEDA, ESCATRÓN {Photo.

Mas)

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overlook him as a candidate, but a careful study results in his elimination. If not possessed of any great talent, the artist of Escatrón can nevertheless draw and model agreeable figures that memories of the rugged art of M i g u e l Jiménez saved f r o m the vapidity which the desire of the Renaissance for ideal beauty might have occasioned. Above the parapet against which Sts. Fabian and Sebastian stood, he pleasantly featured, not the ordinary trees generally used in such places at this time, but a specimen laden with fruit, and still more attractively he placed behind the Magdalene and St. Quiteria a delicate, ivied trellis, on the top of which was perched a crested bird beneath a tree of the same sort as the other. Despite the fact that for several of the garments he still clung to the brilliant gold and black brocades of Jiménez (although simulating the gold with yellow pigment), he used real skies instead of gold backgrounds, and he renounced the old mediaeval Aragonese embossings, so that the approximate date which I proposed in volume V I I I for the panels, c. 1520, was perhaps not too tardy. In the parish church of Anento, southeast of Daroca, besides the huge retable over the high altar by the Lanaja Master, 2 4 there are two smaller retables of the early Renaissance on the north side of the nave, and the better one of these ( F i g . 96) reveals factors that pretty nearly and yet not conclusively establish unity of authorship with the panels at Escatrón. In the central compartment stands St. John Baptist, surmounted by the customary pinnacle of the Crucifixion; and two events from his life, his preaching and decapitation, occupy in the predella spaces at the sides of an unusual but in Aragón not unparalleled 25 theme for the middle of this section of an altarpiece, a bust of the M a n of Sorrows, here magnified to much larger scale than the figures in the adjoining scenes. O f the large, lateral compartments flanking the Baptist's effigy, the one at the left contains a curious representation of the Anna selbdritt, with both the Virgin and St. Anne standing and holding the Child between them. Above there is formed a small compartment with an episode from St. Anne's life, the Meeting at the Golden Gate (which has become a portal of the Renaissance). O n the right side of the retable, St. Gregory the Great constitutes a pendant to the Anna selbdritt, and the theme above is a simplified form of his Mass.

25

Vol. VIII, p. 665. See below, pp. 249 and 259.

FIG. 96. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. RETABLE OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. PARISH CHURCH, ANENTO {Photo.

Mas)

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T h e most tangible links with the panels at Escatron are created by the close analogies of the Virgin in the Anna selbdritt to the St. Quiteria and of the St. Gregory to the St. Fabian. If by any chance we have to do with the same painter in both towns, he does not at Anento take the pains to introduce the enlivening bits of invention that we have singled out at Escatron, since in the old-fashioned mode he relieves his sacred effigies against rigid, brocaded textiles hung in front of parapets above which we are treated to no pretty arboreal or ornithological details but merely to expanses of sky. Loosely connected with these works at Escatron and Anento and almost certainly executed by the author of neither of them (if we do not owe them to a single artist), the third member of the group takes us again to the town, Ambel, whose abundant pictorial decoration is due to the eminence that a commandery of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem bestowed upon it. 26 In this instance it is St. Christopher who is chiefly honored in the retable in question, which decorates an altar on the south side of the nave in the church of the Virgen del Rosario ( F i g . 97) and thus is located opposite the retable of 1517 by the Tena Master, 2 7 probably about contemporary in date with it. Depicted in the principal compartment as carrying his sacred burden over the river in the presence of the customary hermit, Christopher is flanked in the lateral panels by slightly smaller effigies, at the right St. Peter and at the l e f t the saint, the Baptist, who was the protector of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In the upper tier of the structure, the Crucifixion is set between two scenes from St. Christopher's story, his view of demons frightened by a wayside cross 28 and his arraignment before the Lycian king. O f the halflengths in the predella the central figure is once more 29 the M a n of Sorrows, here not of exaggerated size and definitely conceived as in the subject of the Ecce H o m o , clad in an impressive white robe and with bound hands. Sts. Michael and L u c y are in the compartments at the right, but the balancing virgin martyr and canonized pope at the left lack distinctive emblems by which they could be recognized. T h e old, decorative conventions of gold have lived on, though not embossed, to a greater extent than in the other members of the group, being employed not only for hangings and accents but 26 27

28 29

See above, p. 193. Ibid.

Vol. VIII, p. 356. See above, p. 247.

FIG. 97. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. RETABLE OF ST. CHRISTOPHER. VIRGEN DEL ROSARIO, AMBEL {Photo.

Mas)

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251

in the predella actually as backgrounds, incised with foliate patterns. The resemblance in types and pictorial methods to the Anento retable is more perceptible than to the Escatron panels and yet far from demanding assignment to the retable's creator, nor can the practical identity of the patterns in the pavements upon which all the figures except the St. Christopher stand in the principal compartments of both altarpieces be used by itself as a very sound argument for the attribution. In the same general class as the works that we have just been considering but scarcely belonging precisely to their group the retable calling for our attention in the present paragraph (Fig. 98) transports us to a place that we have already visited, since it hangs next to the altarpiece of the Baptist in the church at Anento.30 It is now St. Roch who occupies the centre of the structure, between compartments depicting the Anna selbdritt and St. Paul; above, the only panel is the Crucifixion; and in the predella, at the sides of Christ of the Mass of St. Gregory, there are ranged busts of Sts. Joachim 31 (naturally finding a place under his wife, St. Anne), Anthony Abbot, Julitta and Quiricus (together), and Apollonia. I once tried to hoodwink myself into seeking in this Anento retable the actual hand of the Tena Master, observing in the enthroned Madonna of his altarpiece at Ambel some similarity in facial modelling to the practice followed in the countenances at Anento and finding in St. Roch's angel at Ambel a certain degree of the elongation that at Anento is a peculiarity of the corresponding figure and even of other forms; but I soon perceived that in general the types in the two retables, for instance the representations of St. Roch himself, were of too diverse a nature to sanction my fond desire to descry unity of authorship and that nothing more concrete than allegiance to the same general style could be asserted. The Anento painter does not even share with the Tena Master any tangible traces of descent from the modes established by Bermejo, nor for that matter does he exhibit a patent derivation from the other coterie of his Aragonese forerunners in the second half of the fifteenth century who were dependent upon Catalonia. The resemblances to the companion retable at Anento are merely superficial, and indeed the pictorial manner may be described as a flattening out into a nondescript and almost vapid idealization 30 31

See above, p. 2 4 7 . With the attribute of the shepherd's crook: see vol. V I ,

fig.

160.

FIG. 98. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. R E T A B L E OF ST. ROCH. PARISH CHURCH, ANENTO {Photo.

Mas)

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253

which might occur just as well in any other school of Spain as in Aragon. T h e old addiction of the region to accentuation through gold embossings is still retained. A retable of the early Renaissance, once in the Collection of the Conde de las Almenas, Madrid, and now belonging to M r . Eric de Kolb at New York (Fig. 99), is still lower in quality than the specimens that we have been discussing, and like one or two others of them it discloses no concrete traces of indebtedness to the late mediaeval styles of Aragon. A certain heavy practicality of spirit and execution, however, bespeaks the general tone of Aragonese art, and the retable is said to come from a church at Calatayud, which has provided us with several notable and technically better examples of the painting of the previous century.32 T h e principal compartment is occupied by an enthroned episcopal saint whom the lack of defining emblems and the undistinguishing nature of the scenes from his life comprised within the retable prevent us from recognizing. His companions in the lateral compartments are the standing Sts. Cosmas and Damian; in the tier above, the Crucifixion is set between the scenes of the bishop preaching and enjoying a vision upon his deathbed j and the predella marshals, in three-fourths length, the figures of the risen Saviour flanked by the Virgin, Sts. John Evangelist, James Major, and Anthony Abbot. By exception for the period, the structure includes a round pediment in which a bust of Christ between two heads of angels is painted against the setting of a starry sky. Gold backgrounds continue their mediaeval existence in the three main compartments, but, as in the altarpiece of St. Christopher at Ambel, embossings are abjured. Really the best part of the retable is the nicely carved and gilded Plateresque frame. Resemblances to the works of Juan Fernandez Rodriguez can be detected in a retable of average merit, dedicated to St. Anne, in the church of Longares, just southwest of Saragossa (Fig. 100), but not sufficiently distinct to pull it even into his circle. T h e principal compartment is reserved for a sculptured group of the Anna selbdritt, but the rest is painting of the same period. Besides the customary pinnacle of the Crucifixion, there are four lateral divisions, each with an effigy of a saint standing in front of a brocaded hanging behind which a parapet is inscribed with the sacred personage's name (in the Latin vocative). Linked to the main theme are at the lower 32

See the index of places in volume VIII.

FIG. 99. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. RETABLE. ERIC DE KOLB, NEW YORK

FIG. IOO. ARAGONESE SCHOOL. RETABLE OF ST. ANNE. PARISH CHURCH, LONGARES

{Photo. Mas)

256

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left St. Joachim (carrying a countryman's staff) and at the upper right St. Joseph (with a shepherd's crook). 33 The other two are of general occurrence, St. Peter at the upper left and St. Roch at the lower right. The dead Christ supported by an angel at the centre of the predella is set between four customary scenes from the story of Sts. Joachim and Anne, his Expulsion from the Temple, his and her Visions promising an offspring, and the Meeting at the Golden Gate. Although the delineation of the figures already borders upon the High Renaissance, lingering archaisms are signalized not only in the retention of brilliant textiles behind the four saints in the lateral compartments but also in such matters as the clothing of the priest who expels Joachim in one of the shining fabrics beloved by the mediaeval painters of Spain. I have reserved until the end of this chapter a retable of good quality in the Cortes Collection, Madrid, because it is not even certainly Aragonese. I first became familiar with it when I studied it in the Palacio de Bellas Artes at the Exposición Ibero-Americana at Seville in 1930 as then in the possession of Don Francisco Pérez Ascencio at Jerez de la Frontera, with the result that a slight presumption was created in my mind, being in a collection of southern Spain, it might be a product of the Andalusian school; but there is no painter or phase of this school related to it, and during all these years I have sought repeatedly and yet in vain to find some aspect of the styles of Castile, Leon, Valencia, and Catalonia with which it could be brought into harmony. By a process of exclusion, unless with lack of perception I have failed to recognize other affiliations, we seem to be left with Aragón and Navarre. One perhaps might argue himself into descrying remote similarities to such a Navarrese artist as the Ororbia Master, but it is with Aragón that the ties appear to me closer. An Aragonese hardihood is distilled from the whole retable, which exhibits analogies, not very concrete to be sure, in types, especially in the bearded persons with staring eyes, to the manner of Prudencio and Juan de la Puente. The analogies are not so tangible as in the retable of the Weissberger Collection, but, although the Cortes altarpiece is superior in character to this retable and to the signed work of the Puentes, I should not put it beyond the realm of possibility that it was executed by a competent painter in their general orbit. 33 In the retable of St. Roch at Anento it the crook: see above, p. 2 j i , n. 3 1 .

St. Joachim who more properly has

UNCERTAIN ATTRIBUTIONS The principal subject of the altarpiece is also a problem, the identity of the enthroned male saint, without any apparently distinctive emblem, in the main compartment. We are not helped to the solution by the surrounding narrative scenes which have to do, not with him, but with the life of Christ. I find entered in the notes which I took in front of the picture my guess that he is St. Ives, and I still cling to this surmise. Although he eventually was priested, he is ordinarily represented in the guise of a layman wearing, as here, the furred robe of a lawyer which perhaps should be regarded as a definite attribute. The hat would be intended as the lawyer's bonnet, and the book that he holds would take the place of the scroll of paper which he customarily fingers. I cannot explain the staff that he bears in his hand. Among the Spaniards we have noted the Castellnovo Master 34 and the San Quirse Master 3 5 depicting him very like the effigy in the Cortes retable. The Crucifixion is set in its usual spot above the effigy, and the four accompanying scenes from the life of Christ are the Annunciation, Nativity, the Magdalene washing His feet, and the Via Dolorosa. The central piece of the predella has disappeared, and the two adjacent compartments contain halflengths of coupled saints, at the right the Baptist and Sebastian and at the left Christopher and Julian (conceived in the regular way as a gentleman carrying a falcon). What might be interpreted as minor echoes of the shop of the Puentes are discernible, for instance the upraised hand of St. Joseph in the Nativity recalling the corresponding detail in their retable at Tarazona or the benign face of the Saviour in the Via Dolorosa as in the Salvator Mundi of this retable; but it is the general style that recalls the fashions of the Puentes and of Aragon. Within such modes the author of the Cortes altarpiece is a painter with a marked individuality, creating types, particularly the shaggily hirsute men, that are his own, despite the vague resemblances to the productions of members of the Aragonese school. The compartment of the Magdalene washing Christ's feet exhibits a predilection for genre that it would be rash to elucidate as evidence of a connection with the art of the Navarrese Ororbia Master. In addition to the interest in the victuals on the table and in a flagon on the pavement, a pitcher is represented as overturned and spilling its water over the tiles j and one of the guests already lifts an article of food to his mouth. 34 Vols. VI, fig. 187, and XII, p. 660, n. 10. « Vol. VII, p. 207.

CHAPTER XI NAVARRE I.

INTRODUCTION

At the end of the Middle Ages the Navarrese had very largely abjured their allegiance to the school of Aragón and patronized the Castilian style of the immigrant from western Spain, Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, and his followers.1 W e have already in this volume 2 had occasion to follow Pedro to Huesca in Aragón, and I have reserved for the present chapter some additions to our gradually accumulating knowledge 3 of him and the discussion of several more works that he and his imitators produced in Navarre and the adjacent territory, although they reveal as yet little or no consciousness of the Renaissance. The Navarrese interest in the painting of the west signalized by the vogue of the style of Pedro Diaz expressed itself also, as the Renaissance began to take hold of the region, in turning to other sources in that part of the peninsula for models, particularly to the achievements of León Picardo in the near-lying province of Burgos. The mature Renaissance of the middle and second half of the sixteenth century, however, restored the Aragonese painters to a popularity that they shared with native Navarrese rivals. Such conspicuous members of the circle that centered at Saragossa as Diego de San Martin, Pedro Pertus, and Jerónimo Cosida Vallejo received signal commissions in Navarre, and Pedro de Aponte, whom we have considered in the present volume because he began in a less advanced manner, became during his later years a herald in Navarrese territory of this revived affection for Aragonese standards.

2.

A D D I T I O N A L W O R K S OF P E D R O D Í A Z AND H I S SCHOOL

Francisco Fuentes 4 has published the documentary records of an apparently lost retable that Pedro Diaz executed during the first years of the sixteenth century for the high altar of the parish church at 1 2 3 4

See my vols. VIII, p. 4 ; IX, p. 722. P. 6. Vols. IV, p. 4 2 9 ; V, p. 3 3 8 ; VII, p. 864; and I X , p. 8 1 3 . Príncife de Viana, V I ( i 9 4 j ) , 405.

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259

Bunuel in Navarre, just east of the principal seat of his activity in the region, Tudela. T h e contract, dated March 7, 1500, is accompanied by the master's rough and summary sketch for the retable like that of Martin Bernat for an altarpiece of A l l Saints in the cathedral of Saragossa, 5 showing merely the division into compartments and in each compartment the scrawled title of its subject (the Crucifixion in the central pinnacle indicated only by a Greek cross) 5 but subsequently, on the completion of the retable, differences arose between the master and his patrons as to whether he had entirely fulfilled the terms of the contract, and two experts had to be called in who gave their opinions in favor of Pedro Diaz, demanding, for form's sake, only the most insignificant alterations. One of the experts was a painter of Tarazona, Anton Martinez, but the second, Pedro de Miranda, we have already encountered as performing for the master on another occasion a rather similar service.6 T h e principal compartment contained a representation of St. Anne, the patroness of the church, surmounted by panels of the Coronation of the Virgin and the Crucifixion, but in the twelve lateral compartments there were depicted, not narrative scenes, but, rather exceptionally, separate effigies of sacred personages. Fuentes adduces evidence to imply that even by the beginning of the next century, the seventeenth, taste had so far changed that a sculptured retable was substituted for the structure by Pedro Diaz. On April 26, 1 9 2 1 , there was sold at the Anderson Galleries, New York, a conglomerate altarpiece in which panels by Pedro Diaz were combined with a central compartment of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, that I have already 7 assigned provisionally to Pedro de Aponte, and with two lower lateral sections depicting the Annunciaation and Epiphany, classifiable in Pedro's school or perhaps rather in the vicinity of some such Aragonese artist of the late fifteenth century as the presumptive Jaime Lana or possibly Bernardo de Aras. 8 T h e parts by Diaz, so obviously his creations as to require no demonstration, are the standing effigies of the Baptist and St. Peter at the upper levels in the sides of the structure and the predella 9 of 5 V o l . V I I I , p. 4 3 6 V o l . V , p. 3 4 0 . 7 See above, p. 89. 8

See v o l . X , p. 3 9 9 . A t m y last k n o w l e d g e the predella w a s in the H a t e l y Collection at Florida. 9

Sarasota,

26O

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half-lengths of the Man of Sorrows, the mourning Virgin, St. John Evangelist, and at the ends Sts. Quiteria (with the attribute of the mad dog) and Barbara. The loud character of the brocaded gold backgrounds suggests that he executed the retable from which the panels derive in Aragon or some adjacent district of Navarre. The Baptist is one of the sacred personages whom the contract demands for the retable of Bunuel, but, since St. Peter is not specified in the contract and the two figures in the altarpiece of the Anderson Galleries are clearly companion-pieces, we must forego the tempting guess that they are relics of the Bunuel assemblage, unless we suppose a change in the iconographic program. In a panel of St. Lawrence (Fig. 101) enthroned between two angels in the parish church of Muniain de la Solana, just south of Estella, manifestly once the centre of a retable, the evidence is not sufficiently concrete or precise to name Pedro Diaz as the author, but he remains the most likely candidate for the attribution. The general interpretation of the Hispano-Flemish manner embodied in the picture plainly speaks for him — the unusually ample expanse of drapery, the nature of the exaggeratedly intertwining folds of the saint's alb as it spreads over the base of the throne, the prominence of the gorgeous brocades as decorative factors, and an employment of embossed gold appurtenances that goes beyond even the customary standard of the region. I have pointed out in volume IV 10 that he is strangely fond of contrasting with his strongly characterized visages somewhat pale, blank countenances like that of Lawrence, who recalls such figures as the woman behind Mary in the Purification and especially the St. Anne in the Presentation of the Virgin in the Tudela retable. The two angels are quite reconcilable with the attribution through comparison with their brothers who accompany the Man of Sorrows in this retable and with the Magdalene and St. John in the predella of the altarpiece at Tarazona. Indeed a process of exclusion almost drives us to Pedro Diaz in the search for the man who executed the panel, since it certainly cannot be ascribed to any known member of his Navarrese school. The embossings are perhaps more like those of the Aragonese Coteta Master, who might easily have received a commission in contiguous Navarre, but in other respects his claims are less persuasive. Since repaint appears partially to shroud the truth, I have hitherto 10

P- 435-

FIG. I o í .

PEDRO DÍAZ DE OVIEDO PARISH

CHURCH,

(?).

MUNIAIN

ST. L A W R E N C E DE

LA

ENTHRONED.

SOLANA

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hesitated to include in this series of books a retable which once decorated the Ermita de la Virgen del Camino de la Peña at Sangüesa but which I last saw on the north side of the nave in the church of S. Salvador in this town (Fig. 102). Renewed study, however, inclines me to believe that the original work is another result of the presence of Pedro Diaz in Navarre, whether it was done by Pedro himself or, more probably, by one of his imitators,11 perhaps the author of the retable at Artajona.12 St. Anthony Abbot stands in the principal panel between compartments containing effigies of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The figures of the predella, in three-fourths length, are: in the middle, Christ of the Mass of St. Gregory upheld by two angels and at the sides St. Nicholas (to whom an ermita at Sangüesa is dedicated), Sebastian, Fabian, and a canonized bishop without distinctive emblems (? St. Babilés,13 who is also honored with an ermita in the place). So far as the retable's present condition permits judgment, the types of personages and the swelling, angular draperies seem to embody the style that Pedro Diaz imported into Navarre, and the composition of Christ and the angels at the centre of the predella (Fig. 103) virtually repeats that of the corresponding panel in Pedro's altarpiece at Tudela. Unless, however, the effect is due to repaint, the harshness of Pedro Diaz has been somewhat relaxed, indicating a date in the early sixteenth century under the idealizing tendencies of the Renaissance, and such a type as particularly the St. Sebastian suggests, but no more than suggests, the possibility that the Sangüesa retable might have been executed by Pedro's pupil who was active at Artajona. Nevertheless, the mediaeval feeling was still sufficiently vital to preserve the gold embossings in undiminished lavishness. It is conceivable, though very far from certain, that the author of the retable in S. Salvador painted one or both of two fragments, depicting Carmelite saints, attached to the back of the later retable of the Pietà by the Gallipienzo Master 14 in the church of the Carmen at Sangüesa. Although their pristine shapes have been cut down 11

Vol. I V , pp. 4.40 ff. Vol. I X , p. 7 2 4 , n. 7. 13 Probably the Babilés born at Pamplona and slain by the Moors rather than his homonym of Antioch: see vols. V I I I , p. 5 1 2 , and I X , p. 5 3 1 , and above, pp. 4 4 and 1 1 7 . 14 See below, p. 2 9 2 . 12

FIG. IO2. FOLLOWER OF PEDRO DÍAZ DE OVIEDO. RETABLE OF ST. ANTHONY ABBOT. SAN SALVADOR, SANGÜESA {Photo.

Mas)

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265

so that they look like companion-pieces and as if made for the shoulders of an altarpiece, we may well doubt whether they were originally parts of a single assemblage, despite the similarity of the landscapes against which they stand. One of them still retains a halo of rings of raised stucco and gives the impression of being slightly earlier than the other, whose nimbus is larger and unembossed. An Aragonese painter such as Martin Bernat might have been commissioned to do the hypothetically earlier panel, but evidence is too slight for anything like a definite attribution in the case of either fragment. Appropriately for a Carmelite church, the subjects are revealed by their habits to be canonized worthies of the Order, one possibly St. Simon Stock 15 and the other, if not the same personage, perhaps St. Albert of Vercelli, who, however, ought to have been represented with the episcopal insignia. Of the works definitely of the school of Pedro Diaz rather than by him himself there deserves first mention the retable of the miraculous Crucifix in the cathedral of Pamplona which I have discussed in volume I X 16 but to which I return because this special chapter on Navarre demanded its fresh study that has revealed to me more exact ideas about its affiliations. Still essentially belonging to the Navarrese manner of the late Middle Ages, it takes its place in a volume on the early Renaissance only in virtue of the backgrounds of Italianate architecture against which the Patriarchs and Prophets who constitute the retable stand. I had already maintained in volume I X that the retable belongs to the school of Diaz; and the conclusion to which I have now come is that it is so very close stylistically to the altarpiece of Artajona, which also contains a few elements of the Renaissance, that it is quite possibly by the same painter, but I leave it to a bolder critic on careful examination of all the photographs, to venture so definite an attribution. I merely ask the critic to make such comparisons as between the Saviour of the Artajona Betrayal and Resurrection and the Habakkuk of the retable of the Crucifix, between the Christ of the Artajona Trinity and the Isaiah, or between the standing Caucasian Magus of the Artajona Epiphany and the Malachi. The review of this phase of Navarrese painting which I have undertaken has demonstrated to me also that the retable donated by Pedro Marcilla de Caparroso in an adjacent chapel 15 16

See vol. X I , p. 1 5 9 . P. 7 2 2 .

266

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of the ambulatory of the cathedral of Pamplona 17 is intimately related to the altarpieces both of the Crucifix and of Artajona but by a member of the coterie under more direct Flemish influence and of a less forceful personality. Pedro Diaz must have brought with him into Navarre several competent associates or attracted to him exponents of the profession already active in the region, but I fail to concur with Gudiol Ricart 1 8 in discerning in this aspect of Navarrese pictorial production any Andalusian affinity. It is hard to detect any effect of the Renaissance in a work where the indebtedness to Pedro Diaz seems tangible, a retable of rather high quality in the parish church at Marañón, north of Logroño. Since the village lies in the southwest corner of Navarre and therefore not very far distant from the province of Burgos, it might have been expected that the townsmen would have summoned thence a painter or at least that the retable's author would have been formed under the spell of this great artistic centre, and as a matter of fact the style embodied in the panels could be interpreted as somewhat affiliated with that of the Belorado Master, who was one of the most popular members of the school of Burgos in the early sixteenth century and whose vogue extended as near to Marañón as Santo Domingo de la Calzada in the province of Logroño; 19 but the ties seem closer with the modes established in Navarre by Pedro Diaz, although, however earnestly I have tried, I cannot bring myself to perceive identity of the painter with any of the several Navarrese imitators of Pedro whom I have marshalled in former volumes.20 The sacred personage honored in the retable is the Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. The centre of the structure was handed over to a competent Hispano-Flemish sculptor in wood, who at the lowest level in its main body must have carved a figure of Our Lady which seems to have disappeared, since the seated group of the Madonna and Child now filling the niche looks too small for the space, although evidently a work of about the same period. He framed the niche with four statuettes of saints, introduced in the next higher zone the Assumption, and at the summit the Crucifixion. For the painter there were thus left: the lateral divisions, with the scenes of the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Epiphany, Lamentation over " Vol. IV, p. 444. Pintura gótica, p. 384. 19 Vol. IX, p. 593. 20 Vols. IV, p. 440, and IX, p. 723. 18

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267

the Dead Christ, and Resurrection; the tabernacle, which has lost the original front face that must have depicted the regular theme for this spot, the Man of Sorrows, since its side-pieces display two angels holding the crown of thorns and the cross; and the predella, likewise showing the forms in half-length or more and depicting Sts. Peter and Paul in separate panels and the rest of the Apostles distributed between two long, horizontal compartments, five of them in each (Fig. 104). Further figures of saints by the sculptor complete the predella at the ends. Aggregations of the College of the Twelve often obtrude puzzles in identification, because the emblems of a few of them vary, but in this case only one is enigmatical, the Apostle who holds a wooden cross of the Tau shape in the group at the right between Philip, with a processional cross, and Thaddaeus, with a halberd. Since all the others are recognizable, Andrew appearing in the group with the cross of the form named after him, the mysterious Apostle must be Matthew or Matthias, and the former alternative is argued because a wooden cross is sometimes, though rarely, given to Matthew as an attribute.21 T h e passion of Pedro Diaz for auric brocades is continued in the backgrounds of the tabernacle and predella, as well as in the purely decorative, stiff plaques hung behind the actors in the four narrative scenes beginning with the Annunciation. T h e compositions do not appear to be derived from any known works of Pedro Diaz, and it is rather the general manner that suggests his inspiration. Among the plenitude of paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance at Agreda, which is situated in the province of Soria but close to the borders of Navarre and Aragón, the panels of a retable in the church of Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, containing in the centre a statue of St. Vincent, were executed by a still essentially mediaeval imitator of Pedro D i a z who does not seem to be the same person as any of the followers that I have endeavored to isolate but whose craft scarcely rises above the rustic level. It is impossible also to identify him with a single one of the painters active in the town, not even, as we have seen in volume IV, 22 with the author of a companion retable of St. Lawrence in the same church, and he thus illustrates the strange phenomenon that all, or almost all, the many monuments of paint21

Maurice and Wilfred Blake, Saints and their Emblems,

p. 85. 22

P. 464.

Philadelphia,

1916,

FIG. 104. SCHOOL OF PEDRO DIAZ DE OVIEDO. R E T A B L E ( D E T A I L ) . PARISH CHURCH, MARANON

NAVARRE

269

ing at Agreda were carried out by different members of the profession. Although the middle of the altarpiece's main body is occupied by a statue of St. Vincent (Fig. 105) capped by carved Gothic lattice-work that rises so high as to leave no room for the usual Crucifixion, three of the painted panels at the sides are dedicated to the Virgin, showing her being married (Fig. 106), present at the Circumcision, and fleeing into Egypt; and the iconographic comprehensiveness is extended to reserving the fourth panel for a seated figure of the Magdalene, in the representation of whose delicate feminine charm, as also in rendering the Madonna in the Flight into Egypt, the artist has managed to transcend his mediocre talents. The Christ of the Passion between two angels in the middle of the predella reiterates the cartoon for the subject used by Pedro Diaz at Tudela still more exactly than does the version in the Sangiiesa retable. In the four half-lengths of Prophets flanking this central panel, the individual who planned the iconography shows himself more painstaking in his theology than the artist in the execution of the forms, since, of the innumerable instances in which Prophets with their banderoles are introduced into Spanish altarpieces, this is the only case that I can recall where the sentiment on each scroll is scrupulously adapted respectively to a scene above. First comes Hosea with words from his Prophecy, I I , 20, taken as prefiguring the Marriage of the Virgin: " E t sponsabo te mihi in fide." The Circumcision is symbolized by a clause that Daniel exhibits from the twentyfourth verse of the ninth chapter of his book: " E t ungatur Sanctus sanctorum." 23 Isaiah X I X , 1, is chosen to foretell the Flight into Egypt: "Ecce Dominus ascendet super nubem levem, et ingredietur Aegyptum." Finally even the Magdalene has her versicle, aptly referring to her levitation as a penitent in the wilds but also recalling her past allurements, for the last of the Prophets in the predella is Solomon, with the interrogation from the Song of Songs, V I I I , 5: "Quae est ista, quae ascendit de deserto, deliciis affluens?" The much injured fragments rescued from a roof in the Hospital at Tarazona have uncovered to us not only a number of relics of the Lanaja Master's achievements 24 but also sadly dilapidated pieces of a predella from some retable executed a half century after this 23 T h e clause is preceded on the banderole by another that, in the difficult Gothic letters, I read as "Cessabit unctio," w o r d s that strangely occur neither in D a n i e l nor, so f a r as I can discover, elsewhere in the V u l g a t e . 24

V o l . X I I , p. 6 0 6 .

Fig. 105. SCHOOL OF PEDRO D Í A Z D E OVIEDO. R E T A B L E OF ST. VINCENT. N U E S T R A SEÑORA D E LOS MILAGROS, A G R E D A {Photo. Mas)

FIG. 106. SCHOOL OF PEDRO D Í A Z D E OVIEDO. M A R R I A G E OF T H E VIRGIN. N U E S T R A SEÑORA D E LOS MILAGROS, A G R E D A (Photo. Mas)

272

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painter's activity, works that display to my eyes, after much research, the handicraft of some moderately gifted imitator of Pedro D i a z by whom I have yet to encounter any other production. T h e predella would thus supply still further witness to the spread of Pedro's vogue from Navarre to the contiguous region of Aragón. T h e central division is occupied by the dead Christ between the mourning Virgin and not, as usual, St. John but a canonized woman who would naturally be the Magdalene, although I can descry none of her regular emblems. A t the sides are four scenes from the H o l y Infancy, the one at the extreme left deteriorated beyond recognition, then the Nativity, next the Epiphany, and finally the Purification (with the Virgin, as not infrequently in Spanish iconography, on her knees). T h e compositions fail to reflect tangibly those of Pedro D i a z and his school, and it is rather the human types that point to him and his circle. Since another work of the follower of Pedro D i a z who did the retable at Losarcos 25 has appeared, it behooves us to isolate his personality by giving him a name, and for this purpose the title, the Master of Losarcos, is the most natural choice. T h e new work, in the Collection of D o n Agapito del Valle at Logroño, is a piece of a predella which, like the predella of the retable at Losarcos, contains half-lengths of worthies of the O l d Testament, Isaiah, Solomon, David, and Abraham ( F i g . 107). T h e authorship is sufficiently attested by the fact that in the Solomon the painter actually repeats the Habakkuk at Losarcos in head, posture, and costume, but there are many other correspondences. T h e David, for instance, is very similar to the Jacob in the retable; the severe Abraham not only is like the St. Joseph in the Nativity and Epiphany but possesses the curly hair of the angel of the Annunciation; and the banderoles, with the sacred personages' appellations, are not varied from those at Losarcos in undulations or the nature of the lettering.

3.

W O R K S S U R E L Y OR P R O B A B L Y BY N A V A R R E S E A R T I S T S

T h e r e are two cycles of paintings which, apparently influenced by León Picardo, retain enough of the primitive for inclusion in the present volume, but, be it acknowledged at once, we cannot with surety assign to Navarre what is probably the earlier of the two 25

Vol. IV, p. 448.

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cycles. Representing the Visitation, Agony in the Garden, Betrayal, and Via Dolorosa, the four panels of this cycle were offered for sale at New York by Don Luis Ruiz of Madrid in April, 19225 26 the three latter subjects again emerged on the New York market in February, 1 9 2 6 ; and the Agony in the Garden and Via Dolorosa once more came up for purchase in the same city during January, 1948. Perhaps the main reason for supposing that they were done in Navarre is that the composition of the Via Dolorosa is only a variant of that used by the Navarrese painter Juan de Bustamante 27 in his retables both at Cizur Mayor and Huarte, the former dated 1538 and the latter begun about 1535, 2 8 though perhaps not completed until some years afterward. T h e style of the Ruiz panels would imply a slightly earlier moment in the sixteenth century, and the natural deduction would be that Bustamente took the composition of the Via Dolorosa from the author of these panels, who thus might be guessed to have been active in Navarre. It is far from possible, however, by such proof to place the author definitely in Navarre, for, since A n g u l o 2 9 has demonstrated that Bustamante drew for some of his compositions upon Italian prototypes, both the Ruiz painter and Bustamante independently of each other may have turned for the Via Dolorosa to some as yet undiscovered source, whether Italian or not, perhaps even a print. One could muster further but likewise inconclusive arguments for a Navarrese provenience of the Ruiz series. They seem, for instance, 26 The group of four were accompanied in the sale of 1922 by two panels which, though set in Plateresque frames identical with those of the other four, were certainly not executed by the latter's author. The subjects of the two are the calling of Sts. John and James and the arrest of a virgin martyr (or perhaps rather the preparation for her martyrdom). I have tried in vain to recognize the painter of the pair or even the region of the peninsula from which they derive, and I very much suspect that they have been extensively retouched and adapted to the frames in which they were not originally ensconced. The calling of Sts. John and James is, at least in its present condition, a pretty close reproduction of Marco Basaiti's composition for the theme, now in the Academy at Venice and dated 1 5 1 0 ; but there are curious elements in the picture, for instance, a young disciple accompanying the Savior who would naturally be thought the very St. John who in another part of the picture leaves his fishing boat at his Lord's command! In both this and the panel of the virgin martyr, moreover, the haloes are quite anomalous, little plates hovering in the air at some distance above the sacred personages' heads. So far as the original painting in the two panels is preserved to us, it would suggest a date very little subsequent to 1500, even prior to Marco Basaiti's masterpiece of 1 5 1 0 ! 27 See Cristobal Pellejero, Juan de Bustamante, Prtncife de Viana, IV ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 3 1 5 - 3 2 6 , and Diego Angulo in the same year of this periodical, 429—434. 28 See the document in Pellejero's article, 3 2 J . 25 Of. cit., pp. 431 flF.

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to witness to an acquaintance with the attainments of Leon Picardo, and Navarre lies near the province of Burgos, the focus of Leon's activity. So far as my knowledge goes, however, no works by the Ruiz painter exist in the province of Burgos, and another argument for placing him in Navarre would be by the process of exclusion from other sections of the peninsula, since I have found neither a school in these other sections, not even in adjacent Aragon, where he would easily fit, nor an artist elsewhere in Spain, except Leon Picardo, to whom he exhibits anything like determinative relationships. H e uses a rather stocky canon of the human form, especially in the Visitation and Via Dolorosa, which is arrestingly similar to the proportions of the body affected by Leon Picardo, and the feminine types might be interpreted as influenced by this master's conception of women. T h e facial traits of the masculine profile in the upper left corner of the Via Dolorosa almost cajoled me once into the misbelief that Leon might have executed the whole panel. So far as we can judge from the four compartments, the author of the Ruiz series reveals himself as an artist of gentle temperament (except in the right half of the Via Dolorosa), adequately gifted but possessing no very original or distinctive a personality. Likewise probably some degree of indebtedness to Leon Picardo constituted an ingredient in the formation of the painter for whom Angulo 30 has taken the pseudonym of the Ororbia Master from the retable over the high altar in the parish church of the town of Ororbia, just west of Pamplona. 31 As we shall discover, the Master has advanced less far in the ways of the Cinquecento than would appear at first sight, so that he may properly be included in the present volume. T h e principal compartment of the retable displays a handsome statue of St. Julian Hospitator contemporary with the paintings, and the predella also consists of six sculptured images of sacred personages grouped in their respective niches at the sides of the tabernacle. 32 T h e lower of the two tiers of paintings that flank the statue of St. Julian embody four scenes from his story. First, the 30 Of. cit., 4 2 2 . Angulo points out that T . Biurrun Sótil (La escultura religiosa y las bellas artes en Navarra durante la epoca del Renacimiento, p. 4 6 ) has no justifiable basis for the attribution of the Ororbia retable to a Belandia de Robledo. 31 F o r the photographs of this retable and of many other paintings discussed in the present chapter, as well as for much valuable information, I am indebted to the intelligent kindness of the distinguished scholar of Pamplona, Don José E . Uranga. 32 For the present tabernacle, substituted in the seventeenth century, see T . Biurrun Sótil, o f . cit., 48.

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hunted deer predicts to him that he will slay his parents. Next, his wife, returning early in the day from church, reveals to him that unwittingly he has actually stabbed them to death, since, not knowing that they had come to his castle during his absence and finding them in his marital bed, he had mistaken them in the dark of the previous night for his spouse and a lover ( F i g . 108). T h e very murder is depicted in diminished scale in a room in the background. T h e third compartment shows him in atonement supervising the construction of his hospital ( F i g . 109), and in the fourth panel he and his wife, amidst the blackness of a freezing midnight, ferry across the river beside the hospital the diseased and shivering pilgrim who, as we see once more in a secondary episode in the background, turns out to be an emissary from heaven to announce God's acceptance of St. Julian's penance ( F i g . n o ) . T h e paintings continue with a compartment above the statue representing the Madonna, with the Child, seated on a bench between Sts. Abdon and Sennen, and the rest of the pieces in the main body of the retable are devoted to her and the H o l y Infancy. T h e themes of the four divisions on a level with the compartment of the enthroned Madonna are the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, and Epiphany, and the narrative continues in the higher of the two tiers beside the statue with the Flight into E g y p t , Massacre of the Innocents, Purification, and the young Christ among the Doctors. T h e pinnacle of the retable is so far elaborated as to become a kind of separate little altarpiece above the structure's main body. T o the Crucifixion, regular at this spot, there are added at left and right the Flagellation and Resurrection, and at the summit a lunette of the blessing Eternal Father. T h e treatment of the human form remains fairly mediaeval in the actual types of persons and in rigidity of pose, and it is chiefly the costumes that transmit the effect of a work of the first third of the sixteenth century, perhaps as late as the date proposed by Angulo, 3 3 the vicinity of 1530. N o w and again, however, the Ororbia Master makes excursions into the figures and draperies of the H i g h Renaissance, as in the Gabriel of the Annunciation. A n g u l o suggests that the marked animation of the Child held by the enthroned Madonna, unusual in Spain at this period, probably stems from the motif in Raphael's treatment of the theme in his Roman period and 33

Of.

cit.,

428.

FIG. 108. T H E ORORBIA M A S T E R . MURDER OF T H E PARENTS OF ST. J U L I A N . HIGH A L T A R . PARISH CHURCH, ORORBIA (Photo. Mas)

FIG. 109. T H E ORORBIA M A S T E R . D E T A I L . PARISH CHURCH, ORORBIA {Photo. Mas)

HIGH A L T A R .

FIG. I IO. THE 0R0RBIA MASTER. DETAIL. HIGH ALTAR. PARISH CHURCH, ORORBIA (Photo.

Mas)

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that such Italianate Flemings as Gossart and Van Orley were correspondingly enlivening the Child at approximately the same time as the Ororbia Master. In the uplifted arm and drooping head of the Madonna herself, a developed mannerism is distinctly present. The effect of a lingering mediaevalism in the Ororbia Master may be occasioned in part by the fact that his limited gifts of craftsmanship were not equal to the demands of the more mature art of the High Renaissance. The countenances of his actors are frequently vapid, with eyes fixed in a kind of deathlike stare, and, as in the scene of St. Julian informed by his wife of the parricide, the bodies may be poorly drawn and, in particular, movement awkwardly and stiffly articulated. The mêlée of the Massacre of the Innocents was therefore beyond his powers, and he vainly struggled here especially with the violent postures of the foremost murderous bravo and the distraught mother just behind Herod; but none of his predecessors or contemporaries anywhere or even of his successors, except Tintoretto in San Rocco, was able to cope with the desperate problems of this theme. The shortcomings are betrayed at their worst in the pinnacle— defective draughtsmanship in the Resurrection and difficulties with the rendering of movement in the Flagellation; but I very much suspect that he himself was not to blame but assigned this whole section, far above the spectator's clear vision, to an assistant. The compositions for the lives of Christ and the Virgin do not deviate essentially from the established mediaeval iconography, nor are they much punctuated with any new details, although in the Epiphany the negroid Magus is novelly but logically accompanied by a following of his own race and an inordinately featured dog in the right foreground reveals the Master's constantly exhibited affection for such pets; but when he comes to the scene of St. Julian, for which he was probably familiar with no precedent, he seems to have devised his own compositions and to have enjoyed filling them with the genre of contemporary existence. Two of the compositions especially rather surprise us by their dramatic effectiveness — the tenseness of the encounter through which St. Julian learns from his wife the dreadful truth and the gentle solicitude with which they transport the ailing pilgrim across the water; but it is always the painter's absorbing interest in the facts of the life about him that chiefly enlivens the episodes of the legend. In the panel of the deer's prophecy to St. Julian (Fig. i n ) , we concentrate no more upon the

FIG. H I . THE ORORBIA MASTER. DETAIL. HIGH ALTAR. PARISH CHURCH, ORORBIA {Photo. Mas)

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miraculous happening than upon the phases of the chase, the pack of harrowing dogs, the huntsman crouching with his spear in the background, and his companion blowing his horn. Representatives of no less than four various breeds of dogs roam the castle of St. Julian's murderous deed, and more than half the space is occupied with St. Julian's horn held by a groom, with a maidservant disappearing through a doorway at the rear of the house, and particularly with the wife's tirewomen, one removing the cloak that her mistress has worn in the church and the other carrying the prayerbook and kneeling cushion. It is, however, in the compartment depicting the construction of the hospital that the artist's tendency almost to forget the sacred theme in his vital absorption in the human activities of his own day reaches its climax. We are in the presence of as near an approach to the paintings of pure genre in the seventeenth and succeeding centuries as one will be likely to find in Spanish art prior to these periods. The whole panel unfolds to us practically nothing else but an elaborate scene of building in which the directing architect, carrying a pair of compasses, is the principal personage and St. Julian and his wife are introduced merely as the patrons to whom the architect is pointing out the various phases of the work. Indeed the Ororbia Master is more interested in the mason dressing a stone even than in the architect and the saint, and in the very foreground of the picture he gives to this laborer quite as much space as to them, with whom he is aligned. The wine and food for the fellow's lunch are conspicuously featured on the ground beneath him, and amidst the workmen plying their many different tasks on the rising edifice in the background a thirsty comrade has stopped on the scaffolding for a long drink from his leather water-bottle. Angulo finds in the Ororbia Master an extraordinary concern with landscape and with the details of nature that he would like to elucidate on the basis of contact with Flemish or German art, but I fail to elicit from the retable any more evidence of distinction in these respects than in the well-nigh countless examples among the Master's immediate predecessors and contemporaries which I have singled out for mention in the pages of my volumes. The best witness for Angulo's contention is the nocturnal scene of St. Julian and his wife ferrying the pilgrim, as shown in Fig. 1 1 0 , with the supernal radiance partly illumining the darkened waters, with the emphasized

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cedars above the shadows of a grove on the river's other bank, with the careful study of varied aquatic vegetation, and even with a scrupulously rendered fish coming to the surface for his evening meal; but, to choose just one corresponding instance, Rodrigo de Osona the younger takes practically equal delight in his settings and their minutiae.1* It is impossible to question the Ororbia Master's right to a retable in the Museum of Bilbao depicting in the middle the enthroned St. Lucy, capped, as customarily, by the Crucifixion, and at the sides the standing Sts. Cosmas and Damian. The virgin martyr almost repeats in type and mannered tilt of the head and gesture the Madonna between Sts. Abdon and Sennen in the altarpiece that gives the painter his name, and there are other approximations to the St. Lucy in the altarpiece, as in the woman at the rear centre in the Massacre of the Innocents. The Sts. Cosmas and Damian exhibit the marked contrast affected by the Master between lightness of countenance and darkness of hair and headdress, and the St. Damian (at the right) has many near analogues in the altarpiece, particularly the St. Julian in the scene of building. We should note also that the gold trimming of the edge of St. Lucy's mantle fellows the artist's norm of a motif of projecting points added to an auric line or parallel lines. Except for the small but pretty vista in the simplified version of the Crucifixion, he denies himself the opportunity for his study of landscape by reverting to a gold background in the principal compartment and to the ostentatious brocaded hangings of the past behind Sts. Cosmas and Damian. Some kind of a case, however indecisive, can be made out for ascribing to the Ororbia Master a fragment, constituted only by a halflength of the Madonna holding the Child, in a private collection at Pamplona. The Ororbia retable does not seem to yield any very close counterparts for the Child, but the Virgin is often nearly repeated, for example in the Mary of the Visitation and her handmaid carrying the basket. In the Annunciation and Nativity Our Lady has the same dreamy, half-closed eyes. For a painter so closely related stylistically to the Ororbia Master as at times to be almost indistinguishable from him, although not sharing apparently the debt to Leon Picardo, Angulo 35 has coined 34

See especially vol. V I , pp. 204, 2 1 0 — 2 1 1 , 2 1 8 , and 2 3 4 . In a second article on Navarrese paintings of the Renaissance in VianaxVIII ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 160—170. 35

Principe de

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the name of the Gallipienzo Master from the presence of a capacious retable by him over the high altar of the Ermita del Salvador at Gallipienzo, east of Tafalla. Biurrun 36 has adduced a bit of evidence suggesting but unfortunately not proving that his real name was Pedro Garas. Rightly discerning the manner of the artist of Gallipienzo in two retables decorating lateral chapels in the church of the Carmen at Sangüesa (although the execution of one of them may have been partly turned over to an assistant), Biurrun would like to identify him with Garas because in a Saragossa document of January 20, 1543, 37 the latter, described as a resident of Sangüesa, is recorded to have paid to the sculptor, active in Aragón, Juan Vizcaino, a part of a small sum that he owed him for certain works which Juan had done. It is supposed by Biurrun that these works were the sculptor's carved contributions to the pair of retables in the church of the Carmen and that therefore the painted sections were done by Garas, but we do not even know that the works for which Juan Vizcaino was remunerated were in any edifice whatsoever at Sangüesa. Angulo 38 thus rightly refuses to change the title, the Gallipienzo Master, to Pedro Garas, although he provisionally concurs in attributing to the painter of Gallipienzo one 39 of the lateral retables in the church of the Carmen. The whole centre of the retable in the much revered Ermita del Salvador is assigned to sculpture: in the principal section, a statue of the Saviour surmounted by a medallion of the Madonna and Child j at the next higher level, the Epiphany; and at the summit, free-standing figures of Christ upon the cross, the Virgin, and St. John to form the subject of the Crucifixion. The six paintings first at the sides depict as many scenes from the life of Our Lord, oddly not including the Transfiguration, a theme usually stressed in altarpieces honoring Christ as the Saviour. Angulo is probably right in suggesting that the Annunciation and Nativity are placed at the top in order appropriately to flank the sculptured Epiphany which is set at this height. The four panels surrounding the principal compartment set forth the triumph of the Redeemer after the Passion in the scenes of the Resurrection, Noli me tangere (Fig. 1 1 2 ) , Journey to Emmaus, and Ascension j and the Passion itself is consigned to its usual position, 36 La escultura religiosa y las bellas artes en Navarra durante la ¿foca del Renacimiento, p. 68. 37 Abizando y Broto, Documentos, I, 64. 38 39 Of. cit., 1 6 2 , n. 4. See below, p. 292.

FIG. 112. T H E GALLIPIENZO MASTER. RETABLE OF T H E SAVIOUR. NOLI ME TANGERE. ERMITA DEL SALVADOR, GALLIPIENZO (Photo. Uranga)

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the predella, comprising, on a line with the tabernacle, the episodes of the Agony in the Garden, the Flagellation, Via Dolorosa, and Lamentation over the sacred body. Beside the scenes of Christ's triumph, the structure expands to include compartments, arranged in two tiers, the content of which was largely prompted by the dedication of other Ermitas in the town. At the lower left the pope St. Pelagius, 40 the patron of one of these Ermitas, is naturally coupled with another papal saint, Gregory the Great; but I cannot explain the reason for the Arma selbdritt in the surmounting compartment. Another Ermita is commemorated in the figure of St. Quiteria in the compartment to which the retable expands at the upper right, and the motif of virgin martyrs is continued in the maiden who is paired with her, St. Catherine of Alexandria, as well as in the panel beneath, where Sts. Barbara and Agatha stand side by side. The affinity to the Ororbia Master is most tangible in the feminine types, which resemble, for instance, such personages in the retable that gives him his name as the Virgin in the Flight into Egypt, in the Epiphany, and the compartment where she is enthroned between Sts. Abdon and Sennen, the distraught women in the Massacre of the Innocents, or even the hunting St. Julian; but a distinctive trait of the Gallipienzo Master is the way in which he makes his figures look as if they were hewn out of stone. The sculptural effect is increased by stiffness of posture and gesture, as especially in the Noli me tangere, that goes beyond the Ororbia Master's standard in this respect and may have been purposed in order to harmonize with the statuesque nature of the forms. When he essays the agitation of the High Renaissance, as in the Resurrection, he is out of his element. Even the clouds are blocked out in a glyptic fashion, and indeed the style of the Gallipienzo Master in general strongly implies that he exercised also the sculptor's trade. Approaching his painting in this spirit, he is more concerned with the human figure, filling his panels with larger actors than the Ororbia Master and thus leaving less space for settings. The compositions are coerced into the rigid symmetry of sculptured groups. Characteristic examples are afforded by the Resurrection and Ascension, but the tendency reaches its climax in the Journey to Emmaus, where the massive figures of Christ and the two disciples are badly aligned across the front of the panel, occupying its whole expanse, exactly as if they were the formally con40

See vol. V I I , p. 306.

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287

ceived effigies of saints in the sections at the extreme left and right of the altarpiece. The Journey to Emmaus and the Noli me tangere are good instances of the monumental breadth which he likes to give to draperies as well as to bodies and which we shall find more marked in some of his other retables. Almost all these traits contribute to a still more archaic effect than in the works of the Ororbia Master, although the date is probably no earlier. The petrified rendering of activities is provoked not only by the desire for a sculptural impression but also by a fact which must be admitted, namely that the Gallipienzo Master was somewhat less competent even than the Ororbia Master, especially in draughtsmanship. It cannot be doubted that he definitely maintained links with the modes of the fifteenth century, using, for instance, an HispanoFlemish or even Flemish type for the Virgin in the Ascension and the holy women in the background of the Noli me tangere, and often, like the Ororbia Master, continuing to reveal an admiration for the formal decorative effect of brilliant brocades in the construction of a painting. Except for the rather monumental treatment of the Journey to Emmaus, he did not try his hand at innovations in the composition of the time-honored sacred themes, but it must be remembered that the Ororbia Master introduced new and dramatic elements only into the episodes of St. Julian's life for which apparently he was conversant with no prototypes. Among these elements are bits of genre, and at least in two or three instances the Gallipienzo Master likewise piques our interest, even in the old Biblical themes, by his treatment of the subordinate incidents he inserted into the backgrounds. Examples of such incidents in the perfectly ordinary mode of other artists of the period are the proclamation to the shepherds in the Nativity, the approach of the holy women, beneath the vacant cross of Calvary, to the Sepulchre, and their encounter with the angel of the Resurrection in the compartment of the Noli me tangere, and another stage in the Journey to Emmaus behind the large figures in the foreground, who are depicted at the time when "their hearts burned within them, while H e talked with them by the way and while H e opened to them the scriptures"; but upon a few other of these episodes he impresses more originality. At exactly the same spot in the picture as the building scene in the Ororbia Master's representation of St. Julian's construction of the hospital, namely the upper left background, and with the same em-

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phasis upon the genre, there is introduced into the Via Dolorosa at Gallipienzo an elaborate treatment of the labor involved in the grim preparation on Golgotha for the Crucifixion, with the chief executioner, for example, showing one of his henchmen the proper method of digging the hole for the cross. Indeed the correspondence, at this point, to the Ororbia Master's panel is so close, despite the divergence in the tasks, that it seems as if one painter must have known the other's production. It was common to introduce into the setting of the A g o n y in the Garden the episode of Judas leading the soldiers into the Garden of Gethsemane, but the Gallipienzo Master lends a particular character to the detail by his unexpected technical curiosity in a more scrupulous study of the dimming effects of aerial perspective than in his other instances of such inserted subordinate events. T h e A g o n y in the Garden, furthermore, the Via Dolorosa, and the Journey to Emmaus, but particularly the Lamentation over the D e a d Christ exhibit still another way in which he added interest to his backgrounds, a keen concern with a precise rendering of the multiplied edifices in picturesque, romantic towns that reveals in him a fondness for architecture corresponding to his sculptural proclivities. Such assemblages of edifices appear also in the landscapes of the Ororbia Master, but they are rendered in the Gallipienzo retable with more affection and perspicuity. T h e most memorable example is the view, in the Lamentation, of the city that stands for Jerusalem, which, like the town in the background of Piero della Francesca's fresco of the invention of the cross at A r e z z o , prophesies Cezanne's cubic effects in terraced architectural masses ( F i g . 1 1 3 ) . T h e types and methods of the Gallipienzo Master are so much sui generis that the justness of Angulo's other attributions to him needs no detailed demonstrations. F r o m a retable that he did for the parish church of Zabalza, just west of Pamplona, there have been preserved to us only two panels, now consigned to the sacristy, in which A n g u l o was first to recognize our artist's craft. In one, there stands St. Barbara, depicted in much the same way as at Gallipienzo; the other possesses some iconographic interest since, of the several St. Bridgets, 41 it seems definitely meant to represent the thaumaturgic maiden of Ireland who enjoys in the island so popular a cult ( F i g . 1 1 4 ) . Clad in a religious habit and kneeling before the Cruci41

Vol. VII, p. 239, n. 2, and above, pp. 44 and 211.

FIG. 113. THE GALLIPIENZO MASTER. RETABLE OF THE SAVIOUR. LAMENTATION (DETAIL). ERMITA DEL SALVADOR, GALLIPIENZO {Photo.

Uranga)

FIG. 114. THE GALLIPIENZO MASTER. ST. BRIDGET OF IRELAND. PARISH CHURCH, ZABALZA {Photo.

Uranga)

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fix, she must be one of the two hallowed nuns named Bridget, and the Swedish saint thus called is not intended because she was a matron before she founded the Order of the Brigittines and the painter has specifically denominated the figure in the panel by an accompanying Latin inscription as a virgin. 42 Moreover, although, naturally, as we shall see, he was vague about the costume of Bridget of Ireland, he would probably have known the Brigittines' habit, in which he certainly does not clothe his lady. Thus we are left only with Bridget of Ireland, and as a matter of fact the figure carries one of her regular emblems, a branch, with reference to the twig that is said miraculously to have sprouted, when she took the veil, from the wooden step which she kissed in front of the altar. T h e scholarly Bollandists 43 record the confusion as to just what form of the religious life she embraced at the early period, the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, when she is believed to have lived; and the provincial Gallipienzo Master would have been even more in doubt and is not to be blamed for bestowing upon her a habit approximating that of the Carmelites whose Order at her primitive date had really not yet been established. T h e nun Bridget in the predella by the Calzada Master at Villasabariego de Ucieza is habited somewhat like a Dominican, whether or not it was purposed to depict the saint of Ireland rather than of Sweden. 44 Angulo's miraculous visual memory overcame even the lack of photographs in rightly placing to the Gallipienzo Master's credit the retable of the Visitation in the church of S. Pedro at Tafalla, and the subsequently made photographs reveal it as one of the artist's most conscientiously executed achievements. An inscription of October 23, 1 5 3 8 , on the base informs us that the undertaking was commissioned by a Miguel de Chaverri and his wife Ana de Unzué, but exasperatingly fails to include the name of the painter. 45 T h e Visitation that gives the retable its name and occupies the central compartment was 42 For some reason that I do not fathom, the name and title are put in the genitive, "Sánete Brigide ( = Sanctae Brigidae) virginis." 43 Under the day of her feast, February i. 44 Vols. I X , p. 4 9 3 , and X , p. 4 3 5 . 45 Biurrun (o^. cit., p. 4 3 ) reproduces the inscription, with the modernization of the donors' names that I have printed above, but he misreads the day of the month as the appellation of a person, Joaquin de Olveras, whom he rashly guesses to be the painter of the panels! Angulo ( P r í n c i p e de Viana, IV, 1 9 4 3 , 4 4 4 ) recognized Biurrun's error, and the eminent Navarrese scholar, to whom I am so deeply indebted for every kind of assistance in my study of the art in this part of Spain, Don José E . Uranga, has given me the correct reading, October 2 3 .

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consigned to a sculptor, but the rest is painting. The Crucifixion appears in its usual place at the summit, and the only other narrative theme is set beneath the Visitation, a version of the Epiphany coerced into a formal symmetry that even the mediaeval Spaniards seldom applied to the subject (Fig. 1 1 5 ) . The six additional compartments contain as many effigies of saints arranged in iconographic pairs, one figure balancing the other on each side of the central division. At the level just below the Crucifixion are two bishops, Sts. Augustine and Babilésj 46 the Visitation is suitably flanked by Sts. Joseph and Zacharias; and in the lowest register, beside the Epiphany, the two defenders against the plague, Sts. Sebastian and Roch, constitute pendants to each other. According to the Gallipienzo Master's frequent custom, he has labelled the four upper sacred personages with their names, and throughout the retable, more than in any of his works that we have hitherto studied, we are presented with pronounced examples of the monumental expanses to which he likes to stretch his forms and their garments. Of the two retables in the church of the Carmen at Sangiiesa through which in vain we have sought the Gallipienzo Master's actual name, the one that more clearly reveals his own handicraft embellishes a chapel on the Gospel side of the edifice, devoting its main compartment to a sculptured group of the Pietà and confining the paintings to a pinnacle of the Crucifixion and to a pair of large wings with representations of the Anna selbdritt and St. Michael. The composition for the group of St. Anne, the Virgin, and Child is only a broader and more grandiose variant of the treatment at Gallipienzo. In the retable in a chapel on the Epistle side the centre is reserved for a statue of St. Eloy, and the ordonnance of the paintings differs from the other altarpiece only in that there are four flanking compartments and a predella in which the Deposition is set between two divisions containing pairs of the Evangelists. Saints are coupled in the four upper compartments much as in the outer sections of the Gallipienzo ensemble. In the higher tier, St. Barbara stands beside St. Lucy, and St. Agatha has as her companion St. Apollonia (?). The seated pairs beneath are at the left a canonized prelate with St. Anthony Abbot and at the right St. Bernardine 47 with St. Dominic. 46 47

See above, p. 2 6 2 .

W i t h the attributes of the sacred m o n o g r a m and the mitres of the three rejected bishoprics: see v o l . V I , p. 1 1 4 . .

FIG. 115. THE GALLIPIENZO MASTER. RETABLE OF THE VISITATION. EPIPHANY. SAN PEDRO, TAFALLA

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Possibly, though not surely, we ought to discern here and there in the retable of St. E l o y such slight modifications of the Gallipienzo Master's types as to justify the suspicion of an assistant's intrusion. In the case of two partly ruined companion-pieces in the Collection of D o n José M a r i a Huarte at Pamplona, representing a pair of virgin martyrs, the connection of the Gallipienzo Master with the Ororbia Master is brought into relief by the fact that, before I became cognizant of the former's personality, I was somewhat disposed to ascribe them to the latter, but I now quite concur in Angulo's choice of the Gallipienzo Master as their author. T h e saints are depicted standing against canopied textiles as in the corresponding figures in the Gallipienzo retable, and, since they bear no distinctive emblems, we should not have recognized them unless the painter had kindly followed his didactic practice of placing above them identifying inscriptions. One of the reasons that I once thought of the Ororbia Master as their parent is that the inscriptions are not in the Gallipienzo Master's unsual Roman letters but, as for the Sts. Abdon and Sennen at Ororbia, in Gothic characters. One of the virgins is rarely encountered in sacred art, St. Alodia, who with her sister St. Nunilo was put to death at Huesca by the Moors in the ninth century and whose day is October 22; 48 the other, in contrast to the nun honored in the Zabalza panel, is one of the two martyred St. Bridgets, 49 though which of the twain it is impossible to determine. T w o not very sizable retables in the church at U z t à r r o z , just east of Pamplona, have a somewhat more tenuous connection with the Gallipienzo Master. One of them, ascribed to him by A n g u l o , contains at the centre a rather mediocre, synchronous statue of St. Augustine, 50 and the paintings, with heterogeneous iconography, comprise at the left the Annunciation, at the right the standing St. Barbara, and above the statue the Crucifixion ( F i g . 1 1 6 ) . T h e pictorial sections of the retable certainly issued from the Gallipienzo Master's shop but in my opinion were largely handed over to an assistant, especially the Annunciation and probably the St. Barbara. A l l factors in the panels accord with the modes of the head of the 48

See especially an article by Antonio D u r à n G u d i o l in Argensola,

VI

(1955),

123. See my vol. V I I , p. 239, n. 2, and above, p. 288. He must be one of the f o u r Fathers, since his emblem is a church. St. Ambrose is the only other of those represented merely as a bishop, but I guess the figure now in question to be St. Augustine because he appears much more frequently in sacred art. 49 50

FIG. i i 6 . T H E GALLIPIENZO MASTER ( ? ) . CRUCIFIXION. PARISH CHURCH, UZTARROZ (Photo. Uranga)

2 96

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atelier but for the most part fall below even the undistinguished standard of his personal craft. The St. Barbara differs from his conceptions of her at Gallipienzo and Zabalza but nevertheless is easily recognizable as one of his types, set against a background that in addition to her tower reveals his interest in architecture and labelled beneath with an inscription of her name identical in the forms of the letters with those attached at Gallipienzo to the same virgin martyr. The reason for the partial tenuity of the connection of the second retable in the church with the Gallipienzo Master is that, superior in quality to his general average, it can be predicated only with a high degree of probability to incorporate his craft. The main body consists of three compartments each occupied by the standing figure of a canonized prelate. At the centre is (?) St. Eutropius, an early bishop of Valencia, whom I have met only once again in Spanish art, 51 and he is flanked by St. Augustine and the patron of Pamplona, St. Firminus. In the corresponding three sections of the predella there are half-lengths of the Madonna of the Milk in the middle and of Sts. Jerome and Sebastian at the sides. On the base of the retable there runs an inscription stating that the retable was ordered by the venerable rector of the church, a Don Martin. 52 The idiosyncrasies of the Gallipienzo Master in the conception of the human form do not appear here in a pronounced aspect, and yet, particularly in the predella, the faces, the drawing, and the modelling can be reconciled with his standards. For example, the nursing Madonna should be compared with the Virgin in the Epiphany at Tafalla. One thinks naturally of the possibility of the Ororbia Master whom, however, comparisons eventually exclude. To the sum of the Gallipienzo Master's achievements whether or 51 In a figure by the Catalan Monogrammist: vol. X I I , p. 148. Whereas the names of Sts. Augustine and Firminus are inscribed in good Latin beneath them, the name of St. Eutropius appears, for a reason that I cannot explain, in almost precisely the Catalan form used by the Monogrammist, Itrofi. The word looks like Strofi, but despite my efforts I have found no saint that this appellation would fit. As a matter of fact I imagine that the inscription under the central effigy has been tampered with, since instead of the Sanctus beneath the other saints we have here Santus. Angulo (Pintura del Renacimiento, p. 83), who does not assign the retable to the Gallipienzo Master, denominates the personage as San Ilpropio, whom I have not been able to discover in any hagiological sources. 52 The inscription says, "Esta capilla i ( = y) retablo hizo hacer el venerable rector Don Martin de Ustaroz ( = Uztarroz) Mayor," followed by the date which I cannot decipher except the words dtas and anos. Furthermore, the very end of the inscription is not visible in the photograph through which alone I know the retable. The significance of the word Mayor after Uztarroz is a mystery to me.

NAVARRE

297

not my attribution of the second Uztárroz is accepted, I myself should like to add with conviction an unpretentious retable over a lateral altar in the parish church at Larrangoz (somewhat further east than Uztárroz from Pamplona). T h e three compartments to which it is confined display, with the figures in full-length, at the centre St. Catherine of Alexandria, at the right St. Barbara, and at the left the Visitation. T h e two virgin martyrs are somewhat differently treated at Gallipienzo; but the St. Barbara is posed according to the mode in which she is depicted in one of the retables at Uztárroz, and the inscriptions by which the painter frequently designates his themes are given in the Roman capitals that he is more prone to employ than Gothic letters. T h e Ororbia and Gallipienzo Masters' works exhibit superficial resemblances to a Mass of St. Gregory in the church of S. Miguel at Estella, which acquires an adventitious interest from the character of the devotees included in the picture (Fig. 1 1 7 ) ; but it cannot be attributed to either of these artists or to any other Navarrese or Aragonese painter with whom at present I am familiar. Constituting by itself a whole retable, it is set over an altar beneath which is the tomb of a Nicolás Martínez Eguía and his wife Catalina Pérez de Jasso, who enjoyed the distinction of being the aunt of St. Francis Xavier, and the panel introduces as worshippers at St. Gregory's Mass the married couple and their prodigiously abundant progeny, the father with the thirteen sons at the right, the mother with the thirteen daughters at the left. 53 As so frequently in representations of the Mass of St. Gregory, 54 an inscription on the base enumerates the indulgences gained by anyone saying his prayers in front of the picture. 5 3 Pedro de M a d r a z o , Navarra y Logroño, I I I ( 1 8 8 8 ) , 9 1 , in the series España, sus monumentos y artes. A l t h o u g h I plainly count thirteen daughters, I myself can find only t w e l v e sons. 54 See my vol. II, p. 352.

FIG. 117. SCHOOL OF NAVARRE. MASS OF ST. GREGORY. SAN MIGUEL, ESTELLA {Photo.

Mas)

APPENDIX

APPENDIX ADDITIONS TO VOLUMES THE ALL

I-XII

MASTER

An iconographically curious panel 1 belonging to Monsieur Paul Botte at Paris (Fig. 1 1 8 ) should very probably be ascribed to the painter of the international movement in northern Catalonia, the All Master, although the attribution is not absolutely irrefragable. T h e subject appears to be a conflation of two scenes from the life of St. Martin, first, the appearance of Christ (here accompanied by an angel) to him in his bedroom after he had halved his cloak with a beggar, although strangely in this instance the Saviour does not bring the piece of the cloak, and second, the much subsequent enjoyment of a supernatural visit from Our Lady (crowned) with Sts. Agnes and Thecla. A process of exclusion leads us to the All Master, and the types agree well enough with his norms. T h e St. Martin, for example, should be compared with the Sts. Cosmas, Damian, and Michael of the retable at All, and the virgin martyr next to him with M a r y in the Nativity of the same assemblage. T h e faces of Christ, the angel, and the canonized maiden at the extreme right narrow toward the chin according to one of the All Master's not infrequent peculiarities. More concrete and telling proof, however, is found in distinctive details, above all in the Virgin's costume, a brocaded gown and a mantle diapered with a light foliate motif precisely as in the Nativity of the All retable. T h e bed of the room of the Annunciation at All serves likewise in St. Martin's chamber. Among more than one sort of halo in the All retable there are several with the figuration used throughout the Botte panel, a pattern of three dots in the centre of the gold and colored dots on the circumference. T h e design at the top of the carved frame is exactly that of the Master's series from Escuñáu in the Provincial Museum, Lérida. 3 T h e hangings of the bed are of considerable interest to historians of textiles, for with the direct dependence upon actuality characteristic of the international movement and with the arbitrary and unschooled perspective typical of the painter the valances are represented as consisting of damasks adorned with a design of confronted birds (here ducks), a species of fabric which the expert in the subject, my friend M r . Adolfo S. Cavallo of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, kindly tells me not to have been unknown in Europe during the early fifteenth century. With an unblushing straightforwardness a part of one of the ducks is depicted as visible through the impossible transparency of the bed's velvet curtain. 1 2

T h e dimensions are about 79 centimetres in height by 60 in width, See m y vol. V I I I , p. 610.

Fig. I I 8. T H E ALL MASTER. LIFE OF ST. MARTIN. COLLECTION OF PAUL BOTTE, PARIS

A P P E N D I X

303

ANDRES M A R Z A L DE SAS

Despite all our efforts in the study and registration of early Spanish paintings w e are a l w a y s being met by surprises, and none greater than the discovery, in a hide-away in eastern A r a g o n , of a w o r k by this pivotal Valencian master, a further section of an assemblage by him that w e already k n e w . T h e w o r k is an Annunciation ( F i g . 1 1 9 ) whose f r a m i n g and the reservation of its pinnacle for a separate little subject prove unmistakably that it belonged to the same series by him as the Nativity and Dormition in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia. 1 T h e place where it w a s found during the civil w a r is described as a defdsito (depository) at Puebla de Castro, and, since a number of panels that, as w e should expect, are of the Aragonese school w e r e discovered with it, together with a pair probably from Catalonia, w e are l e f t to guess h o w a production of Valencia could have strayed into such a distant and alien spot. T h e Saragossa M u s e u m n o w harbors the w h o l e aggregation. T h e cache w a s probably saved f r o m the ravages of the revolutionary hordes by some pious or artistically minded individual, but it seems unlikely that in so provincial a part of A r a g o n there should have been a private collection containing a w o r k by M a r z a l de Sas w h e n c e the individual would have rescued it. T h e Annunciation had plainly been used as a reliquary, since in the uprights at the sides holes for relics have been opened in spaces where small effigies of sacred personages must originally have been painted. H a d the panel been acquired somewhere by a donor and presented to a church in the region of Puebla de Castro? T h e nature of the assemblage, constituted so far as w e k n o w it by the Johnson and Puebla de Castro panels, w o u l d be unusual for a Spanish retable, three scenes side by side. I f the Johnson pieces never, as n o w , had any uprights, the consideration that the Annunciation possesses them might suggest that it Tlvas' the centre of a kind of triptych. O r did each picture adorn a separate little altar in some chapel? W i t h iconographic congruity each panel contains a Prophet, hovering in the air in the Dormition with a banderole so far obliterated that I cannot decipher it, likewise in the sky in the Annunciation Isaiah whose scroll is inscribed with the w e l l - k n o w n w o r d s f r o m his book, V I I , 14, " E c c e virgo concipiet" ( b u f with in utero added from some other translation than the V u l g a t e ) , and in the Nativity again Isaiah, though' in the pinnacle, here displaying some rendering of his verse, I X , 6, "Filius datus est nobis." T h e pinnacle of the Annunciation is occupied by the E t e r n a l F a t h e r , depicted as less aged than customarily and dispatching the rays that carry the dove of the H o l y Spirit; and the left half of the panel exhibits St. Joseph at his material task of carpentry while at the right takes place the spiritual mystery of the proclamation of the Incarnation. ' V o l . I l l , p. 66 and fig. 272. Inasmuch as the authoritative Valencian scholar, Leandro de Saralegui, accepts my attribution of the Johnson panels, the point of interrogation that I set in volume I I I m a y be removed.

FIG. 119. ANDRÉS MARZAL DE SAS. ANNUNCIATION. MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA {Photo.

Mora)

A P P E N D I X

305

T H E CASTELLIG MASTER

T h e enforced leisure of an extended illness has given me an opportunity to review a number of problems that have l o n g puzzled me and to find in some instances a solution, as in the case of a triptych in the M u s é e d ' A r t A n c i e n , Brussels ( F i g . 1 2 0 ) . H a v i n g vainly sought for many years the author in the eastern part of Spain w h e r e the triptych seemed to belong, I was carried to the island of M a j o r c a off the east littoral in an unsuccessful search for the origins of another painting, and by being thus brought to examine anew the pictorial production of this insular school I gradually realized that the m a n w h o deserves the credit for the Brussels panel was the c h a r m i n g artist of the international style there active, the Castellig Master, whose personality I had isolated in V o l u m e X I . 1 C o m i n g from the S o m z é e Collection, Brussels, which it is said to have entered f r o m a quite unexpected source, the C h i g i Collection, Siena, and of modest dimensions, 2 the triptych depicts in the principal compartment the enthroned M a d o n n a and Child serenaded by four angels and in the flanking divisions at the left St. M i c h a e l and at the right St. Ursula. T h e Crucifixion is in its usual position, the central pinnacle, and at this level the figures in the lateral compartments are the participants in the Annunciation. I t does not require m a n y glances to see that the triptych falls exactly within the delicate bounds of the interpretation that the Castellig M a s t e r gave to the gentle M a j o r c a n expression of the international m o v e m e n t , but w e ijeed, of course, more detailed proof. E v e r y w h e r e this proof is forthcoming, for instance especially in the noses of Gabriel, Michael, and the angels about the M a d o n n a which possess the peculiar and childlike pertness that he bestows upon this feature. T h e faces of Gabriel and M i c h a e l in this respect and in others should be compared with that of the youth holding the sceptre and the sword in the episode of St. Ursula bidding farewell to her father in the fragments of a predella in the M u s e o Arqueológico ( L u l i a n o ) , P a l m a , 3 and with that of the maiden w e a r i n g a chaplet on her hair in the mere segment, in this predella, of a compartment representing the slaughter of St. Ursula and her companions. F o r another type that the triptych displays in the St. Catherine and Virgin Annunciate, there are counterparts in all three bits of the predella, namely in one of the girls 1 P. 387. M o s s é n B a r t o l o m é G u a s p G e l a b e r t has published a d o c u m e n t (Boletín de la Sociedad Arqueológica Luliana, X X X , 1 9 5 1 , 6 6 2 ) showing- that a retable w a s b e i n g m a d e in 1420 f o r the church of A l g a i d a , n e a r Castellig'; a n d , since the retable at C a s t e l l i g is dedicated to Sts. Peter and P a u l , he is p r o b a b l y r i g h t in b e l i e v i n g that it is the one o f 1420 f o r A l g a i d a w h o s e church is under the p a t r o n a g e o f the t w o A p o s t l e s a n d that it w a s t r a n s f e r r e d to C a s t e l l i g w h e n the present b a r o q u e retable o v e r the h i g h a l t a r o f the c h u r c h of A l g a i d a w a s executed. T h e d o c u m e n t mentions also an earlier retable, r e m o v e d vice versa, f r o m C a s t e l l i g to A l g a i d a , but G u a s p is w r o n g in t h i n k i n g that its remains are the alien pieces b u i l t w i t h the retable of Sts. Peter a n d P a u l , since these are w o r k s of the second h a l f of the fifteenth century b y R a f a e l M o g e r . C f . m y v o l . X I , p. 390. 2 3

T h e h e i g h t is 7 3 y i centimetres a n d the w i d t h 5 1 . V o l . X I , fig. 1 6 3 .

FIG. 120. T H E C A S T E L L I G M A S T E R . T R I P T Y C H . ANCIEN, BRUSSELS {Photo. A.C.I.)

MUSÉE D ' A R T

APPENDIX

307

saying farewell, in the slain maiden with her head upon her arm, and in the embarked virgins greeted by Pope Cyriacus. T h e haloes with centres of multiple dots are likewise duplicated in the predella, and the undiapered gold backgrounds accord with the Castellig Master's regular practice. I t is indeed legitimate to w o n d e r whether, since St. Ursula is prominent in the triptych, the fragments may not have originally constituted its predella. T h e renewed study of the Master brings, in m y opinion, certain w o r k s at P a l m a under his name or into his immediate circle. I vote for the M a s t e r himself w h e n it comes to a pair of pinnacles, with the subjects of the Resurrection ( F i g . 1 2 1 ) and Pentecost ( F i g . 1 2 2 ) , the relics of some retable, in the M u s e o de la L o n j a , which l o n g ago 4 I hesitatingly related rather with the Montesión Master. T h e pert noses appear often in the t w o fragments, and in this detail and in general the appealing little upturned face of one of the guards in the Resurrection duplicates the visages of the soldier with a shield in the scene of the decapitation of St. Paul and of participants in the episode of the Apostle's conversion in the retable at Castellig itself. T h e countenance of the risen Christ is twice approximated a m o n g the Apostles of the Ursuline pieces belonging to the M u s e o Arqueológico. I n the Pentecost the Apostles frequently reappear in the Master's other works, the l o n g bearded one at the left, for instance, in the large effigy of St. Paul at Castellig and the m e m b e r of the T w e l v e looking out t o w a r d us at the extreme right in the hooded listener at the left in the compartment of St. Paul's sermon. A m i d s t the numerous mere fragments of altarpieces at P a l m a there is a specimen in the M u s e o Arqueológico possibly by the Castellig M a s t e r or at least classifiable in his entourage. T h e main subject is the A n n u n c i a tion, capped by a pinnacle in which Gabriel seems to be oddly repeated. Neither angel falls quite within the M a s t e r ' s characteristic pert type, but it is to be noted that he sometimes modifies this type according to the mode that w e see in the f r a g m e n t , for example in the y o u n g m a n at the l o w e r left in the Castellig panel of St. Paul's conversion and in the youth just at the left of the Apostle preaching. T h e Virgin reminds us of the frailly elongated St. Ursula in the Brussels triptych. T h e C a s a Olesa at P a l m a possesses a triptych that looks to be a production of some belated and rather unaccomplished exponent of the C a s tellig Master's general style. I n constitution it recalls the triptych at Brussels. T h e centre of the l o w e r tier shows the M a d o n n a holding the Child and, in a mode not very c o m m o n in Spain, seated upon a cushion. T h e lateral spaces are devoted to standing saints, at the left A n t h o n y A b b o t and at the right John Baptist. A simple composition of the Crucifixion again occupies the middle of the upper tier, and here in the flanking panels the motij of erect saints is repeated, at the left Bernardine ( w i t h his e m blem of the plaque containing the m o n o g r a m almost erased) and at the right Sebastian. T h e H o l y Child, St. John in the Crucifixion, St. B e r nardine, St. Sebastian, and even St. A n t h o n y A b b o t all have something of « Vol. IV, p.

622.

FIG. 1 2 1 . T H E CASTELLIG MASTER. RESURRECTION. MUSEO DE LA LONJA, PALMA (Photo. Robert)

FIG. 122. T H E C A S T E L L I G M A S T E R . PENTECOST. MUSEO D E L A LONJA, P A L M A {Photo. Robert)

3io

A P P E N D I X

the Castellig Master's pertness of visage, and it is especially the Baptist w h o agrees with the tall and lanky canon for the h u m a n form embodied in the St. Catherine at Brussels. T h e Olesa triptych must almost certainly be dated after 1 4 5 0 , the year of St. Bernardine's canonization.

M I G U E L A L C A Ñ I Z ( E Q U A L TO T H E G I L AND THE A L C U D I A

MASTER

MASTER)

L i k e a small clue in a detective story, the publication of a short docum e n t in a not widely k n o w n or circulated periodical establishes by a fortunate chance three important facts, the real name of the M a j o r c a n painter the A l c u d i a M a s t e r , his identity with the Valencian painter, the G i l M a s ter, and so the latter's actual appellation. First, in the notable array of documents bearing upon M a j o r c a n art that J u a n M u n t a n e r y Bujosa has recently published in the Boletín de la Sociedad Arqueológica Luliana, he includes 1 the record of the final payment to M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z , on O c t o ber 3, 1 4 4 2 , for a predella that the painter had done for a retable of the Virgin in the parish church of A l c u d i a ; and there are thus authenticated as w o r k s of this artist the t w o panels transferred from the church to the rector's house and depicting the Dormition ( F i g . 1 2 3 ) and St. T h o m a s ' s reception of M a r y ' s girdle which obviously are parts of a predella from an altarpiece dedicated to O u r L a d y . W e must therefore give the n a m e of M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z to the personality w h o m on the basis of the t w o panels I have called the A l c u d i a M a s t e r , crediting him with other productions on the island. 2 B u t M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z w a s already familiar to us by a notice of his activity in M a j o r c a in 1 4 3 4 and by the documentation of his considerable patronage at Valencia and in Valencian territory in the t w e n ties and early thirties of the fifteenth century. Saralegui with practical certainty 3 equated him with the Valencian painter for w h o m I had chosen the sobriquet of the G i l Master, and the certainty becomes absolute w h e n by stylistic examination w e find that the G i l M a s t e r is the M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z of M a j o r c a . A w a r e already that M i g u e l w a s employed in M a j o r c a , I should have perceived the unity of m a n n e r between the G i l M a s t e r and the A l c u d i a M a s t e r , and I have no real excuse for m y stupidity except that M i g u e l , as w a s natural at the slightly later m o m e n t in his career, had matured somewhat in M a j o r c a and his dependence upon M a r z a l de Sas had largely evaporated. I cannot take the space to itemize all the factors which make the equation, and m y readers will have to trust me that I have not arrived at the conclusion without a laborious process of comparison. I will allow myself only this short paragraph to specify a very f e w of the convincing similarities. T h e type embodied in the V i r g i n bestowing the girdle 4 and in 1 2 3 4

Vol. X X X I I , 1953, 4. Vol. XI, p. 390. M y vol. XII, p. 597. Vol. XI, fig. 166.

FIG. 123. MIGUEL ALCANIZ. DORMITION OF T H E VIRGIN. RECTOR'S HOUSE, ALCUDIA (Photo.

Tous)

APPENDIX

312

the A l c u d i a Master's G u a r d i a n angel of Pollensa in the C o n v e n t o de la Concepción, Palma, 5 with n a r r o w , sensitive countenance and fluffy hair, is recurrent in the output of the G i l Master, most closely approximated in the angels of the w a r in heaven a m o n g the pieces of a retable in the Metropolitan M u s e u m , N e w Y o r k , 6 the St. J o h n of the E n t o m b m e n t in the fragments of the same retable in the Hispanic Society, N e w Y o r k , and in the w o u n d e d youth of the M o n t e G a r g a n o episode in the scenes of the story of St. M i c h a e l in the M u s e u m , L y o n s . 7 T h e St. John of the A l c u d i a Master's Crucifixion in the C o n v e n t o de la Crucifición more than recalls the M a g d a l e n e in the Crucifixion of the retable of the H o l y Cross in the Provincial M u s e u m , Valencia. T h e actual Christ of the P a l m a C r u cifixion has persuasive counterparts in the Saviour of the versions in the retable of the H o l y Cross and in the Harris Collection, L o n d o n . Striking and unexpected identities are provided, in the retable of the H o l y Cross ( F i g . 1 2 4 ) , by the compartment representing Heraclius stabbing the king Chosroes ( F i g . 1 2 5 ) . K n e e l i n g in the right foreground is one of those sharply delineated profile figures of which M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z w a s so fond, almost identical with the seated, reading Apostle correspondingly placed in the A l c u d i a Dormition and very like the St. T h o m a s receiving the girdle. I f Heraclius had a beard, he w o u l d turn out to be St. T h o m a s ' s twin brother. T h e u p w a r d g a z i n g , bearded old man w a t c h i n g at the left the m u r d e r of Chosroes repeats the Apostle just above St. J o h n in the A l c u d i a Dormition, and the dark-bearded spectator at the right in the scene of assassination also is nearly reiterated in an analogously placed Apostle in the group round the Virgin's bed. T h e great investigator of documents, D o n José M a r í a M a d u r e l l M a r i món, 8 has surprised us with the information that M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z , before his emergence at Valencia, had been a citizen and painter of Barcelona, engaged there in minor financial transactions on February 1 9 and 26, 1 4 1 5 . A n o t h e r contribution of this C a t a l a n scholar is the record of remuneration to A l c a ñ i z at Valencia in D e c e m b e r , 1 4 2 8 , for his collaboration in a royal commission to decorate a pack of playing-cards. Finally M a d u r e l l extends the painter's lease of life and presence in M a j o r c a to A u g u s t 20, 1 4 4 7 , w h e n he is listed as still there dwelling. T h e style of the artist, as w e k n o w it, discloses nothing definitely traceable to an influence of the modes of the C a t a l a n school in the second decade of the fifteenth century. D o n Juan M u n t a n e r 9 has also filled out the biography of M i g u e l A l cañiz by publishing the order of A u g u s t 6, 1 4 4 2 , to pay him the remaining Ibid., fig-. 167. V o l . I l l , fig. 280. 7 V o l . I V , fig. 2 4 1 . 8 In his m o n o g r a p h on Luis Borrassá, pp. 40, 4 1 , and 83, published in 1949 but as volume V I I , 1947, of the Anales y Boletín de los Museos de Arte de Barcelona; and also his publication of documents in the same periodical, V I I I , 1950, 282, and 5

6

X, 1952. 1279

Op.

cit.y 3 .

FIG. 124. M I G U E L ALCAÑIZ. R E T A B L E OF T H E HOLY CROSS. PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, VALENCIA {Photo. Mas)

FIG. 125. MIGUEL ALCANIZ. HERACLIUS STABBING KING CHOSROES. PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, VALENCIA

(Photo.

Mas)

A P P E N D I X

315

amount for a lost retable of St. Sebastian in the C h u r c h of A l a r o in M a jorca. T h e recognition of the Gil Master and the Alcudia Master as M i g u e l A l c a n i z and the resulting additional dates in the t w o Masters' lives render more unlikely the proposition that I have weighed in volume V I I I , 1 0 the identification of the G i l Master with the Florentine Maestro del Bambino Vispo. M i g u e l is recorded at Valencia in 1 4 2 1 , 1 4 2 4 , 1 4 2 6 , 1 4 2 8 , 1430, 1 4 3 1 , and 1432, and in M a j o r c a in 1 4 3 4 , 1 4 4 2 , and 1 4 4 7 , times that make it impossible that he should have spent any considerable sojourn at Florence during these twenty-five years. T h e r e are no absolutely sure dates in the career of the Maestro del Bambino Vispo, although 1 4 2 2 and 1 4 2 3 have been suggested; and I think that no one would maintain that all of his many productions were executed between 1 4 1 5 , when M i g u e l was at Barcelona, and 1 4 2 1 w h e n he first appears with certainty at Valencia. T h e achievements of the Alcudia Master reveal no closer approximation to the Maestro del Bambino Vispo than do those of the G i l Master, so that it would be rash to suppose that M i g u e l was at Florence between 1 4 3 4 and 1 4 4 2 and that all the works of the Italian painter were carried out within this interval. T h e Last Judgment in the A l t e Pinakothek, M u n i c h , 1 1 is really of no assistance in the problem, since it cannot be definitely proved to hail from M a j o r c a and is nearer to the mode of the Maestro del Bambino Vispo than to that of M i g u e l A l c a n i z . I t is scarcely credible, with the difficulties of travel at the period, that M i g u e l kept plying back and forth between Spain and Italy, although Dello Delli and probably Stamina returned once to their native country between their activities in the Iberian peninsula; and the most acceptable explanation of the stylistic analogy of the Maestro del Bambino Vispo to M i g u e l A l c a n i z is that, whether or not a Spaniard by birth, he had once dwelt at Valencia and there admired Miguel's early works. T h e resemblances of the Dormition in the National Gallery, L o n d o n , 1 3 to the rendering from the Alcudia predella tend to confirm my attribution 13 of the former to the G i l Master, namely to M i g u e l Alcaniz.

T H E RETASCÓN

MASTER

M y excuse for publishing the very poor photograph of the panels in the Ermita de Nuestra Señora de la Consolación at Chiprana, which I made myself ( F i g . 1 2 6 ) , is twofold: it is almost certainly the sole existing reproduction of the assemblage except the capping Crucifixion which survived the civil w a r ; 1 and, despite its inadequacy, enough is discernible 10

11

P. 647-

Vol. VIII, p. 6 j o . 12 Vol. I l l , fig. 282. 13 Vol. VII, p. 793. 1 Francisco Abbad Ríos, Catálogo monumental de Esfaña: Zaragoza, Madrid, '9S7> P- 459-

Fig. 126. T H E RETASCÓN MASTER. PANELS FROM A R E T A B L E . E R M I T A DE NUESTRA SEÑORA DE LA CONSOLACIÓN, CHIPRANA

APPENDIX

3i7

to show that the paintings are creations of the Retascon M a s t e r w h o , trained at Valencia, enjoyed patronage in A r a g o n , and thus to a u g m e n t our scanty heritage from him. B e f o r e I disentangled his personality, I described the panels in volume V , 2 classifying them in the general A r a gonese m a n n e r of the international m o v e m e n t which had the L a n a j a Master as one of its chief exponents; but even in those pages I stressed w h a t has turned out to be a peculiarity of the Retascon Master, the faces of the M a d o n n a and the M a g d a l e n e n a r r o w i n g to a point at the chin. T o this agreement with the painter's velleity to stylization should be added the abnormally emaciated and elongated necks. A s a matter of fact the M a d o n n a scarcely differs from her enthroned effigy in the retable at Retascon itself, and the C h i l d has the pertness, characteristic of the artist, in both panels, a trait shared also at Chiprana by the little angels. T h e M a g d a l e n e in countenance and neck finds a close counterpart in the Virgin of the Annunciation o w n e d by Jacques Seligmann and C o m p a n y , N e w Y o r k . 3 T h e n e w information about the Retascon M a s t e r afforded by the panels is his cultivation, both in the M a g d a l e n e ' s mantle and in the backgrounds, of the kind of ostentatious brocade in which the L a n a j a Master and his circle indulged. A primary w o r k of the Retascon M a s t e r , likely to raise our estimation of him, has appeared in an unspecified private collection, a central section of a retable showing St. Philip ( o r St. A n d r e w ) 4 enthroned and w o r shipped by a diminutive lay donor and in the remate the usual C r u c i fixion ( F i g . 1 2 7 ) . T h e Apostle's head is an absolute repetition of the painter's modification of a type that he derived f r o m M a r z a l de Sas and embodied most conspicuously in the Salvator M u n d i in the M u s e u m of Bilbao; and the Christ in the Crucifixion is accommodated to the same facial standard. T h e saint's spidery fingers clasping a book like claws should be compared with those correspondingly employed by the Bilbao Saviour. T h e rather saucily upturned noses of St. John and of the w o m a n supporting the Virgin in the Crucifixion are countlessly repeated idiosyncrasies of the M a s t e r , and in particular the St. John's countenance recalls the angel in the Vision of St. Joachim in the Benicarlo Collection, Valencia. A subsidiary proof, but, as such proofs often are, of considerable potency, is found in the textile of the Apostle's mantle, a kind of fabric so rare, the connoisseur in such matters, M r . A d o l f o S. C a v a l l o , apprises me, that at least n o w very f e w examples are k n o w n , and yet it is practically duplicated on the Virgin in the Coronation by the painter in his sections of the retable at Retascon w h e r e he collaborated with the L a n g a Master. 5 U n i n f o r m e d of the provenience of the panel, w e cannot determine w h e t h e r the Retascon M a s t e r executed it at Valencia, w h e r e he w a s 2

Pp. 610—61 z.

V o l . V I I I , fig. 299. 4 T h e Latin cross is the emblem of St. Philip but is used also sometimes to designate the much more commonly represented St. A n d r e w instead of the kind of cross named after him. 5 See my volume X , p. 320. 3

FIG. 127. THE RETASCÓN MASTER. ST. PHILIP AND THE CRUCIFIXION. PRIVATE COLLECTION

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319

e d u c a t e d , in V a l e n c i a n territory, or in A r a g ó n , the only surely ascertained place of his p a t r o n a g e .

T H E B E C K MASTER T h e courteous t h o u g h t f u l n e s s of M o n s i e u r R o b e r t M e s u r e t , the C o n servateur des M u s é e s S a i n t - R a y m o n d et P a u l D u p u y at T o u l o u s e and the Inspecteur des M u s é e s de P r o v i n c e , in s e n d i n g m e a photograph of a hitherto u n r e c o r d e d picture, has facilitated the isolation of a painter bel o n g i n g to precisely the same blunt phase of the international m o v e m e n t in A r a g ó n as the L a n a j a and B u r n h a m M a s t e r s . T h e picture, in the A r c h e v e c h é at T o u l o u s e ( F i g . 1 2 8 ) , is a replica, w i t h o n l y the slightest variations, of the panel of the M a d o n n a a n d a n g e l s f o r m e r l y in the C o l l e c t i o n of M a r t i n B e c k at N e w Y o r k , 1 a n d thus supplies m e with the n a m e , the B e c k M a s t e r , f o r o u r artist. W h e n I published in v o l u m e I V the panel in the B e c k C o l l e c t i o n , I should h a v e perceived that the i m pressive a n a l o g y of its constituents indubitably assigns to the same painter the so-called St. A u g u s t i n e in the M u n t a d a s C o l l e c t i o n , B a r c e l o n a , 2 the central panel of some retable. T h e M a s t e r w a s e n d o w e d w i t h so little elasticity that he repeats for the St. A u g u s t i n e e v e n the c u r v e s of the V i r g i n ' s robes a n d , of course, does n o t m o d i f y the types of the a c c o m p a n y i n g angels. A l l these points of resemblance are emphasized by the picture at T o u l o u s e . I a m still at a loss w h a t to do w i t h the panel of the M a d o n n a a n d angels in the L e v e r h u l m e C o l l e c t i o n at P o r t S u n l i g h t , 3 w h i c h relies upon almost the same cartoon for the subject as the versions by the B e c k M a s t e r but can h a r d l y h a v e been executed by him or indeed by a n y other artist of the same g r o u p w i t h w h o m I a m familiar ( F i g . 1 2 9 ) . T h e likelihood is that w e o w e it to some closely affiliated painter by w h o m I h a v e as y e t r e c o g n i z e d n o f u r t h e r productions, but there is a l w a y s the possibility, h o w ever r e m o t e , that a " r e s t o r e r " has so c h a n g e d the types as to conceal identities w i t h some o n e of the M a s t e r s of the same class to w h o m I h a v e r e f e r r e d in the p r e c e d i n g p a r a g r a p h .

T H E MONTERDE MASTER I n the delicate task of distinguishing the shades of d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n the A r a g o n e s e painters active r o u g h l y in the second quarter of the

fifteenth

Vol. IV, fig. 624. 2 Ibid., fig. 265. In my study in front of the picture in the Muntadas Collection, I failed to attempt to read the passage on the book that is held by an angel for the hallowed prelate, and I refuse now to tax my eyes in the photograph with endeavoring to decipher it, although the words, whether a collect or some other text, would reveal whether he is rightly denominated as St. Augustine, none of whose regular emblems, except the episcopal regalia, does he display. 3 Vols. I l l , p. 218, and IV, p. 642. 1

i g r l P S mïïgk W' • •i • as? *

V»« «¡2 ..•"»ÂJW

FIG. 128. T H E BECK MASTER. MADONNA AND ANGELS. ARCHEVÊCHÉ, TOULOUSE

FIG. 129. FOLLOWER OF THE BECK MASTER. MADONNA AND ANGELS. LEVERHULME COLLECTION, PORT SUNLIGHT, CHESHIRE, ENGLAND (Photo.

Gray)

322

APPENDIX

c e n t u r y just before the a d v e n t of the F l e m i s h influence, such as the A r g u i s M a s t e r a n d the St. Q u i t e r i a M a s t e r , w e can define a n o t h e r personality w h o so edges stylistically upon the artists of A r a g ó n w h o m I h a v e classified as transitional 1 b e t w e e n the m a n n e r s of the first a n d second half of the Q u a t t r o c e n t o that he almost m i g h t be n u m b e r e d a m o n g t h e m . T a k i n g as a basis the capacious retable o v e r the high altar of the E r m i t a de N u e s t r o Señora at M o n t e r d e , south of C a l a t a y u d a n d w e s t of D a r o c a , w e had best coin f o r him a n a m e since with probability w e can ascribe to him a n o t h e r w o r k of considerable iconographic interest. F r e d e r i c o - B . T o r r a l b a Soriano in his m o n o g r a p h on M o n t e r d e 2 holds that the retable, because it does n o t fit w e l l into the space, w a s imported f r o m some other place, w h i c h he guesses to h a v e been the g r e a t , n e a r - l y i n g m o n a s t e r y of P i e d r a . H a v i n g blessedly survived the civil w a r , the retable n o w contains at the centre an u g l y m o d e r n shrine w h i c h has barbarously c u t into some of the s u r r o u n d i n g narrative panels and shelters a rather rustic statue of the M a d o n n a w i t h the C h i l d b e l o n g i n g to the early fifteenth c e n t u r y . S o m e h a v e believed that the statue originally in this spot w a s one of the f o u r teenth c e n t u r y n o w in the parish c h u r c h , but T o r r a l b a Soriano's opinion is that the place of the shrine w a s filled by a l a r g e painted panel of the seated V i r g i n a n d C h i l d n o w also in the parroquia, w h i c h I do n o t k n o w even in a reproduction. T h e narrative scenes are, in all cases r e a d i n g d o w n w a r d and i n c l u d i n g the p r e d e l l a : in the outermost vertical section at the l e f t ( l e a v i n g out of a c c o u n t for the m o m e n t the topmost l e v e l ) the E x p u l s i o n of Sts. J o a c h i m and A n n e f r o m the T e m p l e , the P r o c l a mation of the A n g e l to h i m , a n d the M e e t i n g at the G o l d e n G a t e ; in the innermost section at the l e f t the Birth of the V i r g i n , her Presentation, a n d M a r r i a g e ; the A n n u n c i a t i o n , divided b e t w e e n t w o c o m p a r t m e n t s at the topmost level on the l e f t ; in the innermost vertical section at the right the Visitation, N a t i v i t y of C h r i s t , C i r c u m c i s i o n , and E p i p h a n y ( F i g . 1 3 0 ) ; in the o u t e r m o s t section the Purification, y o u n g C h r i s t in the T e m p l e , A s c e n s i o n , a n d D o r m i t i o n ; a n d just above the shrine the C o r o n a t i o n s u r m o u n t e d by the usual C r u c i f i x i o n . T h e uprights are embellished w i t h m u s i c - m a k i n g angels, but the middle of the predella has been lost, g i v i n g w a y to a m u c h m o r e m o d e r n tabernacle. T h e style is a sort of A r a g o n e s e counterpart of that of B e r n a r d o M a r torell exercised by a m a n of m u c h less but n o t entirely negligible ability. T h e asperity of the types a n d d r a w i n g that characterized the slightly earlier painters of A r a g ó n , f o r instance the L a n a j a M a s t e r , h a v e been l a r g e l y ironed out. T h e nearest a n a l o g u e in the A r a g o n e s e school is f o u n d in the lateral, narrative scenes of the retable of St. A n n e f r o m T a r d i e n t a , w h i c h at last report w a s kept in the M u s e u m of C a t a l a n A r t , B a r c e l o n a , 3 since in these c o m p a r t m e n t s the B u r n h a m M a s t e r softens his bluntness s o m e w h a t . T h e comparisons necessary to assign to the M o n t e r d e M a s t e r a n o t h e r w o r k w i l l bring into relief f u r t h e r characteristics of his. 1 2

Vol. VIII, chapter X C V . Saragossa, 1953, p. x.

3

See my volume IX, p. 785.

FIG. 130. T H E M O N T E R D E M A S T E R . HIGH A L T A R . EPIPHANY. E R M I T A D E N U E S T R A SEÑORA, M O N T E R D E (Photo. Mas)

324

A P P E N D I X

T h e second painting, a section from some altarpiece, is a panel in the Collection of D o n A n t o n i o Pedrol Rius at M a d r i d , the funeral of the early pope, St. Evaristus, w h o was martyred in 108 and w h o , so far as m y k n o w l e d g e goes, is not elsewhere represented in the range of Spanish art ( F i g . 1 3 1 ) . H e is recognized in the picture because the prelate officiating at the obsequies points to a m a n g e r , the distinctive emblem of St. Evaristus which finds its reason in the consideration that, according to one tradition, he w a s born in Bethlehem. T h e reader might take exception inasmuch as he wears a mitre instead of a tiara; but another primitive pope, St. Fabian, is not infrequently depicted with merely the mitre, 4 and St. Evaristus is the only ecclesiastical dignitary for w h o m the m a n g e r serves as attribute. T h e artists of the M i d d l e A g e s and Renaissance may have had some vague idea that the tiara had not yet been evolved during the first centuries of Christianity. T h e fabric over the bier is very similar to that of the cope of St. Nicholas in the principal compartment of the altarpiece by M i g u e l del R e y at M a l u e n d a , and the Pedrol Rius panel exhibits some stylistic resemblances to his attainments; and yet not once but twice I have made intensive comparisons with his productions which have forced me definitely to reject him as a candidate. Indeed I have very faithfully but futilely tried all other possibilities not only in the A r a gonese school but in the various regions of the peninsula, so that, to begin with, w e are driven t o w a r d the M o n t e r d e Master by a process of exclusion. T h e general accord with his modes is obvious, but there are also specific analogies. F o r instance, the characterization of a simple y o u n g peasant in the man at the l o w e r right beside the bier is repeated in the attendant upon the M a g i at the extreme right in the Epiphany of the M o n t e r d e retable, which e v e r y w h e r e shows a predilection for the pert noses that both figures exhibit. T h e panel of the funeral contains in clothing t w o examples of multiplied pleats for which the retable manifests an inordinate fondness, and they are delineated in precisely the w a y that the M a s t e r affects. A m o n g the factors making for a probable ascription to him it is not to be overlooked that the Pedrol Rius Collection contains some other works, including those by the T e n a Master, that were acquired from the same general region in which M o n t e r d e lies. In distinction from the retable the panel is marked by embossing of some details, though in l o w e r relief than that in which some other Aragonese painters of the first half of the fifteenth century indulged.

J U A N DE S E V I L L A

T o the rather numerous preserved w o r k s of this painter w h o m I used to call the Siguenza M a s t e r but whose real name w a s recognized by G u d i o l Ricart 1 w e can add an Annunciation recently acquired by the 4 1

C f . , f o r instance, my vols. V I I I , p. 699, and X , p. 460. See m y vol. X I I , p. 6 1 1 .

FIG. 131. THE MONTERDE MASTER. FUNERAL OF ST. EVARISTUS. COLLECTION OF ANTONIO PEDROL RIUS, MADRID (Photo.

A.

Castellanos)

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A P P E N D I X

G a l l e r y of Sacred A r t at Bob Jones University, Greenville, South C a r o lina ( F i g . 1 3 2 ) . H e has not stamped his personality upon the panel quite so plainly as in some other instances, and yet the evidence is conclusive. I f you take the St. Sebastian of the M u s e o Cerralbo, M a d r i d , 2 and change his sex, you w o u l d get an absolute duplicate of the Virgin's head, even in the eyes and hair; but there are close counterparts also a m o n g Juan de Sevilla's female actors. T h e parallels for Gabriel are quite as striking, for instance, in the retable of St. A n d r e w and a canonized deacon, 3 n o w in the M u s e u m of T o l e d o , O h i o , St. John supporting the Virgin in the Crucifixion, and the St. Catherine on the uprights, in both of which figures the likeness to the archangel in the puffiness of the cheeks should be noted. T h e pattern of grouped dots in the haloes is regular with Juan de Sevilla. T h e design in the flooring is a favorite with the T o r r a l b a Master, w h o , h o w e v e r , is out of the question for the attribution. T h e recent catalogue of the M u s e o C e r r a l b o by Consuelo Sanz-Pastor 4 discloses that Juan de Sevilla's panel of St. Sebastian, a donation of the family of L a C e r d a , the lords of Medinaceli, comes from the church of S. Sebastián at M o n t u e n g a , just northeast of the t o w n .

T H E VILLALOBOS MASTER

A f r a g m e n t of a retable in the H a m m o n d M u s e u m at Gloucester, Massachusetts ( F i g . 133) demonstrates a n e w h o w so rustic an artisan and so hobbling a technician as this imitator of Nicolás F r a n c é s in the region of L e ó n and Z a m o r a can arrest our attention, w h e n , as often, he depicts sensational episodes from the lives of saints, simply because he approaches his themes with an uninhibited and unsophisticated directness. T h e paintings possess also an iconographic interest since they depict scenes from the story of St. R o m a n u s whose life I have found hitherto represented only in eastern Spain, 1 although even the names of t o w n s in the provinces of L e ó n and Z a m o r a show that he enjoyed a cult also in the west. T h e scene at the left is the gruesome ordeal of the extraction of his tongue, and the rope by which he w a s subsequently strangled is already round his neck. O n the ground there lies pathetically and evidently with deeply felt pity on the part of the artist the body of the little boy w h o witnessed to the Christian faith for the n o w speechless St. R o m a n u s and w a s therefore martyred. T h e mother of the child bends anguished over him, and an angel above the building in the background receives his soul. In the compartment at the right the subject is the funeral of St. R o m a n u s w h o , as often, is conceived to have been a m o n k and together with most of the other particiIbid., fig. 2 6 1 . Ibid., p. 6 1 1 . 4 M a d r i d , 1 9 5 6 , p. 20. 1 F o r an account of him and f o r some of the many w o r k s dealing w i t h him, see especially m y vols. V I I , pp. 586 and 608, V I I I , p. 48, and X I I , p. 381. 2 3

FIG. 132. J U A N D E SEVILLA. ANNUNCIATION. BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA (Photo. Photographie Studios, Bob Jones University)

Fie. 133. T H E VILLALOBOS MASTER. LIFE OF ST. ROMANUS. H A M M O N D MUSEUM, GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

A P P E N D I X

329

pants in the obsequies w e a r s the habit. A n iron handle in the framing vertical member at the right seems to show that this part of the altarpiece was used, in accord with a frequent practice, for a door to get behind the retable and that consequently the t w o scenes were at the bottom of the structure. N o one w h o has looked even at the illustrations of the Villalobos M a s t e r ' s productions in m y volumes could doubt the justness of the attribution. T o g e t h e r with his other defects in technique the perspective appears almost willfully a w r y , for instance in the w a y the rocks in the episode of the torture of St. R o m a n u s are brought d o w n through an opening in the architecture into the foreground, but on the other hand the delineation of the edifice of the funeral is pretty well managed and vividly reminiscent of the settings of Nicolás Frances. T h e Villalobos M a s t e r had a carver of his frames w h o in the intrinsic qualities of art surpassed him and executed specimens very like those that enhance Nicolás's achievements.

T H E M A S T E R OF T H E L A R G E F I G U R E S

I t is a l o n g time since I have come across any works by this outstanding member of the Hispano-Flemish school of Burgos, but n o w t w o of his finest achievements, large panels 1 of the Nativity and F l i g h t into E g y p t , have appeared in a most unexpected place as recent acquisitions of the G a l l e r y of Sacred A r t at Bob Jones University, Greenville, South C a r o lina ( F i g . 1 3 4 ) . T h e y have been perspicaciously recognized as productions of this painter by the head of the University, President Bob Jones, J r . , and the reader need only inspect figures 99 and 102 in m y volume I V and figure 108 in m y volume V to agree with his discernment. A l t h o u g h I have on several visits scoured the province of Burgos together with m y late lamented friend, D o n L u c i a n o Huidobro, w h o k n e w this w h o l e territory better than anyone else, I never saw the t w o panels nor any retable to which they could surely be said to belong, with the consequence that w e must have overlooked them or that they had been removed and sold prior to m y trips.

T H E BONILLA MASTER

I n the lack of photographs m y visual m e m o r y played me false w h e n I tended, though hesitatingly, to assign in volume I V 1 the retable of St. M a r t i n at Bonilla de la Sierra ( w e s t of A v i l a ) to the St. M a r t i a l M a s t e r 2 rather than to another a m o n g the closely interrelated followers of the 1 T h e y are both of the same w i d t h , 2 9 ^ inches, but the N a t i v i t y , 6 7 ^ is a little less h i g h than the F l i g h t into E g y p t , 72 inches. IP. 358. 2 V o l . I V , p. 3 5 4 , a n d v o l . I X , pp. 4 3 0 - 4 3 2 .

inches,

FIG. 134. T H E MASTER OF T H E LARGE FIGURES. N A T I V I T Y AND FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

APPENDIX

33i

A v i l a Master, the author of the retable of Nuestra Senora de Gracia and of the one of the two retables in the cathedral dedicated to St. Peter in which the Apostle is enthroned between two clerics; 3 but the recent photographs of a number of the compartments of the Bonilla assemblage made by the M a s Archive have convinced me that it is not the St. Martial Master but the latter of the two painters to whom the assemblage is owed. One of the factors that must have misled me into ascribing the Bonilla retable to the St. Martial Master is the partial resemblance of the St. Martin where he is depicted in pontificals to the central figure of St. Martial in the altarpiece devoted to him; but the style of this Master is in general somewhat diverse, and the bonds with the other painter are more intimate. F o r instance, the individualized, rugged type of the cleric flanking at the right the enthroned St. Peter and of the Daniel in the retable of Nuestra Senora de Gracia is repeated at Bonilla in the man behind St. Martin resurrecting the lad in response to his mother's prayers. O r even a very different sort of type, the enthroned Virgin of G r a c e , is recalled by the St. Martin dividing his coat with the beggar ( F i g . 1 3 5 ) . Since the two retables in the cathedral of A v i l a by this artist supply nothing distinctive by which to create f o r him a pseudonym, I shall have to fall back upon the name of the Bonilla Master. T h e M a s photographs reveal that two of the compartments which it was impossible for me to descry in the church represent the appearance of Christ to Martin wearing the coat that he had given to the beggar and the common Spanish subject of the visit of the afflicted to the saint's shrine. 4

T H E ST. AGNES MASTER Closely affiliated stylistically with the A v i l a Master and his followers, though patronized, so f a r as our meagre information about him goes, at Salamanca or in its region, there has gradually emerged to my consciousness a painter of considerable charm and competence w h o remained essentially mediaeval but enlivened his works with a f e w furbelows of the Renaissance. I t is difficult to devise any other distinctive name for him than the one that I have set at the beginning of this section of the appendix, derived from an engaging panel of the enthroned St. Agnes now consigned 3 Vol. I V , p. 350. 4 Gudiol Ricart ( P i n t u r a gotica, p. 3 4 8 ) parcels out differently from me the works that I have discussed in the above paragraph, even attributing to the A v i l a Master himself two that I have set in his school; but, as has been apparent, I still cling to the classifications that I have championed in my volume I V , except that (again in divergence from Gudiol) I assign the Bonilla retable to the Bonilla Master instead of the St. Martial Master. In a subsequent article {Goya, No. 2 1 , 1 9 5 7 , p. 14.3) he specifies that in the Bonilla retable two compartments (St. Martin dividing his mantle and giving his coat to a pauper) are by the A v i l a Master himself and two others (unnamed) by a painter whom he calls the Bonilla Master (whether or not he now deems him equivalent to the St. Martial Master) ; but I can see no reason for not judging my Bonilla Master to have executed the whole altarpiece.

FIG. 135. T H E BONILLA M A S T E R . R E T A B L E OF ST. M A R T I N . BONILLA DE LA SIERRA {Photo. Mas)

333

A P P E N D I X

to the M u s e u m that has been made in the O l d C a t h e d r a l of Salamanca but of unstated original provenience ( F i g . 1 3 6 ) . T h e type of the maiden and the elaborately puckered, Flemish draperies plainly reveal a connection with the A v i l a Master and his circle, a relationship that will be made still clearer in the second production that w e shall ascribe to h i m ; but naturally also he exhibits a cognizance of the achievements of F e r n a n d o G a l l e g o for w h o m Salamanca w a s the seat of activity. T h e only definite element of the Renaissance in this panel is the shell-patterned semidome of the edifice that shelters the throne. W e need retain no scruples in assigning to the St. A g n e s M a s t e r the fragments of a retable of St. Catherine in the M u s e o Arqueológico, M a drid, the source of which is again evidently unascertained. O n e piece depicts her dispute with the philosophers in the presence of the tyrant M a x i min, together with a bit of the predella showing half-lengths of Sts. M a r tin and B a r t h o l o m e w ( F i g . 1 3 7 ) and the other incorporates an event for which I have discovered no hagiographical source, the M a d o n n a , holding the C h i l d , conversing with her through the grilled w i n d o w of her prison while her jailers stand nonchalantly about, although it is c o m m o n l y related that she enjoyed visits of O u r L a d y before her incarceration. T h e accordance in general style with the St. A g n e s is obvious, and the attribution is clinched by the facial resemblance between the t w o virgin martyrs, as well as to the St. M a r t i n . T h e r e are several shell-patterned semidomes in the architectural backgrounds in the pair of fragments, but n o w the details of the Renaissance are more numerous. Medallions of male heads embellish the cornice of M a x i m i n ' s palace as in L o m b a r d edifices and as in the courtyard of the Colegio del Arzobispo at Salamanca, which, h o w ever, w a s probably carried out too late ( 1 5 2 7 — 1 5 2 8 ) to have been k n o w n to our artist. I t is likely that the paintings of Pedro D e l g a d o also postdated his activity; but in Pedro's m a n n e r he adorns the palace with festoons resembling those of Crivelli and perches debonair futti on the tops of columns and pilasters. T h e scenes are ensconced in fanciful Plateresque frames. W e are introduced to a phase of the artist's scope that the St. A g n e s does not reveal, for he treats the narrative whimsically both in his elaborate and capricious architecture and in the gaily caparisoned jailers and soldiers w h o recall the more soberly conceived supernumeraries in the productions of the St. Martial Master. H e even injects into the foreground of the space in front of St. Catherine's prison an episode that I have often seen in crossing the H a r v a r d Y a r d , a d o g alerted by the sight of a distant squirrel.

T H E M A S T E R OF T H E M I L I T A R Y

ORDERS

I n the last years w e have succeeded in bringing some clarity into the confusion enveloping the Hispano-Flemish painting of Andalusia by grouping together as creations of single personalities w o r k s that hitherto had

FIG. 136. T H E ST. AGNES M A S T E R . ST. AGNES ENTHRONED. MUSEUM, SALAMANCA (Photo. Mas)

Fie. 137. THE ST. AGNES MASTER. PREDELLA FROM A RETABLE OF ST. CATHERINE. MUSEO ARQUEOLÓGICO, MADRID {Photo. Museo

Arqueológico)

APPENDIX

336

lacked definite attachments. Examples of such personalities are the Harris Master 1 and the Paya Master, 2 and we may happily add another who takes his name from one of the best known productions of the second half of the fifteenth century in southern Spain, the retable of the Military Orders now in the Provincial Museum, Seville. 3 T h e principal work with which we must increase his legacy to us will at first sight leave the reader as incredulous as I myself was at the beginning, the painted Pax that I published 4 in the possession of the Bohler firm at Lucerne but at my last knowledge was to be seen in the Ganzoni Gallery at Geneva, for, with tondi of the Madonna (Fig. 1 3 8 ) on the obverse and of a veronica of Christ on the reverse and with the Nativity and Resurrection on the bases respectively, it is of very different general nature from the series of standing, monumental effigies of saints constituting the retable and obliges us to seek the determinative correspondences in small, Morellian details. I can perhaps be forgiven for not having recognized the singleness of authorship when I first studied the Pax because I was then familiar only with the obverse and it is the reverse that supplies the most tangible evidence. T h e face of Christ reveals precisely the curious stylization of the moustache in rigidly downward projecting points and in schematized hairs that is a prominent trait in several of the saints in the retable, most conspicuously in the Anthony Abbot. T h e conventionalized treatment of the nose in a strong, straight line between, at the base, the nostrils formalized into bulbs stands forth in the altarpiece in several of the countenances, among which that of St. John Baptist provides the closest parallel. T h u s guided, we can detect analogies also in the obverse, for instance exactly the same odd sort of moustache in the St. Joseph in the Nativity on the base, in the Madonna of the tondo the sharp-cut, sculptured delineation of the eyes that is peculiarly typical of the figures in the retable, and the Child held by her virtually repeated in the emblem of Anthony of Padua who is one of the saints that the retable comprises. It is difficult to perceive any valid reason for doubting that the rectangular, virtual replica of the M a donna and Child in the Lisbon Museum (Fig. 1 3 9 ) , which I mentioned in volume I X , 5 was not executed by the same hand. W e continue to be confronted with the mystery in regard to what was the original painting that supplied the cartoon embodied in these renderings of the Madonna and Child and four others amassed by Angulo. 6 T w o of the four, in Madrid collections, we can definitely exclude because, although I have not seen them, they are stigmatized by him as inferior in quality. T h e third example, in the Ibarra Collection, Seville, despite its technical competence, is scarcely a sufficiently eminent production to have initiated the series; and the fourth, now in the Museum of Catalan Art, 1

2 3

Vol. XII, p. 638.

Ibid., p. 635.

Vol. V, p. 50. Vol. IX, p. 814 and fig. 340. P . 816. 6 Archivo esfaiiol de arte, X I I I ( 1 9 3 7 ) , 1 9 1 .

4 5

FIG. 138. T H E MASTER OF T H E M I L I T A R Y ORDERS. PAX. GANZONI GALLERY, GENEVA

FIG. 139. THE MASTER OF THE MILITARY ORDERS. MADONNA AND CHILD. MUSEUM, LISBON

A P P E N D I X

339

Barcelona, though the most outstanding of the quartet, is obviously a somewhat later work than the Ibarra piece or than the two renderings by the Master of the Military Orders. Execution by a Fleming seems to me very clearly to manifest itself in the panel in the Barcelona Museum, especially when we take into account the nature of the three medallions that constitute a sort of predella, and for this reason it might be argued to have started the Spanish series; but, manifestly postdating at least some of them, it must itself be a result of the vogue of the composition and therefore probably painted in the peninsula. One of the artists that the factors in the Barcelona piece would fit is the northerner Michel Sittow, whose activity in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century is well established ; and even on internal evidence something can be said for his authorship, which, however, I am far from audacious enough to assert, since, as it lies without the sphere of Spanish painting proper, I have not the duty, the time, or the knowledge to devote to an adequate examination. T h e head and the chiaroscuro of the Virgin certainly resemble closely many of Sittow's other representations of women, and the slight variations of the Child from his norm for infants could be explained by the restrictions which the cartoon laid upon him.

T H E M A S T E R OF T H E V A L E N C I A N H O S P I T A L

I n addition to subordinate interests, the retable over the high altar of the parish church at Velilla de Jiloca, south of Calatayud, possesses the importance of exemplifying two phenomena that I have often had occasion to remark, the spread of the vogue of Valencian artists far beyond the limits of their headquarters and the good fortune that, as soon as a new personality has been isolated, other works by his hand are discovered within a f e w years. I studied the retable on the spot as long ago as the spring of 1 9 2 6 , but it is only now after so many years that I have accumulated sufficient knowledge, with the help of the photographs of the M a s Archive, to recognize its author. In the midst of the activity of the Aragonese school in the near-lying towns, the retable surprisingly yet plainly turns out to be a major production of the Master of the Valencian Hospital, whom we first defined, through only two achievements, in volume X I I , 1 and it much further elucidates his scope. T h e central section of the retable is not in its original state. T h e main compartment has disappeared, and for it has been substituted a much later canvas of the Holy Family. Above this there has been inserted a representation of the Decollation of St. J o h n Baptist, which looks like a creation of the middle or second half of the sixteenth century and commemorates him as the church's patron; but the modern tabernacle has forced the pushing up of the central section, so that the picture of the Decollation has cut off or at least obscured the lower half of the Crucifixion in the original altarpiece. T h e dedication of this 1 P. 648.

340

APPENDIX

altarpiece ( F i g . 1 4 0 ) must have been to the Virgin, and events from her life fill the lateral spaces in three tiers. T h e subjects at the left are the Appearance of the A n g e l to St. Joachim, the M e e t i n g at the G o l d e n G a t e , the Nativity of the Virgin, her Presentation, and, instead of her M a r r i a g e , a scene that I have never seen elsewhere, in which St. Joseph exhibits his rod to the disappointed suitors while M a r y stands piously waiting above for her nuptials surrounded by a group of w o m e n . A t the right the narrative comprises the Visitation, Birth of Christ, the Proclamation to the Shepherds as a separate theme, the Epiphany, and the F l i g h t into E g y p t . T h e t w o outermost compartments in the highest tier enshrine the actors in the Annunciation. T h e large predella is reserved for m o n u mental standing figures of saints, chiefly Apostles, of w h o m the M a s t e r seems to have made a specialty, reading from right to left B a r t h o l o m e w , John Baptist, Paul ( ? ) , Peter, John Evangelist, and M i c h a e l ; but the tabernacle partly hides Peter and Paul and probably has concealed or even destroyed the predella's middle section. T h e guardafolvos are decorated with further solemn effigies of saints and with escutcheons, but, in the general mistreatment that the retable has suffered, the l o w e r pieces of the uprights of the guardafolvos on each side have been taken and perverted into horizontal cross-pieces just above the topmost tier. T h e most inescapable proof of the authorship is the striking similarity of the Apostles to the Master's series in the N a v a r r o A l c a c e r Collection, Valencia, and to the Evangelists in the Hospital. T h e likeness extends to the countenances, the great shocks of hair, the patriarchal beards, and majestic, copious, f l o w i n g draperies, characteristics that the M a s t e r inherited, probably at second hand, through L u i s D a l m a u , from the V a n Eycks. T h e St. Peter is actually a repetition of this Apostle in the N a v a r r o A l c a c e r series; the t w o St. B a r t h o l o m e w s scarcely differ from each other, even in the nature of the emblem, the knife; and for St. John w e can refer to his representation as an Evangelist in the cycle of the Hospital. T h e Annunciation, as w e should expect, acknowledges a distant descent from the version in the V a n E y c k ' s G h e n t altarpiece. T h e only bit of architectural background revealed by his other w o r k s is at the left of the St. John of the Hospital, and it is like the city in w h i c h , at Velilla, the M e e t i n g at the G o l d e n G a t e takes place. A c c o r d i n g to the M a s t e r ' s practice, the heads are placed at a l o w spot in the haloes, w h i c h , not embossed, are analogous in figuration to those which the N a v a r r o A l c a c e r panels exhibit. F o r the first time in the Velilla retable w e encounter the M a s t e r as a painter of narrative, and he does not emerge from the examination with flying colors. T h e compositions are dull, the landscapes commonplace, and the participants uninteresting, despite the fact that w h e n , as in the predella, he isolates his types and makes them large and statuesque, he creates figures that are memorable; and yet in impugning his treatment of narrative, w e must not fail to notice that the panels are impaired by considerable repaint. I t is only occasionally that he relieves the h u m d r u m character of the compositions, for instance by the peculiar iconography of

FIG. 140. T H E M A S T E R OF T H E VALENCIAN HOSPITAL. R E T A B L E OF T H E VIRGIN. PARISH CHURCH, V E L I L L A DE JILOCA (Photo. Mas)

342

A P P E N D I X

the scene taking the place of the Marriage of the Virgin and the grudging admission of a bit of genre, a fountain in the Temple of her Presentation.

RODRIGO DE O S O N A T H E Y O U N G E R

T h e works that I have recently been able to add to the count of this Valencian exponent of the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, including a beautifully executed and felt A g o n y in the Garden in the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design at Providence, Rhode Island, 1 serve to elevate him to a more distinguished seat in the school than we were hitherto disposed to allow him; and in this happy group we can now place a panel in the possession of M r . Julius H. Weitzner of London, depicting St. Martin's nocturnal vision of Christ bringing the cloak that he had divided with the beggar. 2 T h e attribution needs no demonstration to anyone even casually familiar with the master's generously preserved productions, and it remains only to comment on certain iconographic novelties. I have no explanation for the floral wreath upon the recumbent Martin's head, and, although angels are mentioned as accompanying the Saviour in His appearance, it is Rodrigo's naturalistic propensity that causes him to represent a single one, without his mates, in the activity of holding a candle as if an assistant of the saint in a religious ceremony. It is this propensity, or, to put it another way, his often demonstrated fondness for genre, that accounts for the unusual introduction of two friends beside the bed, one musing and the other reading.

T H E P E R E A M A S T E R AND T H E ST. A N N E M A S T E R

T h e retable of Sts. Blaise, Abdon, and Sennen (Fig. 1 4 1 ) in the collections in the chateau of Castelnau de Bretenoux in the French department of L o t possesses for me personally a double significance. In the first place, it has driven home once more the lesson which my long experience has often taught me, namely that perseverance constitutes a large percentage of success, since, although I studied the retable as early as 1937, it is only after repeated attempts that I have finally been able to obtain a photograph to confirm the impressions that I noted down when I stood before the painting. Hitherto I had at my disposal merely an inadequate postcard, and the excellent photograph of which I here publish an illustration is due to one of the countless kind offices that I owe to Monsieur Marcel Durliat, formerly Professor at Perpignan but now at Toulouse. T h e second significance for me is that it tends to remove somewhat my queries of Saralegui's theory that the works which I have classified in the 1 2

B u l l e t i n o f the M u s e u m , D e c e m b e r , 1 9 5 8 , p. 1. T h e dimensions are 2 1 inches in h e i g h t b y 13 in w i d t h .

FIG. 141. THE PEREA MASTER. RETABLE. CHÂTEAU, CASTELNAU DE BRETENOUX, LOT

344

APPENDIX

Perea Master's early period are in reality productions of a predecessor to whom he has given the name of the Master of St. Anne. 1 T h e centre of the retable is occupied by the erect St. Blaise, surmounted by the scene of his carding through the means of woolcombs and then by the usual pinnacle of the Crucifixion. In the two lateral compartments stand Sts. Abdon and Sennen in the princely costumes that their traditional status justified, and above them are depicted episodes of their martyrdom, the exposure in an arena to wild beasts, who refused to attack them, and their decollation. T h e predella shows in the middle the dead Christ, behind whom a pair of angels extend a shroud, and at the sides, in three-fourths length, the Virgin, St. John, St. Sebastian, and a canonized bishop without identifying attributes. T h e iconography is in some respects extraordinary. There hangs upon the mantle of St. Abdon (at the left) a severed hand, an emblem that I have never before seen him carry but with reference doubtless to the statement in the Golden Legend that "they were all tohewen with swords." 2 T h e exposure to the recalcitrant beasts is generally said to have taken place prior to the martyrs' execution, but here they are plainly dead, with the bodies lying with the throats cut. Perhaps there was a confusion with the story that their corpses were dragged to the "idol of the sun" and left in this spot unburied for three days. T h e two lions and two bears specified in the Golden Legend have shrunk to a single specimen of each genus, whereas Huguet increases the lions to three. 3 T h e three main panels have gold backgrounds, in the Valencian fashion patterned only at the borders. T h e Valencian practice is followed also in unembossed haloes; but the Perea Master occasionally violates it by rendering them in raised stucco, and in the Castelnau retable parts of the actual costumes are thus accentuated. In my notebook of 1937 I see recorded my opinion of the connection with the Perea Master, which the photograph fully corroborates. T h e types of the young men, both in the effigies and narrative, are repeated again and again in the painter's works, and the angels, as well as the girlish St. Sebastian, accord with another kind of head recurrent in his output; but perhaps they are all closer to the aspects of these figures found in the productions credited to the St. Anne Master by Saralegui. Recurrent with the Perea Master is also the composition of the form of the dead Christ. A n argument for the St. Anne Master, if he is not an early stage in the Perea Master's development, is the nature of the landscapes, with a line of rocky hillocks marking the horizon, as in the Annunciation to St. Joachim and the Visitation in the altarpiece of the Colegiata at Játiva from which Saralegui's artist gets his sobriquet. A curious piece of genre is introduced in a woman peering through an arched opening at the scene in the arena. See my vol. X I , pp. 4 2 1 - 4 2 3 . A c c o r d i n g to one account they met their death through being hacked by gladiators, but another tradition makes it decollation. 3 V o l . V I I , p. 53. 1

2

APPENDIX

345

A small panel, w i t h the separated figures of Sts. M i c h a e l a n d P a u l , in the c h a t e a u at C a s t e l n a u de B r e t e n o u x perhaps derives f r o m the gurdafolvos of the retable that w e h a v e been discussing.

F R A N C I S C O SOLIBES

T h e r e has entered the R i v i è r e C o l l e c t i o n at B a r c e l o n a a C r u c i f i x i o n w h i c h obviously belongs to the A r a g o n e s e period of this f o l l o w e r of H u g u e t a n d w h i c h , since it is reported to c o m e f r o m M a l u e n d a , w a s in all probability one of the pieces in the storeroom of the c h u r c h of Sta. M a r i a in this t o w n that I w a s p r e v e n t e d f r o m s t u d y i n g closely at m y visit to the place ( F i g . 1 4 2 ) . 1 R e s e m b l i n g his other versions of the t h e m e , it even repeats the detail of m e d i a e v a l grotesquerie, the d e m o n transfixing the materialized soul of the u n r e d e e m e d thief, that occurs in the r e n d e r i n g once in the L a n c k o r o n s k i C o l l e c t i o n , V i e n n a , 2 but at m y last k n o w l e d g e in the h a n d s of a dealer, N e w Y o r k . T h e c r a f t of Solibes e m e r g e s , plain f o r a n y o n e to see, also in a representation of the M a d o n n a and C h i l d in the C o r o m i n a s C o l l e c t i o n , B a r c e lona, a f r a g m e n t that survives f r o m a c o m p a r t m e n t w h e r e they w e r e depicted as e n t h r o n e d ( F i g . 1 4 3 ) . T h e stylistic identity w i t h his retable of Sts. Justa and R u f i n a at M a l u e n d a 3 and the nature of the t h r o n e , l o o k i n g like embossed filigree, just as obviously classifies the panel a m o n g his n u m e r o u s w o r k s in A r a g o n . Superior to either of these pieces n o w at B a r c e l o n a and one of the v e r y finest a n d m o s t c a r e f u l l y executed of his a c h i e v e m e n t s is an E p i p h a n y 4 that has strayed as far f r o m its original hearth as the C o l l e c t i o n of M r s . A n n a S j o g r e n , Saltsjòbaden ( n e a r S t o c k h o l m ) , S w e d e n ( F i g . 1 4 4 ) . Types and landscape indisputably proclaim his authorship, a n d , despite the similarity, t h o u g h n o t identity, of the k n e e l i n g masculine d o n o r w i t h the portrait of J u a n P i q u e r in the retable at San L o r e n z o de M o r u n y s , the figuration of the haloes implies that the panel w a s painted by the master a f t e r he had t r a n s f e r r e d his residence f r o m C a t a l o n i a to A r a g o n . The d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n the conscientious labor bestowed upon such a piece as this a n d the c o m m o n r u n of his production, w h i c h is likely to e d g e upon m e r e routine, is b r o u g h t out by contrast w i t h the version of the t h e m e , similar in g e n e r a l outlines, in the predella of T o r r a l b a de Ribota. 5 T o h i m or to some related A r a g o n e s e painter such as the V i l l a r r o y a M a s t e r there should be attributed an Ecstasy of the M a g d a l e n e in the Baude Collection, know (Fig. 145). 1 2

3

Paris,

whose

possessions

I

have

recently

V o l . X , p. 380. V o l . V I I , fig. 1 3 1 .

Ibid., p. 356.

T h e dimensions are 134 centimeters in height by 75 in width. 5 V o l . V I I , fig. 126. 4

come

to

FIG. 142. FRANCISCO SOLIBES. CRUCIFIXION. RIVIÈRE COLLECTION, BARCELONA

FIG. 143. FRANCISCO SOLIBES. MADONNA AND CHILD. COROMINAS COLLECTION, BARCELONA {Photo.

Mas)

FIG. 144. FRANCISCO SOLIBES. EPIPHANY. COLLECTION OF MRS. ANNA SJOGREN, SALTSJOBADEN, SWEDEN

FIG. 145. FRANCISCO SOLIBES ( ? ) . ECSTASY OF T H E MAGDALENE. BAUDE COLLECTION, PARIS

350

A P P E N D I X T H E GIRARD MASTER

T h e surprisingly large number of preserved works by this Catalan painter of the second half of the fifteenth century can be augmented by a panel of St. George worsting the dragon acquired from the Hearst Collection by the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California ( F i g . 1 4 6 ) . 1 His style, though not of the first rank, is so individual and the panel so entirely characteristic that the authorship demands no exegesis. It must have been executed in his early period when he was still greatly under Valencian influence and before he adopted the Catalan embossed backgrounds. California can boast still another production of the Girard Master, the panel of the delivery of the keys to St. Peter which I published in volume V I I 2 as formerly in a private collection, Paris, but which now belongs to the County Museum, L o s Angeles. 3 A n d now that I have had to return to him, I must add a few more data, which have emerged about works of his that I have already discussed. Fernando Razquin Fabregat in his little book on Cervera 4 has disclosed that the remains of the retable of St. Michael in the Archivo-Museo Municipal of the town which I supposed 5 to come from the -parroquia derives instead from the church of the Encomienda de S. J u a n , and he illustrates two other panels in the Museum, depicting the Annunciation and Nativity, by our Master having the same source but hitherto unknown to me. T h e provenience of the figures of Sts. Abdon, Sennen, and Eloy in the Diocesan Museum of the cathedral, Tarragona, 6 is the church of S. Miguel, Montblanch.

T H E CANAPOST MASTER

I little anticipated when I isolated in volume V I I this painter's personality that he would eventually prove to be the commanding and versatile artist to whom new discoveries are elevating him, quite the peer, in northern Catalonia, of his rival in the more southerly section of the principality, Jaime Huguet. Our conception of both his capabilities and range was considerably expanded by the addition to his opus of the impressive Trinity in St. Jacques, Perpignan, which I recorded in volume X I I , and this higher and broader appreciation is further increased by the work that I now with confidence assign to him, a large panel of the Purification recently acquired by the Gallery of Bob Jones University at Greenville, South Carolina ( F i g . 1 4 7 ) . T h e dimensions, 5 3 inches in height by 5 1 in width, suggest that the retable to which it belonged was monumental in size. T h e style obviously places the panel in the ultimate phase of the mediaeval Catalan school, being actually dated, moreover, 1 2 3 4

T h e dimensions are j z } 4 inches in height by 3 7 Ms in width. Fig-. 2 1 8 . T h e dimensions are 45 inches in height by 3 j in width. Barcelona, 1 9 3 5 , p. 39.

5 Vol. VII, p. 579.

6

Ibid., p. 585.

FIG. 146. T H E GIRARD MASTER. ST. GEORGE SLAYING T H E DRAGON. PALACE OF T H E LEGION OF HONOR, SAN FRANCISCO

FIG. 147. T H E CANAPOST MASTER. PURIFICATION. BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

APPENDIX

353

in 1 4 9 0 by an inscription, and, when the internal evidence has compelled us to exclude the aged Huguet, the only other possible candidate even on the grounds of technical attainment, we gradually but securely arrive at the Canapost Master as the man who deserves the credit. T h e most determinative factor for the attribution is the girl who, among the three haloed female attendants on O u r L a d y , 1 stands just behind St. Joseph, since she possesses a kind of countenance that in physical features and wan, mystical spirituality is peculiar to the Canapost Master, most closely reiterated, in his recognized productions, by the St. Nicholas in the retable from which the painter takes his name (now in the Diocesan Museum, G e r o n a ) . T h e utterly delightful Child is almost exactly duplicated, in anatomy as well as face, by the I n f a n t held by the central Madonna in this retable, which again furnishes an analogue in the head and winsome expression of the Baby in the arms of the Virgin bestowing her milk upon St. Bernard. F o r the nature of O u r L a d y herself we shall have to turn to the Annunciation and Epiphany of the battered retable at San J u a n de las Abadesas, which I have ascribed to him in volume X I I 2 with some slight hesitation. T h e actors in the small narrative scenes of the altarpiece of Caldegas will not account for the strong masculine types of the St. Joseph and the other men in the Purification, as well as for their powerful characterization, but we have only to look at the Prophets and Saints in the panel of the Trinity in St. Jacques, Perpignan, to realize that the Canapost Master was quite equal to this other phase which the retable that supplies his pseudonym would scarcely have led us to suspect. T o g e t h e r with other subordinate details, the simple haloes with merely two embossed rings conform to his practices. A new facet of the painter's scope uncovered by the Purification is a competence in monumental narrative with which otherwise we lacked evidence for endowing him. However much under French influence, he falls into line with the tendencies of the contemporary Catalan school in surrounding the main episode by a troop of supernumeraries. Executing the panel at the very end of the fifteenth century, he is already conscious enough of the oncoming Renaissance to place a classical pediment over the Gothic church in front of which the ceremony occurs. I t is to be remembered that his successor in the region, the Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, precociously introduces architecture of the Renaissance into his productions, and there is another, enigmatical correspondence between them. T h r o u g h a door in the setting to the Purification a man's head looks out at us precisely as in the case of the second of the two heads in an opening in the background of the banquet of Herod by the Master of the shutters, and we can even perceive a facial resemblance of one personage to the other. W h a t is the explanation? Did the slightly younger 1 I have not been able to find a n y h a g i o g r a p h i c a l authority f o r thus selecting three of the V i r g i n ' s handmaids and d i g n i f y i n g them w i t h haloes. T h e painter does not seem to have included in the assemblage either the old prophetess A n n a or Simeon.

2

P- 674.

354

APPENDIX

M a s t e r take the idea f r o m the older, a n d w a s the f o r m e r , a l t h o u g h his style scarcely s h o w s it, a pupil of the latter? I s the c o u n t e n a n c e in the P u r i fication a portrait of the C a n a p o s t M a s t e r by himself, a n d did the M a s t e r of the shutters in the banquet of H e r o d wish to pay tribute to his teacher by i n t r o d u c i n g him into his o w n picture? O r , a f t e r all, in the scene of the banquet is it a d i f f e r e n t individual w h o e m e r g e s in the d o o r w a y , a Selbstbildnis by the artist? O f p a r a m o u n t interest in the panel n o w at B o b J o n e s U n i v e r s i t y is the possibility that some day it m a y yield the actual n a m e of the C a n a p o s t M a s t e r , for on the base of the f o r e m o s t pier at the l e f t the date is coupled w i t h a m o n o g r a m ( F i g . 1 4 8 ) . N e i t h e r I n o r a n y o n e to w h o m I h a v e submitted the problem can y e t c o n n e c t the m o n o g r a m w i t h any painter of n o r t h e r n C a t a l o n i a ( i n c l u d i n g R o u s s i l l o n ) k n o w n in the d o c u m e n t s , but there is a l w a y s the c h a n c e that someone m a y eventually discover the t r u t h . I t is easy to j u m p at the conclusion that the c h a r a c t e r s conceal the n a m e of H u g u e t , w h o w a s still in the l a n d of the living at the b e g i n n i n g of the nineties of the fifteenth c e n t u r y , but the style, t h o u g h partially indebted to h i m , c a n n o t be reconciled w i t h his execution. T h e date m u s t be 1 4 9 0 , with the C a f t e r the final X erased, o r , if f u r t h e r letters a f t e r the C h a v e been lost, a subsequent y e a r in the last decade of the Q u a t t r o c e n t o . T h e e n l a r g e m e n t of o u r comprehension of the C a n a p o s t M a s t e r permitted by the Purification enables us to w i d e n still f u r t h e r the estimate of his abilities by assigning to him the c o m p a r t m e n t s of the A n n u n c i a t i o n a n d C o r o n a t i o n in the i m p o r t a n t retable of N o t r e D a m e de la M a g r a n a , b e l o n g i n g to the early Renaissance, in the c a t h e d r a l of P e r p i g n a n a n d by thus i d e n t i f y i n g him w i t h the personality to w h o m , of the three c o n tributors to this enterprise, I h a v e g i v e n the title of C o l l a b o r a t o r B . 3 D u r l i a t 4 discerned the stylistic affinities w i t h the C a n a p o s t M a s t e r , a n d the w o r d s that I used in v o l u m e X I I 5 at the end of m y discussion of C o l laborator B s h o w s that I too w a s a w a r e of the g e n e r a l similarities, alt h o u g h I did n o t d e e m the evidence sufficient to m a k e the equation. T h e Purification n o w clearly supplies this evidence, since it repeats t w o of the types in the A n n u n c i a t i o n , the V i r g i n in the same c h a r a c t e r in the panel n o w at G r e e n v i l l e , a n d G a b r i e l in her a t t e n d a n t w h o faces us in f u l l f r o n t a l v i e w . T h e dates of the C a n a p o s t M a s t e r r e n d e r a little m o r e probable the suggestion w h i c h I m a d e in v o l u m e X I I 6 that he m i g h t h a v e initiated the retable of N o t r e D a m e de la M a g r a n a .

MARTIN BERNAT

A panel of an episcopal saint, unidentifiable t h r o u g h any special e m blems, in the C o l l e c t i o n of D o n A n t o n i o P e d r o l R i u s at M a d r i d ( F i g . 149)

seems v e r y clearly a p r o d u c t of one of B e r m e j o ' s A r a g o n e s e

3 Vol. XII, p. 407. 4 Arts anciens du Roussillon, Peinture, Perpignan, 1954, p. 138. 5 P. 409. 6 P. 407.

fol-

FIG. 148. T H E CANAPOST MASTER. MONOGRAM ON T H E PURIFICATION. BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA (Photo. John D. Schiff)

FIG. 149. MARTÍN BERNAT. EPISCOPAL SAINT. COLLECTION OF ANTONIO PEDROL RIUS, MADRID {Photo.

Castellanos)

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357

lowers, and a review of these leaves us with Bernat as probably the most logical choice. T h e nearest analogue in actual countenance is perhaps the St. Bernard in the predella of Bernat's documented retable at T a r a z o n a , 1 but still more determinative is the entire conformity of the Sts. Catherine and Barbara simulated as embroidered on the orphreys of the bishop's cope with the master's favorite feminine type, as indeed in the Virgin appearing to St. Bernard. I have not failed to observe the arresting resemblance of the bishop, even in mitre and pastoral staff, to the St. Valentine of the retable of Bermejo's school at Erla, which, therefore, as well as for other reasons, we shall hardly err in placing to Bernat's account, although I had not perceived, in volume V I I I , 2 just which of Bermejo's imitators should lay claim to the altarpiece. O n e of the other reasons is that the St. John Evangelist in the altarpiece reproduces precisely the sort of blank stare that Bernat uses for cult-effigies, as of the Virgin of Mercy in the T a r a z o n a retable. T h e Evangelist, moreover, is not too different from the painter's other representations of this Apostle in narrative scenes, as especially in the background of the Betrayal in the Predella of the Passion in the Milá Collection, Barcelona, and the luxuriant shocks of his hair are a commonplace with Bernat illustrated particularly by the Baptist in the T a r a z o n a predella. Also in the possession of Don Antonio Pedrol Rius and in that of his friend D o n José Antonio López Huerta at Madrid may be seen the remains of a retable in the manner of Bernat but probably not the same altarpiece from which proceeded the canonized bishop that we have just discussed. T h e provenience is stated to be the town of Fuentes de Jiloca, just southeast of Morata, in the southern part of the diocese of T a r a z o n a , an ecclesiastical department in which we know Bernat to have been patronized. T h e pieces in the Pedrol Collection represent the mounted St. Martin halving his coat with the beggar, St. Roch with his emblems of the angel and the dog, and in a single horizontal compartment the paired Sts. Barbara and Agatha. T o Señor López Huerta belongs only the Crucifixion, from which the whole left part of the composition has perished. St. Roch's angel carries a tablet on which is inscribed a Latin collect the source of which, despite some effort, I have failed to discover but which, so far as it extends, reads, " D e u s qui beato Rocho angelum tuum, tabulam 3 eidem auferentem, permisisti." At the left side of the fabric against which St. Roch stands there are depicted in much smaller scale two scenes from his life as if they were subordinate compartments in 1 J . M . Sanz Artibucilla ( P r i n c i p e de Viana, V , 1 9 4 4 , 1 5 1 ) , states (without quoting- the document) that the present frames of the retable, in the style of the early Renaissance, were not made until the forties of the sixteenth century by the French sculptor active in Aragón and Navarre, Pierres del Fuego. 2 P. 240. 3 1 interpret tabulam as signifying "plague-spot," a diminutive of tabes (the plague), although I can find no authority for such a meaning of tabula in dictionaries of classical or mediaeval Latin. The angel is manifestly, with a blessing hand, miraculously removing the sore.

358

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a retable, his birth, as in the altarpiece by the Lladó Master at Hospitalet de Llobregat, 4 chosen for representation by reason of the supernatural circumstances attending it, and the nobleman Gothard finding the afflicted saint in the wilds through the aid of the dog that was carrying him bread. 5 Instead of the hound usually depicted in the tale, the animal both beside the main effigy and in the narrative is evidently some species of pug, perhaps from a beloved pet in the artist's own dwelling. T h e textile behind the virgin martyrs is prettily set between two narrow windows looking out upon ascending landscapes at the base of each of which is enacted, I think, an episode from the story of the adjoining maiden. In a manner that recalls the Castilian Geria Master, 6 the Crucifixion is set in front of an elaborate delineation of the city of Jerusalem, between which and Golgotha there throng a multitude of subordinate actors, groups of mounted Roman soldiers, four of the holy women standing afar off, and the Apostles who had forsaken Our L o r d and fled, here divided into bands of two or three. Saralegui 7 has published the St. Martin in the series as a work of Bernat or an immediate follower, favoring the former alternative and mentioning the other pieces only incidentally, but to my eyes the craft of all the panels is inferior even to Bernat's undistinguished attainments. T h e provincial who was employed at Fuentes de Jiloca, however, partially atones for his defects in execution by the pleasant bits of invention that I have registered in the several compartments.

THE ARNOULT MASTER When in 1 9 3 3 I had the privilege of studying a Crucifixion in the Ermita de S. Antonio at L a Muela, southwest of Saragossa, but could not take a photograph, I never expected to obtain the evidence that would enable me to go beyond the general impression which I recorded of the rather fine picture in my notebook, particularly in consideration of the havoc wrought by the civil w a r ; but it survived the catastrophe, and the Mas Archive, as so often, has come to my aid with an excellent reproduction ( F i g . 1 5 0 ) . T h e result is that it can be ascribed with much confidence to the Arnoult Master, whose modifications of the modes of the more abundantly preserved Miguel Jiménez we have specified. 1 Less populous than the Bermejo-inspired version once in the Arnoult Collection and with the Master's salient characteristics less pronounced, it nevertheless exhibits enough of the Master's traits to establish the attribution beyond reasonable doubt. T h e Virgin, St. J o h n , and the 4

Vol. X I I , p. 303. Vol. I X , p. 548. 6 See my article in the Boletín del Seminario de Estudios Universidad de Valladolid, X I X ( 1 9 5 2 - 1 9 5 3 ) , 1 1 - 1 3 . 7 Archivo español de arte, X X I X ( 1 9 5 6 ) , 2 7 5 . 1 Vol. V I I I , p. 2 1 6 . 5

de Arte y

Arqueología,

FIG. 150. T H E ARNOULT M A S T E R . CRUCIFIXION. E R M I T A DE SAN ANTONIO, LA M U E L A {Photo. Mas)

36o

A P P E N D I X

Magdalene have the thinner countenances which distinguish the Master from Miguel Jiménez. T h e Virgin is virtually duplicated in the holy women at the left in the Arnoult rendering; the Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the cross in this rendering does not differ in any significant way from the corresponding actor at L a M u e l a ; and the St. Johns are very alike each other, except that the figure in the treatment that now concerns us lacks the Master's peculiar pursing of the visage. In the face of the Crucified himself, however, there is just an approximation to this expression by means of the lines given to the nose. Both versions display in the background the city of Jerusalem strung across a greater distance than the other Aragonese followers of Bermejo ordinarily show, and precisely similar trees are set in its midst, not in front or behind the town.

T H E ARMISÉN MASTER

T h e church at Aràndiga (northeast of Calatayud) contains a retable by this disciple of the Alfajarin Master, dedicated to St. Anthony Abbot (Fig. 1 5 1 ) . T h e principal compartment is occupied by a statue of the great anchorite, but the rest is painting. In the predella, Christ of the Mass of St. Gregory is flanked by four scenes from St. Anthony's life, the temptation by the demoniacal female, the torment by ordinary fiends, the raven feeding him and St. Paul the Hermit, and his interment of St. Paul with the aid of the lions. At the sides of the statue are two large compartments with standing effigies of the Magdalene and the popular Aragonese saint, Engracia, displaying her attribute of the nail, and there is also a central pinnacle of the Pietà. T h e retable is entirely characteristic of the rather mediocre attainments of the Armisén Master, especially in the similarity of St. Engracia's head to his other representation of this virgin martyr which I illustrated in volume V I I I 1 as in a private collection, Madrid, but which has now passed into the possession of Mrs. R. Cecil Garlick at Charlottesville, Virginia.

T H E OSLO M A S T E R

No less than three large panels by this artist whom I have isolated 1 in the Aragonese circle of Bermejo have recently come within my cognizance, but once more, because none of them is in its original location, we are oddly balked in our wish to discover in what part or parts of Aragon he was patronized. It is a ticklish business to distinguish between the rather numerous Aragonese followers of Bermejo who closely resemble one another, and this is particularly true in the case of pictures of enthroned prel1 1

F i g . 9 1 . The dimensions are 45/4 inches in height by 28^2 in width. Vols. X I , p. 439, and X I I , p. 695.

FIG. i j i . T H E ARMISiN MASTER. RETABLE OF ST. ANTHONY ABBOT. PARISH CHURCH, ARANDIGA {Photo.

Mas)

APPENDIX

362

ates as in the panel that first concerns us, since they all treated the subjects with much the same compositions and with the same idol-like conception of the ecclesiastical dignitary; but after a good deal of concentration on the problem I have grown convinced that the Oslo Master should be declared the successful candidate in the contest for the panel's authorship. O w n e d by M r . H . A . Franklin of L o s Angeles, California, and of such dimensions 2 that by reason not only of the subject but also of the size it must have constituted the central compartment of a retable, the panel depicts, as the black habit beneath the cope shows, a mitred Benedictine abbot, not a bishop, enthroned between two angels ( F i g . 1 5 2 ) . He might be St. Benedict himself, but more probably he is one of the other canonized abbots of the Order popular in Aragon such as Sto. Domingo de Silos, St. Romanus, or St. Victorianus. 3 T h e factor that most declares for the Oslo Master is the prelate's head. T h e countenance betrays the forlorn expression peculiar to the painter and incorporates his addiction to pronounced cheekbones. W e discover a close counterpart for the face in the St. J o h n at the lower left in the Pentecost of the Mengin Collection, Paris. T h e artist's preference for curly bangs may be observed even in those that protrude beneath the abbot's mitre. N o t all the Oslo Master's characteristics are illustrated by the panel at L o s Angeles, but the St. Christopher in the Musée Magnin, Dijon, in distinction from his f e w other works that we have hitherto recognized, demonstrates that he sometimes followed his Aragonese contemporaries by indulging in the embossing of borders of costumes which the prelate's cope and the angels' tunics display. Virtually identical haloes are also distributed through the Master's other achievements. T h e California painting broadens our knowledge of the artist by providing us with a monumental work by his hand, by exhibiting his adoption of one of the pompous thrones of marquetry much affected by his rivals in Aragon, by divulging his attractive types for angels, and by showing a marked degree of the Spanish mediaeval desire for formality of composition in the arrangement of their wings. I cannot explain the significance of the embossed foliate ornaments in the shape of escutcheons that add to the schematization above their wings. T h e second work also reveals the Oslo Master in a monumental phase, a Virgin of M e r c y in the possession of Monsieur R e n é F . Zierer, Paris, again a principal compartment or one of such compartments from a retable ( F i g . 1 5 3 ) . Strikingly similar to the version of 1 4 9 3 by Martin Bernat in the altarpiece of the cathedral of T a r a z o n a 4 but technically superior, it demonstrates the intimate kinship of the Aragonese whom Bermejo inspired. T h e Oslo Master's peculiarities speak forth from almost every part of the picture, but the most palpable proof of his craft is possibly furnished by the kneeling clerical donor at the front, whose 2 3 4

68 inches high by 37 See above, p. 1 5 0 . Vol. V I I I , fig. 1 5 .

wide.

FIG. 152. T H E OSLO MASTER. FRAGMENT OF A RETABLE. COLLECTION OF MR. H. A. FRANKLIN, LOS ANGELES

FIG. 153. T H E OSLO M A S T E R . VIRGIN OF M E R C Y . COLLECTION OF R E N É F. Z I E R E R , PARIS

APPENDIX

3 65

countenance is so nearly identical with the disconsolate face of the sainted abbot at L o s Angeles as to suggest, perhaps not too fantastically, that the latter might have been conceived as a portrait. T h e emperor, a usual member of the flock gathered under the mantle of representations of the Virgin of M e r c y , is also afflicted with the painter's emphasis upon sorrow. T h e donor, the emperor, and a number of the other recipients of M a r y ' s loving-kindness wear the bangs that the Master evidently liked on his masculine heads, as on the standing Caucasian M a g u s in the Epiphany at Oslo, and the visage and beard of the man next to the cardinal at the right are seen also on this M a g u s and on the Christ of the Resurrection in the Kienbusch Collection, N e w Y o r k . T h e pert and pointed noses of the soldiers in the Resurrection and of the Apostle with a cap in the Mengin Pentecost stud practically all the persons under O u r L a d y ' s robe, and again there appears everywhere the curious archaism of the thin, spidery hands. T h e Virgin herself introduces us to a new type in the Master's repertory. T h e Aragonese gold embossings are used in profusion, assuming on the lower border of her dress the words, " O r a pro nobis." B y a strange coincidence, at the same time as the Virgin of M e r c y came within my cognizance, I learned, through the courtesy of Professor Marcel Durliat of Toulouse, that there exists in another private collection at Paris, belonging to Monsieur G . Hamburger, a panel of the Madonna and Child enthroned between two serenading angels in which the evidence for an attribution to the Oslo Master is not quite so obvious but in the end determinative ( F i g . 1 5 4 ) . T h e most convincing item is the Madonna herself who reiterates the feminine type that we have found first, among his productions, in the Zierer Virgin of M e r c y , where also the pattern in the gold background is identical. T h e r e are ties, however, with his other productions, especially with the Dijon picture. T h e Child is only an infantile version of the Christopher in this picture, even in the phrenetic eyes, although not very tangibly similar to the young Saviour carried by the saint and lacking the curious shape that the Master ordinarily gives to the ends of the cross in the halo of the Second Person of the Trinity. T h e angel at the right bears some - resemblance to the one correspondingly placed in the panel at L o s Angeles, but otherwise the painter somewhat varies the types of his celestial spirits. Although the number of works that are now swelling the corpus of the Oslo Master show him capable of more mutations than we had first supposed, yet he impresses upon each of his creations at least one identifying trade-mark. So in the case of a panel once in the possession of D o n Raimundo R u i z at Madrid ( F i g . 1 5 5 ) , 5 the centre from some predella depicting Christ of the Passion whose shroud is upheld by two angels, where, among the painter's examples of strained emotional expression, the face of the Saviour absolutely repeats that of the St. Christopher in the Musee Magnin at Dijon. T h e reason for such expressions, as for the St. Christopher, is not always apparent, but in the R u i z panel, of course, it 5

T h e dimensions are 76 centimetres in height b y 65 in width.

FIG. 154. T H E OSLO MASTER. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED. COLLECTION OF G. HAMBURGER, PARIS

FIG. 155. THE OSLO MASTER. CHRIST OF THE PASSION. FORMERLY IN THE COLLECTION OF RAIMUNDO RUIZ, MADRID

368

A P P E N D I X

bespeaks agony. T h e Oslo Master reverts in the panel also to his unpleasant, wiry hands. In the midst of his slight variation in types of angels, the pair beside O u r Lord resemble those in his other achievements sufficiently. T h e interrelation of all this coterie of Aragonese artists deriving from Bermejo is demonstrated by the close similarity in general outlines between the Christ of the Ruiz panel and His effigy in the middle of the predella in the Huesca Museum by the pupil of Miguel Jiménez, the Huesca Master. 6 In March, 1948, Don Raimundo Ruiz wrote me that the panel came from Vivel del Rio Martin, in the southern part of the diocese of Saragossa west of Montalbán but now in the province of Teruel, information that ought to give us what we have long been seeking for, the actual provenience of one of the Oslo Master's works. W h e n , however, I stopped at the town in 1930, I did not find it or any other painting of the period either in the parish church or in an ermita. I could, of course, have overlooked it or the picture might have been removed prior to my visit, but, if we remember the notorious inaccuracy in statements of sources of Spanish works of art, Señor Ruiz might have received a false report. Moreover, despite my thorough investigation, I have discovered no published document recording a painter of the time active at Vivel del Rio Martin and thus possibly supplying the real name of the Oslo Master. A t any rate the evidence is not sound enough to justify us in changing the sobriquet of the Oslo Master to the Vivel Master.

T H E M A S T E R OF T H E A G R E D A

PREDELLA

"Everything comes to him who waits." Although for many years. I have never ceased to be surprised that no other work has appeared that could be ascribed to the rather superior painter who, formed under the influences both of Bermejo and Pedro D i a z , did the predella in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Peña at Agreda, 1 I have waited and refrained from attributing it to artists to whose modes it shows some partial but, for me, inconclusive resemblances, always harboring the hope that among the early Spanish paintings constantly emerging from their hiding-places there would be numbered a production securely demonstrated to be by the same hand. T h i s hope has now been realized in a retable that has entered the Saragossa Museum from the Ermita de Sta. Engracia at San Mateo de Gallego (just north of Saragossa), the church that has endowed the Museum also with panels that reveal the personality of Damián Forment as a painter. T h e centre of the retable (Fig. 1 5 6 ) is occupied by the paired figures of Sts. Augustine and Onuphrius, capped by the usual Crucifixion, and the lateral spaces are filled with the effigies, in larger proportions than in the main compartment, of St. Helen at the left and of 6 See above, p. 20. ' V o l . VIII, p. 234.

FIG. 156. T H E MASTER OF T H E AGREDA PREDELLA. R E T A B L E OF STS. AUGUSTINE AND ONUPHRIUS. PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA {Photo.

Mas)

APPENDIX

370

the Magdalene at the right. Except for the middle space, the predella is preserved, each section depicting, more according to the manner of Italian than Spanish altarpieces, a scene from the life of the saint above. Helen extorts from the J e w the knowledge of the place where the Cross is buried; Augustine is writing a book while his mother Monica prays for his conversion (in the language of the Golden Legend, she "enforced her much to bring him to the verity of the faith"); the dying Onuphrius is supported in the wilds by Paphnutius; and the Magdalene encounters Our Lord in the episode of the Noli me tangere. The pure design of the guardafolvos is punctuated on the uprights with the kneeling forms of the donors, a gentleman and his wife, and on the cross-pieces with a repeated escutcheon, perhaps their arms. The Master has in a way signed the retable by repeating several of the types in the Agreda predella. The most obvious instance is the Magdalene who embodies a very attractive type of womanhood distinctive of his fashions and illustrated in the Visitation and indeed all through the Agreda predella. Next, the delicate and sensitive features of St. Augustine, with the small nose and mystical eyes, reiterate those of the standing Caucasian Magus in the Epiphany. 2 The same model served for the St. Helen as for the St. Elizabeth of the Visitation, and there is even some similarity between the St. Onuphrius and the St. Joseph of the Purification. T h e Christ of the Crucifixion has precisely the physique and, in a less dire aspect, the countenance of the Saviour of the Pietà, a section of the predella that raises such interesting questions 3 in regard to the source of the composition. Beneath St. Helen and the Magdalene the tiling, with the suggestion of a free-drawn branch in the midst of each square, is practically identical with that of the Purification at Agreda, and the rugged, rocky landscapes in the retable agree with the meagre bits that in the predella which gives the painter his name the gold backgrounds allow us to see. In his canon we may readily place also a panel of St. Nicholas in the Collection in the Castillo de Santa Fiorentina at Canet de Mar, northeast of Barcelona (Fig. 1 5 7 ) . The countenance virtually repeats that of the St. Augustine in the retable from San Mateo de Gallego, especially in a studied and almost childlike, mystic innocence which the Master often cultivates. He frequently uses also the pattern on the embossed border of the lower part of the saint's cope. T h e isolation of his personality compels me to rectify some of the attributions that I have made in the past. Even without the renewed examination of the Agreda predella to which the retable from San Mateo de Gallego has brought me, I should have discerned that its author deserves the credit for the remains of the altarpiece of the Virgin in the church of Santiago at Luna 4 which I classified too readily as an achieve2

3

Vol. VIII, fig. 105.

Ibid., p. 237.

"Vol. VIII, p. 102.

FIG. 157. THE MASTER OF THE AGREDA PREDELLA. ST. NICHOLAS. CASTILLO DE SANTA FLORENTINA, CANET DE MAR {Photo. Mas)

APPENDIX

372

m e n t of M i g u e l J i m é n e z , to w h o m indeed he exhibits m a r k e d analogies. 5 T h e repetition of the characteristic, lovely feminine type a n d the likeness in the composition of the Visitation 6 o u g h t to h a v e disclosed to m e , w i t h out m o r e a d o , the A g r e d a h a n d . B y reason of the nicety of d r a w i n g a n d subtlety of expression I a m v e r y m u c h disposed also to t r a n s f e r f r o m J i m é n e z to our M a s t e r the St. A n t h o n y A b b o t at L u n a hitherto d o u b t f u l l y ascribed to the f o r m e r .

7

w h o m I have

T h e assignment of the St. A n t h o n y to a place in the M a s t e r ' s p r o d u c tion w o u l d virtually c a r r y w i t h it a strikingly a n a l o g o u s panel of the standing St. J o h n Baptist in the parish c h u r c h of Z u e r a on the road b e t w e e n Saragossa and H u e s c a ( F i g . 1 5 8 ) . E v e n the brilliant textile s e r v i n g as a b a c k g r o u n d , the p a v e m e n t , a n d the halo are practically identical; and a comparison w i t h the effigy of the Baptist in the section of a retable by M i g u e l J i m é n e z in the M u s e u m of C a t a l a n A r t , B a r c e l o n a , 8 brings out the d i f f e r e n c e s , especially the superior technique and sensitiveness of the M a s t e r of the A g r e d a predella. I t is m o r e difficult to choose b e t w e e n this M a s t e r and J i m é n e z in the case of a lone panel of St. M i c h a e l as w e i g h e r of souls set in a f r a m e of later date but originally doubtless the centre of an otherwise lost altarpiece, in the parish c h u r c h of R u e s t a in the n o r t h w e s t c o r n e r of the province of Saragossa ( F i g . 1 5 9 ) . A d m i t t e d l y the M a s t e r of the A g r e d a P r e d e l l a does n o t in a n y of his r e c o g n i z e d a c h i e v e m e n t s employ the pattern of flames in the interior of a halo w h i c h w e see here and w h i c h s o m e times e m e r g e s in the output of J i m é n e z ; but the t w o artists in their a c tivities m u s t h a v e o f t e n c o m e into c o n t a c t w i t h each other, a n d our M a s t e r could easily thus h a v e derived this detail. T h e R u e s t a f i g u r e furnishes n o tangible proof of execution by the pupil of J i m é n e z , the H u e s c a M a s t e r , a n d the consideration that a r g u e s rather persuasively for the M a s t e r of the A g r e d a P r e d e l l a is the a c c o r d a n c e of the a r c h a n g e l ' s head w i t h the ordinarily g e n t l e r type that he f a v o r s f o r y o u t h f u l persons, as in the V i r g i n in the A n n u n c i a t i o n a n d Purification in the series of panels that g i v e him a name. I t m u s t be admitted that the chief reason is n o t v e r y concrete for a l l o w i n g the credit to the M a s t e r of the A g r e d a P r e d e l l a for a panel w h i c h w o u l d readily be assumed to represent the e n t h r o n e d E t e r n a l F a t h e r in the Capilla del C r i s t o in the c h u r c h at U r r e a de J a l ó n , n o t f a r w e s t of Saragossa since this reason is that, evidently a p r o d u c t of B e r m e j o ' s A r a gonese school, it transcends the a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s of any other m e m b e r of the coterie. I n d e e d because of its high quality I once seriously entertained the idea of B e r m e j o ' s o w n authorship but w a s obliged e v e n t u a l l y , on several g r o u n d s , to r e j e c t it in f a v o r of his g i f t e d f o l l o w e r . s Gudiol Ricart to an unusually fine 6 Vol. VIII, fig. 7 Ibid., fig. 57. 8 Vol. VIII, fig.

A r r i v i n g thus by e x -

(Pintura gótica, p. 309) actually assigns the Agreda predella aspect of Jiménez. 38. 40.

FIG. 158. T H E M A S T E R OF T H E A G R E D A P R E D E L L A . ST. JOHN T H E BAPTIST. PARISH CHURCH, Z U E R A (Photo. Mas)

FIG. 159. T H E MASTER OF T H E AGREDA PREDELLA. ST. MICHAEL. PARISH CHURCH, RUESTA

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375

elusion at the latter, h o w e v e r , w e can adduce some less intangible testimony. T h e actual facial traits are approximated here and there, as in the Z u e r a Baptist, and such personages as the Baptist, the priest in the Purification of the A g r e d a predella and the kneeling M a g u s in the Epiphany of this predella demonstrate that, w h e n the subject required, the M a s t e r w a s capable of imparting to countenance a piercing and solemn g a z e , accentuated at U r r e a to an a m a z i n g l y successful attainment of the majesty implicit in the theme. Brilliant and splendid textiles are regular properties of Aragonese painting of the second half of the fifteenth c e n t u r y ; but the fabric of the cape in this instance is particularly magnificent, with a beautiful separate border, and the execution of the borders and indeed of the w h o l e vestment surpasses the talents of B e r m e j o ' s other disciples. T h e morse of the cope is practically identical, though turned around, with the specimen w o r n by the St. Nicholas at C a n e t de M a r . T h e h a n g i n g on the throne is framed on each side by a selvage exactly like the one behind the C a n e t St. Nicholas and the St. Augustine in the retable of the Saragossa M u s e u m . I n contrast to the more elaborate haloes of the Master's rivals, the nimbus of the G o d h e a d is set in a single embossed ring according to the artist's not infrequent practice, exemplified several times in the Saragossa altarpiece. O n e w o u l d naturally take the figure in the U r r e a panel to depict the First Person of the T r i n i t y , but the fact that the church is dedicated to the Saviour may mean that w e have instead an unusually august conception of Christ, even e n d o w e d with a tiara, perhaps the principal compartment remaining from a retable devoted to H i m . T h e cross in the halo w o u l d be an iconographic oddity for the F a t h e r , w h o , however, is perhaps so distinguished in the T r i n i t y by the Canapost M a s t e r in St. Jacques, Perpignan. 9 T h e countenance is y o u n g e r than w e should expect for the F a t h e r , w h o is conceived as an aged, white-bearded sire in His small representation in the upper part of the Annunciation in thí A g r e d a predella; but H e is no older than at U r r e a in the T r i n i t y b) M i g u e l J i m é n e z in the Lanckoroñski Collection, V i e n n a . 1 0

T h e Morata Master I have lately come to k n o w a predella in a private collection at Madric that embodies the traits 1 of this eccentric painter of the end of the fifteentl century at their most typical, his neurotic, E l Greco-like propensities, whicl he w a s forced to express in the still primitive vocabulary of the Aragonesi interpretations of the contemporary C a t a l a n style, and the original note that he w a s prone to introduce into the sacred themes. T h e centre of thi predella ( F i g . 1 6 0 ) is occupied by an intensely felt representation of th' M a n of Sorrows in half-length, not semi-nude as ordinarily in the Spanisl 9

Vol. XII, fig-. 295. Vol. VIII, fig. 28. Vol. VIII, p. 390.

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A P P E N D I X

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iconography of the theme at this period but impressively clothed in a lightcolored mantle; and compartments on either side unfold the story of the Passion in the episodes of the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal, Christ before Pilate, and the Flagellation. T h e compositions of the Betrayal and of Christ before Pilate are scarcely varied from his treatments of the themes, respectively, in his retable of St. T h o m a s at Daroca and in the set of panels in the Aras Collection at Neguri, but into the other two scenes he imports innovations. In the Agony in the Garden the customary subordinate actors in the subject, Sts. Peter, J o h n , and James, appear in the foreground, but somewhat unusually the Morata Master shows us the heads of two of the other Apostles emerging in a cleft between the rocks, one covering his face as he slumbers. In the kneeling figure of the Saviour himself he has succeeded in obtaining, through the bowed head and clasped hands, an amazingly memorable expression of spiritual agony despite the limitations in realistic rendering by which painting was still bound. W e have constantly had occasion to stress the general propensity of mediaeval Spanish art to formal, decorative composition, but the extreme of symmetry to which this characteristic is carried in the Flagellation betokens the Morata Master's highly marked personality and his sacrifice of naturalism, again like E l Greco, to the demands of pure design.

T H E BONNAT MASTER

I n the exacting operation of weighing the subtle distinctions between the styles of certain painters active in western Aragón during the second half of the fifteenth century, M a r t í n de Soria, Francisco Solibes, and their imitators, the balance tips in favor of the Bonnat Master when we are asked to ascribe a panel of St. Christopher in the collegiate church of Sta. Maria at Calatayud, a work that I ought to have included in my treatment of this artist in volume V I I I 1 (Fig. 1 6 1 ) . His own interpretation of the general manner of the region seems to be incorporated in the figures of the canonized giant and the Holy Child, particularly in the sjumatezza of Christopher's face and beard and in his pert-nosed similarity to St. Martin's beggar in one of the Master's works at Bayonne. If I am right in my attribution, the panel at Calatayud has the importance of conclusively localizing the painter in the district of Spain where all of his other recognized productions, though no longer in situ, indicated him to have been active.

T H E VILLARROYA MASTER

I t is a thorny undertaking to attempt to discriminate between the very similar styles of the two painters in western Aragón who were vitally influenced by Francisco Solibes, the Villarroya Master and the Bonnat 1

P . 428.

Fig. I 6 I . T H E S O N N A T MASTER ST. CHRISTOPHER. STA. MARÍA CALATAYUD {Photo. Mas.)

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379

Master, but I have finally come to the conclusion that the claims of the f o r m e r are somewhat more demanding in the case of an iconographically interesting Coronation formerly belonging to D o n E d u a r d o L u c a s M o r e n o at Paris. 1 I w a s first inclined to attribute it to the B o n n a t M a s t e r by reason of the arresting analogy of G o d the F a t h e r to his representations of whitebearded old m e n , and even still I am left in a n e w quandary, the question w h e t h e r after all he and the Villarroya M a s t e r m a y not be the same person, stressing at different times n o w one phase and n o w another of his art. I f the Villarroya M a s t e r is a separate individual, the affiliations of the L u c a s M o r e n o panel seem to lie in the direction of his more delicate qualities. I n particular the musical angels duplicate his winsome and ethereal conception of such celestial spirits, as in the t w o w h o assist St. M i c h a e l in the w e i g h i n g of souls in the panel at Princeton, N e w Jersey; and the victim of hydrophobia, the emblem of St. Quiteria, in the predella at Villarroya shows that he did masculine types entirely according with the Prophets ranged below the actual scene of the Coronation. Indeed the golden throne of filigree upon which the F a t h e r sits as H e places the c r o w n upon the V i r g i n ' s head is so nearly identical with the thrones of the saints in this predella that w e can legitimately w o n d e r w h e t h e r the Paris panel may not originally have been the principal compartment of the retable to which at Villarroya the predella belonged. T h e iconographical interest centers in the consideration that w e have here the unique example, for m e , of Prophets, in this instance eleven in number, as spectators of the Coronation. T h e picture is one of the outstanding illustrations of the tendency, in mediaeval Spanish art, to strictly formal design in composition, and the Prophets play their part in this proclivity, aligned about D a v i d w h o as a central axis is arbitrarily and boldly set with his back toward us.

J U A N DE L A A B A D Í A

Neither I 1 nor apparently Ricardo del A r c o 2 k n e w that the panels of Sts. L u c y , Barbara ( F i g . 1 6 2 ) , M a r t i n , and Helen which in the church of Puebla de C a s t r o survived the civil w a r are only parts of a w h o l e retable that also w a s saved and has reached the Saragossa M u s e u m together with the other paintings found in a def osito in the t o w n ; 3 but, although w e thus recover a large altarpiece absolutely in the style of J u a n de la A b a d í a , it raises a problem in regard to his collaborators that w e shall bel o w have to tackle. T h e principal compartment is devoted to an erect effigy of the Salvator M u n d i , and beside H i m in the lateral divisions there stand Sts. M a r k and Blaise. T h e Crucifixion takes its usual place above the chief panel, and the subjects over the t w o lateral figures are the A n n u n c i a 1 Exposition d'Art Ancien Esfagnol, H o t e l Jean Charpentier, Paris, 1 9 2 5 , N o . 123. T h e dimensions are 102 centimetres in height by 78 in width. 1 V o l . I X , p. 893. 2 Catálogo monumental of the province of Huesca, p. 332. 3 See above, p. 303.

FIG. 162. JUAN DE LA ABADÍA. STS. LUCY AND BARBARA. PROVINCIAL MUSEUM, SARAGOSSA {Photo.

Mas)

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381

tion and Epiphany. T h e retable extends still farther to the sides to include in t w o tiers the four saints with w h o m w e w e r e already familiar. T h e middle of the predella is reserved for Christ of the Mass of St. G r e g o r y in a mandorla, and the flanking themes are hallowed personages seated on benches, Sebastian, James M a j o r , Philip with the emblem of the L a t i n cross, 4 and Catherine. T h e main body of the structure takes the form of a semicircle so as to be fitted under an arch. W e r e it not for one little detail, w e should have no objection to assigning the retable to Juan de la A b a d í a and to J u a n at his best. T h e objection is an inscription in the epigraphy of the time on the pavement at the left under the Saviour in which can be read the Christian n a m e A n t ó n and w h a t looks like a surname C a n a l t , with the I and the t run together. W a s J u a n de la A b a d í a the head of a big business concern comprising men w h o could practically reproduce his m a n n e r , such as his son of the same name as his father; Francisco B a g e t ; 5 and A n t ó n C a n a l t ? O r w a s A n t ó n merely an assistant in the enterprise at Puebla de Castro w h o blatantly put his name on the principal compartment? O r is it the appellation of the donor? W e are informed of a painter Juan de Canales w h o w a s witness to a receipt of Juan de la A b a d í a the elder on N o v e m b e r 16, 1 4 9 3 , 6 and it is not impossible that the surname on the panel from Puebla de Castro should be read Canales instead of Canalt. W a s A n t ó n a relative of Juan de Canales, and w e r e they both intimately connected with Juan de la A b a d i a ' s shop? In any case it should be pointed out that the Salvator M u n d i is better executed than the virtually identical figure in the retable from N u e n o which w a s just possibly a w o r k of the son 7 and that the Christ of the predella is a duplicate of the correspondingly placed representation of O u r L o r d in the retable of St. Dominic at A l m u d é v a r 8 which is generally assigned to the father just before his death. T h e parity of the Sebastian in the predella with a panel of this saint in the Fundación L á z a r o G a l d e a n o , M a d r i d , enables me to rectify one of m y errors. I n m y eighth volume 9 I attributed to the A r m i s é n M a s t e r the L á z a r o panel and its companion-piece of St. Michael, which derive f r o m the conglomerate retable at Aniés, northwest of Huesca, 1 0 but, although I recognized certain other parts of the retable as by Juan de la A b a d í a , 1 1 I failed to descry that the Sts. Sebastian and M i c h a e l w e r e also due to him. 1 2 I n addition to the evidence f r o m the St. Sebastian, the similarity 4 O r is it St. A n d r e w w h o sometimes has the Latin cross instead of the one named after him? 5 V o l . X I I , pp. 704 ff. 6 A r c o , Ricardo del, Nuevas noticias de artistas altoaragoneses, Archivo español de arte, X X ( 1 9 4 7 ) , 222. 7 M y v o l . X I I , p. 706. 8 V o l . V I I I , p. 445. 9 Pp. 1 9 9 - 2 0 1 . 1 0 V o l . I X , p. 873. 11 Ibid., p. 895. 1 2 G u d i o l Ricard (Pintura gótica, p. 305) has justly seen that Juan de la A b a d í a is the painter.

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of the St. M i c h a e l to the panel of the a r c h a n g e l in the B a r c e l o n a M u seum 1 3 should h a v e s h o w n m e the truth. T h e equality of the actual c a r toon f o r the St. Sebastian, apart f r o m the style, to that of the representation in the retable of P u e b l a de C a s t r o w o u l d n o t prove a single a u t h o r ship, since it is used by a d i f f e r e n t artist of the period in the altarpiece of Fanlo.14 W i t h equanimity w e c a n place u n d e r the n a m e of J u a n de la A b a d í a the elder a panel of the standing M a d o n n a , w i t h the C h i l d , in a private collection at B a r c e l o n a , and at the same time w e m a y p e r m i t ourselves the surmise that it m i g h t h a v e been a section ( t h e central c o m p a r t m e n t ? ) of the retable that supplied the Bresset C o l l e c t i o n , Marseilles, w i t h the paintings of the A n n u n c i a t i o n a n d N a t i v i t y to w h i c h I g a v e in v o l u m e X I I 1 5 high r a n k in his output. T h e main reason for the surmise is that, m o r e closely than the e x a m p l e in the episcopal palace, J a c a , 1 6 the M a d o n n a exhibits an impressive similarity to her representations in the Bresset panels; but it is to be noted likewise that the embossed haloes, as in these panels, h a v e f o u r rings, a n o t u n c o m m o n n u m b e r , h o w e v e r , in J u a n de la A b a d i a ' s w o r k s . T h e C h i l d does recall s o m e w h a t the I n f a n t in the J a c a picture.

T H E FLORIDA M A S T E R

A r t i s t s sometimes repeat or nearly repeat themselves, a n d it is thus principally that w e are able to r e c o g n i z e as a w o r k of the A r a g o n e s e painter u n d e r V a l e n c i a n i n f l u e n c e , the F l o r i d a M a s t e r , a triptych in the M u s é e R i g a u d at P e r p i g n a n , perhaps a part of an otherwise lost retable ( F i g . 1 6 3 ) . H a d it n o t been f o r this as w e l l as for additional reasons, w e m i g h t h a v e t h o u g h t m o m e n t a r i l y of the rather strikingly similar M u n t a d a s M a s ter. 1 T h e e n t h r o n e d M a g d a l e n e occupies the centre of the triptych, a n d at the sides stand Sts. M i c h a e l a n d B e r n a r d i n e . 2 T h e case of virtual repetition exists b e t w e e n the M a g d a l e n e a n d the M a d o n n a of the H u e s a del C o m ú n retable, 3 even in the precious delineation and gesture of the right h a n d , in the f o r m e r instance d a l l y i n g w i t h the end of her w i m p l e a n d in the latter w i t h a rose. T h e St. M i c h a e l , w i t h his stiff c o r k s c r e w curls, can be c o m p a r e d with the a n g e l s w h o surround the M a d o n n a in the H u e s a del C o m ú n retable, w h e r e the figuration of the embossed haloes is precisely reiterated in the P e r p i g n a n panels. T h e St. B e r n a r d i n e of the 13

V o l . V I I I , fig. 209.

14

Ibid., p. 201.

P . 7 1 2 a n d fig. 3 1 7 . V o l . X I I , fig. 3 1 6 . 1 V o l . V I I , p. 5 9 5 . 2 T h e w o r d s on his b o o k are those g e n e r a l l y assigned to h i m in Spanish a r t , " P a t e r , m a n i f e s t a v i , e t c . , " and o f the three mitres of the r e j e c t e d bishoprics one is on the pavement. 13

15

3 A t m y last k n o w l e d g e the Baptist and the p r e d e l l a of this retable h a d found their w a y into the P r o v i n c i a l M u s e u m , V a l e n c i a , and I h a v e not learned w h e t h e r a n y of the other sections s u r v i v e d the c i v i l w a r .

FIG. 163. T H E FLORIDA MASTER. TRIPTYCH. PERPIGNAN

MUSÉE RIGAUD,

384

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predella of the retable at Torralbilla is more loosely executed, perhaps because turned over to an assistant. T h e gold backgrounds, as frequently with the Florida Master, are patterned in the Valencian w a y only at the borders. He serves also as a secure peg upon which to hang a picture whose author I have long failed to discern, a panel depicting the funeral of an episcopal saint at least once in the Herzog Collection, Budapest. Of the many proofs we may cite first a number of duplicates of types in the retable in the cathedral of T e r u e l which gives the Master his name and has blessedly survived the unparalleled destruction in the city wrought by the civil w a r : the old man at the left of the St. Peter; the second spectator from him to the right, of the St. J o h n Evangelist; and the officiating priest and especially the cleric next to him, of the St. Leonard. Further repetitions leap to the eye in the Master's other works. T h e participant in the ceremonies in the second row just behind the aged gentleman is very similar to St. J o h n Baptist in the retable of Huesa del Común, particularly in the quizzical expression which is highly peculiar to the artist and exemplified in the veronica of Christ in the T e r u e l altarpiece. T h e St. Anthony Abbot at Huesa del Común has the Master's characteristic intense stare of the eyes. T h e St. Sebastian in the Mateu Collection, Barcelona, supplies a counterpart for the acolyte at the extreme right in the scene of the obsequies. T h e youth at the extreme left must be what the St. B e r nardine in the Perpignan triptych looked like before he reached maturity. T h e conformity with the Master's procedure, however, by no means ends with the identities in countenances. T h e indication of the eyebrows by an unusually slight line is a regular practice of his, and in the same w a y as Valentin Mantolin in the near-lying Maestrazgo he is fond of the corkscrew curls worn by two of the mourners for the hallowed bishop. T h e prelate's halo consists of the multiplied embossed rings which were a favorite with the Florida Master, who also adopts the Aragonese custom of rendering other details in raised stucco, as in the Herzog panel the orphreys of the vestments and the bands on the mitre.

PEDRO B E R R U G U E T E

A number of fine achievements by this precursor of the Spanish Renaissance have come to light since his personality was first defined and the great body of his works recognized, and one of the most appealing of these new discoveries is a panel formerly in the Contini-Bonacossi Collection at Florence, representing St. Francis hearing the supernatural voice of admonition, just after his conversion, before the Crucifix in the church of S. Damiano at Assisi ( F i g . 1 6 4 ) . 1 I am told that I have been anticipated in the attribution by someone in Italy, I suspect by Professor Roberto Longhi, but in any case I heartily concur. T h e figure of the 1

T h e dimensions are 22 inches in height by 1 5 in width.

FIG. 164. PEDRO B E R R U G U E T E . OF SAN DAMIANO. F O R M E R L Y COLLECTION, {Photo. John

ST. FRANCIS IN T H E CHURCH IN T H E CONTINI-BONACOSSI FLORENCE D. Schiff)

386

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young St. Francis embodies one of the most touching expressions of the rapt devotion upon which Berruguete frequently and successfully concentrated his efforts, chiefly exemplified by the St. Peter M a r t y r , likewise before the Crucifix, in the Prado, Madrid, 2 but almost as memorably realized in the St. T h o m a s Aquinas receiving the girdle of chastity in the retable in the church of Sto. T o m á s at Avila. 3 T h e head of St. Francis is recurrent in the master's output, most closely approximated in the angel of St. M a t t h e w and in the St. John Evangelist himself in the Sto. T o m á s altarpiece. T h e studded ceiling of the church is a common phenomenon in Pedro's architectural settings. T h e close analogies to his works in Spain and especially to the retable of Sto. T o m á s may imply that the panel comes from a hitherto uncharted assemblage in the Iberian peninsula. O n e or t w o not very convincing arguments, however, could be put up for execution while the painter was still in Italy. T h e existence in an Italian collection cannot be pressed very far, but some importance attaches to the fact that the M a d o n n a in the altarpiece simulated as decorating the church of S. Damiano seems definitely suggested by a prototype of Signorelli, very possibly the example now in the Brera, Milan, from S. M a r i a del Mercato at Fabriano, a town well within reach of Berruguete during his activity at Urbino. Moreover, the Brera picture is admittedly an early work of Signorelli, perhaps done in time for the Spaniard to have seen it before his repatriation by 1483. A superficial glance might at first deceive one into thinking that Berruguete's model was some M a d o n n a by Raphael, but the monumental spread of the Virgin's legs and the broad sweeps of drapery are plainly inspired by Signorelli. Nevertheless Berruguete's productions in Spain abundantly show that he possessed a marvelous visual memory or had actually made drawings of Italian works of art and carried them back with him, so that the Contini panel could perfectly well derive from a retable in his native country. T h a t the scene of St. Francis before the Crucifix in S. Damiano was not seldom included in Spanish altarpieces is proved, for instance, by the retable of Sts. M a t t h e w and Francis now in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca 4 and by the Villaespesa retable in the cathedral of T u d e l a . 5

J U A N DE B O R G O Ñ A

B y reason of the disturbed condition of the world it is only recently that, through the courtesy of M r . A n d o r Pigler, the Director of the M u s e u m of Budapest, I have come to know an important article by him, published in the periodical of 1 9 5 2 , Muvésxettorténeti Ertesíto,1 in which with keen and learned perception he discusses a half-length feminine porVol. IX, fig. 9. Ibid.., fig. 5. 4 Vol. XII, p. 597, n. 16. 5 Vol. Ill, p. 148. "Pp. 41-432 3

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387

trait in the G a l l e r y of the P r i m a t e of H u n g a r y at E s z t e r g o m that a c l e a n i n g has s h o w n to bear on the upper e d g e of the l a d y ' s dress the signature, O p u s J o h a n e s B u r g u n d i . 2 I n all probability he is right in ascribing the picture to the J u a n de B o r g o n a w h o eventually established himself at T o l e d o , and, since he correctly discerns similarities to the M i l a n e s e p o r traits of the end of the fifteenth c e n t u r y , particularly those of A m b r o g i o da Predis, he w o u l d help to corroborate m y contention that J u a n spent a period of study in L o m b a r d y . 3 P i g l e r points out that the l a d y holds a rabbit just as the so-called Cecilia G a l l e r a n i clasps a weasel in the portrait in the C z a r t o r y s k i M u s e u m at C r a c o w o f t e n attributed to L e o n a r d o da V i n c i himself in his first M i l a n e s e period, w h i c h b e g a n in 1 4 8 2 . The E s z t e r g o m picture is dated by the H u n g a r i a n scholar in the early nineties of the fifteenth c e n t u r y w h i l e J u a n de B o r g o n a w a s still in I t a l y before w e can definitely place him at T o l e d o in 1 4 9 4 or 1 4 9 5 , but I can see no real g r o u n d s for n o t assigning it to a hypothetical second trip 4 to Italy or even to execution in Spain w h e r e m e m o r i e s of his Italian experiences w e r e a l w a y s vivid in his m i n d . I f done in I t a l y about 1 4 9 0 , the portrait w o u l d be r o u g h l y c o n t e m p o r a r y w i t h J u a n ' s panels of the N a t i v i t y and F l a g e l l a t i o n at A t r i in the U m b r o - F l o r e n t i n e style. 5 Because of the limitations of the appearance a n d desires of the sitter, an artist does not usually in a portrait reveal his characteristic m a n n e r so patently as in other subjects, but the g e n e r a l technical n a t u r e of the E s z e r g o m picture, the type to w h i c h the a u t h o r seems to h a v e s o m e w h a t adapted the l a d y , and the m o d e of the chiaroscuro, t o g e t h e r w i t h the signature, g o far t o w a r d j u s t i f y i n g P i g l e r in t h i n k i n g of J u a n de B o r g o n a . T h e r e is, nevertheless, one other candidate w h o has o n l y in these v e r y last years hove w i t h i n the h o r i z o n of historians of art and of w h o m , t h e r e f o r e , P i g l e r could n o t h a v e been c o g n i z a n t , the J o a n de B u r g u n y a active on the east coast of Spain at the b e g i n n i n g of the sixteenth c e n t u r y w h o m , f o l l o w i n g J u a n A i n a u d de L a s a r t e , I h a v e a d d u c e d c o g e n t reasons f o r i d e n t i f y i n g with the artist active in this region, the St. F e l i x M a s t e r . 6 I t c a n n o t be denied that the portrait reveals some analogies to the St. F e l i x M a s t e r ' s w o r k s , for instance the elaboration of dress, the w a y in w h i c h the l a d y turns her eyes to look directly out of the picture at us, and the r e n d e r i n g a n d disposition of the hands, as especially in the w o m a n w i t h b o w e d head listening to the s e r m o n of St. F e l i x in the G e r o n a retable, 7 but the f e e l i n g that I hope m y m a n y years of study of J u a n de B o r g o n a ' s productions h a v e g i v e n m e f o r his style disposes m e rather to vote in his f a v o r . I h a v e tried to c o n v i n c e m y s e l f that the St. F e l i x M a s t e r did the portrait, for the sake of definitely p r o v i n g that he is equivalent to J o a n de B u r g u n y a ; but he is n e v e r so Italianate as the picture's a u t h o r , nor h a v e w e a n y reason 2 3 4 5 6 7

The ae of Burgundiae has evidently faded. M y vol. IX, pp. 186 ff. Ibid., p. 190. See my article in the Gazette des beaux-arts, December, 1956, pp. 129-142. See my volume XII, chapter IV. Ibid., fig. 33.

388

A P P E N D I X

to think that he ever sojourned in L o m b a r d y . Until the signature emerged, indeed, north-Italian painters had been proposed to father it. Entirely characteristic of J u a n de B o r g o ñ a ' s early T o l e d a n period, in all its freshness, and executed in his most painstaking personal manner is a diptych in the Collection of D o n J o s é D o m í n g u e z at M a d r i d , representing busts of Christ of the Passion and the adoring Virgin and in a kind of predella half-lengths of the Baptist, the M a g d a l e n e , St. J o h n E v a n gelist, and St. Catherine ( F i g . 1 6 5 ) . A l l the types are repeated on his well-authenticated productions, the Baptist, for instance, in the predella of the retable of the Conception in the cathedral of T o l e d o , where even the positions of the legs of his emblem, the lamb, are exactly duplicated. I n delineating the busts of O u r L o r d and His mother the artist m a y have had in mind some Flemish model, perhaps actually the example either by H u g o van der G o e s or a copy after him n o w in the M u s e o Provincial, Toledo.8 T o be entirely candid, after extensive comparisons, I cannot finally decide whether to attribute to J u a n de B o r g o ñ a in one of his less inspired moments or to an intimate follower fragments of a retable in the A r e ñ a z a Collection, M a d r i d , representing the Lamentation over the D e a d Christ, Santiago M a t a m o r o s ( F i g . 1 6 6 ) , and, standing against parapets, a canonized bishop and St. B a r t h o l o m e w . I will not bore the reader with the comparisons but simply say that, if the fragments are by a follower, the most likely choice would be the author of the retable at Alcocer 9 and that the claims of Antonio de Comontes would be less defensible. Execution by J u a n de B o r g o ñ a himself would be argued by the details of the landscape, especially the nature of the cliffs, by the gripping representation of death in the head of Christ, and by the impressive expression of grief in the Virgin and St. J o h n .

J U A N C O R R E A DE V I V A R

T h e r e are some omissions in m y f o r m e r discussions of this painter. O n e is my failure to register a m o n g his productions a simplified rendering of the Crucifixion in the G a l l e r y at Dresden although the Catalogue of the G a l l e r y 1 recorded that his authorship had been suggested. Both the V i r gin and Christ repeat these figures as they occur in the Lamentation over the D e a d Christ f r o m San M a r t i n de Valdeiglesias ( n o w lent by the P r a d o to the Provincial M u s e u m , T o l e d o ) , and the St. J o h n is reconcilable with his execution, rather similar, for instance, to this Apostle as he appears in the Via Dolorosa at M e c o . Since the Crucifixion once be8 See the text and illustration in the catalogue of the Exfosition de l'art dans les collections esfagnoles, Bruges, July-August, 1958, pp. 2 8 - 2 9 . 9

1

flamand

Vol. I X , p. 2 3 4 .

Die staatliche Gemäldegalerie

zu Dresden, vollständiges

beschreibendes Ver-

zeichnis, Berlin, 1 9 2 9 , p. 3 3 4 , no. 679. T h e dimensions are 86 centimetres in height by j i y i in width.

FIG. 165. JUAN DE BORGOÑA. DIPTYCH OF CHRIST AND THE VIRGIN. COLLECTION OF JOSÉ DOMÍNGUEZ, MADRID {Photo. Mas)

Fig. I 66. JUAN DE BORGOÑA OR FOLLOWER. LAMENTATION AND SANTIAGO MATAMOROS. AREÑAZA COLLECTION, MADRID {Photo. Mas)

APPENDIX

391

l o n g e d to K i n g L o u i s Philippe, it m a y originally h a v e been a part of the same retable as C o r r e a ' s panel of t w o saints f r o m this C o l l e c t i o n that I r e c o r d e d in v o l u m e

X.2

B y a second lapse I n e g l e c t e d to note that the retable of A l m o n a c i d de Z o r i t a is assigned to C o r r e a n o t o n l y by style but by his c o n t r a c t of 1 5 5 4 3 a n d that L a y n a S e r r a n o 4 attributed to him, in addition to the d o c u m e n t e d main retable in the c h u r c h at M o n d é j a r , a n o t h e r altarpiece, likewise n o w destroyed, in the chapel of the E n c a r n a c i ó n in the edifice. 5 F i n a l l y , I h a v e recently observed in R a f a e l R a m í r e z de A r e l l a n o ' s book, Las parroquias de Toledo,6 that C o r r e a ' s survival at least until 1 5 6 1 , one proof of w h i c h I entered in v o l u m e I X , 7 is established also by the p a y m e n t to him in this y e a r for the p o l y c h r o m y of a sculpture altarpiece in the T o l e d a n c h u r c h of Santas Justa y R u f i n a . T h e P r a d o at M a d r i d n o w possesses, as one of C o r r e a ' s handsomest a c h i e v e m e n t s , the panel f r o m San M a r t i n de Valdeiglesias depicting St. B e r n a r d r e c e i v i n g the V i r g i n ' s milk, the s u b j e c t called the Lactatio, which I set d o w n in V o l u m e I X 8 as possibly lost. F r o m his retable at M o r a , 9 the E p i p h a n y , Purification, a n d C r u c i f i x i o n are n o w in the h a n d s of S p a n ish dealers, a n d t h e r e f o r e probably the w h o l e altarpiece. O n internal evidence w e m a y definitely ascribe to h i m : a F l a g e l l a t i o n b e l o n g i n g to the M u s e o A r q u e o l ó g i c o at V a l l a d o l i d , a composition in w h i c h H e r o d presides o v e r the s c o u r g i n g f r o m an upper w i n d o w in m u c h the same w a y as Z a c h a r i a s w a t c h e s the Visitation in the cycle at M e c o ; 10 an E n t o m b m e n t in the C o l l e c t i o n of S e ñ o r B e r n a l d o de Q u i r ó s , M a d r i d , probably to be classified in his early period w h e n he had o n l y a little m o d i fied his lessons f r o m J u a n de B o r g o ñ a ( F i g . 1 6 7 ) ; f r o m his later a n d m o r e manneristic days, companion-pieces of the V i a D o l o r o s a a n d C r u c i fixion ( F i g . 1 6 8 ) in the C o l l e c t i o n of the C o n d e s a de P o r t a l e g r e in the same c i t y ; a v e r y similar but m o r e populous C r u c i f i x i o n , i n c l u d i n g the thieves, in an unspecified private collection at M a d r i d , just conceivably the hitherto u n t r a c e d version f r o m San M a r t i n de Valdeiglesias; 1 1 a n d in the part of the A l b a C o l l e c t i o n consigned to the palace f o r m e r l y bel o n g i n g to the D u k e s of H i j a r at E p i l a w e s t of Saragossa, another late w o r k , a panel of St. M a r t i n a n d the B e g g a r ( F i g . 1 6 9 ) , w h i c h w e m i g h t 2

P-4'9.

See an article by F. Layna Serrano in Boletín de la Sociedad Esfañola de Excursiones, X L I I I ( 1 9 3 5 ) , 289. " Ibid. 5 For my former references to Correa's activity at M o n d é j a r and Almonacid, see vol. 6 I X , p. 322. T o l e d o , 1 9 2 1 , p. 1 1 7 . 3

P- 30J. P. 309, n. 18. 9 Ibid., p. 320. 1 0 Vol. X , p. 413. 1 1 T h e statement on the back of the photograph by the Mas Archive says, for a reason which I do not know, that the picture is dated in 1540, which would be prior to the time usually assumed for Correa's activity at Valdeiglesias. 7

8

FIG. 167. JUAN CORREA DE VIVAR. ENTOMBMENT. OF BERNALDO DE QUIROS, MADRID {Photo.

Mas)

COLLECTION

Fig. 168. JUAN CORREA D E VIVAR. CRUCIFIXION. COLLECTION OF T H E CONDESA D E P O R T A L E G R E , M A D R I D (Photo. Mas)

FIG. 169. J U A N CORREA D E VIVAR. ST. M A R T I N AND T H E BEGGAR. COLLECTION OF T H E D U K E A N D DUCHESS OF ALBA, E P I L A (Photo. Mas)

APPENDIX

395

guess to h a v e c o m e f r o m Valdeiglesias, if a n y such s u b j e c t w e r e r e c o r d e d as h a v i n g been there. I n M a n u e l C a r d e n a l I r a c h e t a ' s Spanish translation of the book by J . V . L . B r a n s , Isabel la Católica y el arte his f ano-flamenco,12 there are published as plates 37 and 3 8 , w i t h o u t identification of the painter, t w o unmistakable w o r k s of C o r r e a , a M e e t i n g at the G o l d e n G a t e a n d a Stigmatization of both only slightly latter panel even f o r m in the w i n g s

St. F r a n c i s , both in private possession at M a d r i d a n d varied f r o m his other t r e a t m e n t s of the t h e m e s . 1 3 T h e repeats his curious but habitual representation of the of the seraph as a child.

T h e quota of productions by C o r r e a that h a v e reached our o w n c o u n t r y is a u g m e n t e d by a triptych in the N o r t h C a r o l i n a M u s e u m of A r t at R a l e i g h , enshrining in the centre the C r u c i f i x i o n and in the w i n g s Sts. P e t e r a n d P a u l ( F i g . 1 7 0 ) . M a n i f e s t l y b e l o n g i n g to the same early stage in his career as the E n t o m b m e n t in the C o l l e c t i o n of Señor B e r n a l d o de Q u i r ó s a n d as the retable that will c o n c e r n us in the n e x t p a r a g r a p h , it illustrates v e r y c o n c r e t e l y the c h a n g e that o c c u r r e d in his d e v e l o p m e n t by contrast w i t h the later version in the D r e s d e n G a l l e r y a n d particularly with the r e n d e r i n g in the C o l l e c t i o n of the C o n d e s a de P o r t a l e g r e . I n deed in types a n d landscape it is so close to the a c h i e v e m e n t s of J u a n de B o r g o ñ a that one f o r the m o m e n t m i g h t be c a j o l e d into crediting it to him, iwere it n o t f o r thè stubbier c a n o n of the b o d y , the lesser spirituality, a n d the lesser sense of h u m a n pulchritude. T o w h a t must h a v e been C o r r e a ' s e n o r m o u s output (if there is any correlation b e t w e e n the n u m b e r of w o r k s p r o d u c e d by an artist a n d the n u m b e r p r e s e r v e d ) f u r t h e r testimony is a f f o r d e d by a w h o l e , capacious retable n o w in the chapel of the episcopal palace at M a d r i d , w h i c h , t h o u g h here since beforé 1 9 0 5 , has strangely passed unnoticed until A n g u l o 1 4 recently published it and -eventually 1 5 f o u n d it to h a v e c o m e f r o m the C o n v e n t o de los A n g e l e s , T o l e d o . Classified by the Spanish scholar n o m o r e definitely than as a w o r k of J u a n de B o r g o ñ a ' s shop, it e m e r g e s to m y rather c a r e f u l examination of the illustrations included by him in his article as assignable to C o r r e a w h e n he h a d n o t y e t progressed f a r bey o n d J u a n ' s style t o w a r d the m o d e s of the H i g h Renaissance. T h e c e n t r e of the structure consists of sculpture, a principal c o m p a r t m e n t , the subj e c t of w h i c h neither the illustration nor A n g u l o reveals a n d a pinnacle of the C r u c i f i x i o n , w h e r e a s the rest comprises paintings, t w e l v e scenes f r o m the life of C h r i s t , six m o n u m e n t a l effigies of saints in the outermost vertical divisions, a n d a predella of the Apostles, w h o s e g o l d setting has been s o m e w h a t m o d e r n i z e d . T h e a c c o u n t of the retable by A n g u l o r e lieves m e of a detailed description of the themes, a n d I w i l l n o t take the space f o r m o r e than a f e w of the comparisons that h a v e guided m e

to

Madrid, 1952. " F o r the Meeting at the Golden Gate, see vol. IX, figs. 98 and 109 and p. 327, and for the Stigmatization, vols. IX, fig. 97, and X , fig. 175. 14 Archivo es-pañol de arte, X X I X ( 1 9 5 6 ) , 45. « Ibid., X X X ( 1 9 5 7 ) , 3*913

FIG. 170. JUAN CORREA DE VIVAR. R E T A B L E OF T H E CRUCIFIXION. MUSEUM OF A R T , RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

APPENDIX

397

the attribution. T h e composition of the Annunciation is regularly used by Correa for the subject, and the Virgin embodies one of the feminine types that he favors, as in the M a r y in the Epiphany at Maqueda. 1 6 T h e Visitation is differentiated from J u a n de Borgona's procedures by Correa's occasional addiction to stockiness of form, illustrated by the St. Elizabeth who is little else than a replica of the same figure in the version of the theme in the Meco altarpiece. 17 A similar heaviness of physique is seen in the St. Martha, one of the separate effigies at the right side of the retable, who should be compared with the Prado St. Lucy from San M a r tin de Valdeiglesias (now deposited in the Museum of Vigo). T h e Epiphany is only another variant of Correa's general formula for this mystery: the posture of the Child reminds us particularly of the Infant in the rendering in the retable from Mora. 1 8 Angulo himself recognizes the close resemblance of the Agony in the Garden, in which St. John alone is awake among the three Apostles and gazing at the consoling angel, to the version now in the cathedral of Bordeaux, and he might have added another counterpart, the example from Correa's basic cycle at Guisando, at my last knowledge consigned by the Prado to the Provincial Museum, Toledo. T h e Pentecost from San M a r t i n de Valdeiglesias was also lent to this Museum by the Prado and is virtually a duplication of the rendering in the altarpiece of the bishop's palace, even in the postures and draperies of the two Apostles in the foreground. T h e palace harbors also two other panels, representing the Nativity and Epiphany, deriving from some unascertained retable other than that which we have just analyzed and assigned by Angulo merely to an immediate pupil of J u a n de Borgona. Although without the conviction that has compelled me to attribute to Correa the whole altarpiece belonging to the bishop, I suspect that he painted the two panels as well, perhaps at an even earlier moment in his development. After a good deal of study, I have been obliged to set aside the other candidate who suggests himself to one's mind, Antonio de Comontes, and I find Correa's claims more attractive. T h e human types, to be sure, are only slightly changed from J u a n de Borgona's precedents, but the alterations are in Correa's direction. T h e compositions have their source in J u a n de Borgona, but the modification in the Epiphany, for instance, results in an arrangement that Correa has made peculiarly his own, as especially in the versions from the convent of Sta. Ana, Toledo, 1 9 and in the Annmary Brown Memorial Collection, Providence. 20 In the same article Angulo ascribes to a follower of J u a n de Borgona, somewhat later than he in date, two panels in the Museum at the spa of Caramulo in northern Portugal of which photographs have been kindly sent me by Senhor D. Joao de Lacerda of the institution, but in this case 16

Vol. X , p. 4 1 0 .

17

Ibid., p. 413.

18

See above, p. 3 9 1 . Vol. IX, p. 3 1 8 .

19

20

Ibid.., fig-. 106.

398

A P P E N D I X

I believe decidedly that the follower was C o r r e a . Reported to come f r o m a t o w n in the province of A v i l a , they depict in simplified compositions O u r L a d y ' s investiture of St. Ildefonso with the chasuble and St. Sebastian's ordeal of the arrows. 2 1 Several of the types are reiterated from C o r r e a ' s other works, notably the V i r g i n , St. Ildefonso, and of the canonized maidens w h o accompanied M a r y in the episode, only the one w h o is here introduced and w h o holds the prelate's mitre. T h e landscapes also entirely agree with the master's norms.

T H E PORTILLO

MASTER

A curious phenomenon still calling for an adequate explanation is that, w h e n so m a n y names of painters are preserved to us in the Spanish records of the M i d d l e A g e s and Renaissance, an a m a z i n g l y large proportion of the extant w o r k s were executed by a comparatively f e w personalities. So it is with the Portillo M a s t e r , w h o accounts for a very considerable n u m ber of the paintings produced in the region of Valladolid and A v i l a during the early sixteenth century and to whose credit w e m a y n o w place several achievements beyond the ample array listed in m y volume I X . 1 T h e photographs recently made by the M a s A r c h i v e of the fragments of a retable at L a Seca for which m y defective visual m e m o r y prevented m e in volume I V 2 from arriving at a definite attribution clearly prove that all three panels w e r e done by a single artist and that the Portillo M a s t e r w a s this artist. Since he had no great inventive ambitions and w a s content to give his patrons good, honest w o r t h for their money, he did not hesitate virtually to repeat figures and compositions for which he had once gone through the creative e f f o r t ; and thus, of the t w o Evangelists at L a Seca, the St. M a t t h e w ( F i g . 1 7 1 ) is well-nigh a replica of the St. M a r k n o w in the Santillana Collection, M a d r i d , 3 and the Visitation is scarcely altered from the version in the retable of Fuentes de A n o . 4 A n adventitious interest attaches to another w o r k by the Portillo M a s t e r in the vicinity, a retable of the Virgin in a chapel of the church of S. A n tolin at Tordesillas, since, as an inscription on the base of the altarpiece states, the rights of patronage in the chapel and in the retable w e r e purchased by a Francisco de A c e b e d o and his w i f e Isabel L o p e z in 1 5 7 6 and since at about this time the older panels w e r e set in architectural and sculptured frames of the late Renaissance and a portrait of A c e b e d o imposed upon a section of the predella. 5 T h e principal compartment is occu2 1 Both illustrated b y A n g u l o . T h e dimensions are 1.260 metres in height b y .765 in width. 3 V o l . I X , p. 407. ' P p . 394 f i . 2 P. 414. 4 Ibid., p. 398. 5 In its present condition the second d i g i t looks more like an 8 or a 9, m a k i n g the date impossibly 1876 or 1 9 7 6 ( ! ) , but the o r i g i n a l f o r m of the digit must have been altered b y some intruder into the church, since the style of the portrait and of the frames p l a i n l y proclaims the second h a l f of the Cinquecento. M o r e o v e r , an in-

FIG. 171. THE PORTILLO MASTER. ST. MATTHEW. PARISH CHURCH, LA SECA {Photo. Mas)

400

APPENDIX

pied by a charming statue of the Madonna of the Immaculate Conception, and the paintings by the Portillo Master comprise the two flanking panels of the Nativity and Flight into Egypt, as well as a predella displaying at the centre the Entombment and in the two lateral compartments Sts. Michael and John Baptist at the left (Fig. 1 7 2 ) and the Anna selbdritt and Santiago at the right. T h e Baptist places his hand upon the shoulder of the kneeling Francisco de Acebedo, a portrait that was either added at the time of the remodelling or painted over the form of the original donor. In this retable we are again reminded of other treatments of the same themes by the Portillo Master, the Nativity being not unlike the rendering at Fuentes de A ñ o 6 and the Anna selbdritt partially analogous to the example at Sinlabajos. 7 He changed but slightly the composition of the Entombment at T o r d e sillas in a version in the Collection of D o n Bernardo Sáez Martín, M a drid, which contains also another unmistakable achievement of the Portillo Master, a Resurrection, probably deriving from the same original retable (Fig. 1 7 3 ) . 8 T h e provenience of both panels is reported to be the vicinity of Valladolid and so would further corroborate the great vogue of the painter in this part of Spain. A f t e r writing these paragraphs, I have the satisfaction of finding myself confirmed by the independent arrival of Angulo 9 at the same attributions, and he adds to my list two works with which I am not familiar, a retable of the Passion in the convent of Sta. Clara at Medina del Campo and a figure of St. John Baptist in the possession of a dealer at Madrid. A further addition to the Portillo Master's extant production that I myself should like to make is a predella which I studied in 1936 as then in the Marcadé Collection at Paris and which, with the rest of the Collection, is now housed in the treasury of the cathedral of Bordeaux 10 (Fig. 1 7 4 ) . Depicting in the centre the Mass of St. Gregory and at the sides the seated St. Benedict and St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal ( ? ) , " scription on the top of the frames bears the date 1587, perhaps the year, a f t e r the purchase in 1 5 7 6 , w h e n the changes in the retable were perpetrated. W e k n o w of a goldsmith of M e d i n a del C a m p o , Francisco de Acebedo, w h o made his w i l l in 1 5 7 1 ( E . García Chico, Documentos fara el estudio del arte en Castilla, Pintores, V a l l a dolid, I, 1946, 1 6 2 ) ; but both his residence and the date render unlikely an identity with the homonym at Tordesillas, w h o is described in the inscription as "the e l d e r , " probably meaning that he had a son of the same name. V o l . I X , fig. 1 3 3 . Ibid., fig. 134. 8 T h e dimensions of the Entombment are 90 centimetres in width by 67 in height; those of the Resurrection, 108 centimetres in height by 66 in width. 9 Archivo español de arte, XXV ( 1 9 5 2 ) , 1 7 2 . Evidently, however, he did not k n o w the Resurrection that accompanies the Entombment in the Sáez M a r t í n C o l lection. A p a r t f r o m me, also, M i g u e l A n g e l Garcia Guinea has composed an instructive notice of the panels at L a Seca in Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología, Universidad de V a l l a d o l i d , X X ( 1 9 5 5 ) , 223. 6 7

See my vol. X , p. 4 1 5 . W e should have expected St. Scholastica as a pendant to St. Benedict, but I cannot find that she ever has a j u g f o r an emblem. St. Elizabeth of P o r t u g a l r e g u l a r l y 10 11

FIG. 172. T H E PORTILLO M A S T E R . R E T A B L E OF T H E VIRGIN. SAN A N T O L Í N , TORDESILLAS {Photo. Mas)

Fie. 173. T H E PORTILLO MASTER. RESURRECTION. COLLECTION OF BERNARDO SÁEZ MARTÍN, MADRID

404

APPENDIX

it is one of a number of works in which, because the styles of the Portillo M a s t e r and the Valencian Cabanyes M a s t e r sometimes curiously approximate each other and because the f o r m e r affects haloes of Valencian figuration, 1 2 it is rather difficult to decide between their claims to authorship; but in the B o r d e a u x panels the evidence is preponderantly in favor of the Castilian painter. A l l the types and the shading of the countenances can be reconciled with his modes: the Benedict in particular should be compared with the effigy of the same saint at Sinlabajos, 1 3 and his posture with that of the St. J o h n Evangelist in the predella of the retable from which the M a s t e r takes his name. F o r the feminine saint the nearest analogue is perhaps the Virgin of the Purification at Fuentes de A ñ o . T h e foliage behind the characteristic brocaded fabrics against which the sacred personages are relieved and behind St. G r e g o r y ' s church is duplicated again and again in the artist's other works, and the haloes are identical with that of the St. A n t h o n y A b b o t 1 4 formerly in the T r a u m a n n Collection, M a d r i d , but n o w in the A g u i l a r Collection in the same city.

M A R C O S DE P I N I L L A ( T H E A R É V A L O M A S T E R )

A t not too l o n g intervals the sedulous research of Spanish scholars in the archives is discovering the real names of artists for w h o m I have been forced to create pseudonyms, and n o w quite unexpectedly D o n F e r n a n d o Sanz V e g a 1 has found at A v i l a in accounts of the years 1 5 0 8 — 1 5 0 9 that a M a r c o s de Pinilla w a s remunerated for painting the retable of the high altar of the church of S. M i g u e l at A r é v a l o , thus happily r e m o v i n g the A r é v a l o M a s t e r from the limbo of the anonymous. T h e document shows also that, as could be deduced also from his stylistic relationship to the St. M a r t i a l Master, he belonged to the school of A v i l a . I quite agree with S a n z V e g a that Vicente Sánchez Pinto 2 is w r o n g in holding that the lowest tier in the retable is not by the same painter as the rest of the m o n u ment or that it remains f r o m an earlier altarpiece at the spot.

T H E PAREDES M A S T E R

A m o n g the works that from the church of Sta. C l a r a at Palencia have found a home in the M u s e o Arqueológico, M a d r i d , there is to be n u m bered one of the better productions of Pedro Berruguete's follower, the carries it as an attribute in reference to the m i r a c l e of the c h a n g e of w a t e r to w i n e in f a v o r of her health, a f t e r she had refused to abandon her austerities d i s o b e y i n g m e d i c a l a d v i c e ; and, despite her r o y a l r a n k , she w e a r s the r e l i g i o u s habit as a m e m b e r of the T h i r d O r d e r of St. F r a n c i s : cf. P a u l G u é r i n , Les fetits Bollandistes, V I I I , 43. 1 2 V o l . I X , p. 398. 13 Ibid., fig. 1 3 4 . 14 Ibid., p. 4 0 7 . 1 Archivo esfañol de arte, X X X I ( 1 9 5 8 ) , 2 4 3 . 2 Estudios abulenses, I I ( 1 9 5 4 ) , 306.

APPENDIX

405

Paredes M a s t e r , displaying the V i r g i n , St. John Evangelist, and N i c o demus ( o r Joseph of A r i m a t h a e a ) all kneeling in sorrow, apparently either the left w i n g of a triptych ( F i g . 1 7 5 ) whose centre would have been occupied by a sculptured or painted figure of the dead Christ, or mayhap a f r a g m e n t of a continuous painting that depicted the L a m e n t a t i o n over O u r L o r d ' s body. T h e Master's rights to the picture are self-evident, if one does no more even than compare the head of St. J o h n with the virgin martyrs and angels of the predella once in the possession of a dealer at Barcelona. 1 T h e recent thorough photographing of the possessions of the M u s e o Arqueológico, M a d r i d , rescues f r o m anonymity a number of paintings that the lack of adequate reproductions have hitherto obliged me to leave unattributed. T o this group belong four compartments of a retable of the Passion and as many sections of its predella, which I briefly and partially registered in volume I V 2 and which eventually turn out also to belong to the Paredes Master's achievements. Perhaps like the w o r k registered in the last paragraph deriving from the church of Sta. C l a r a at Falencia, 3 the scenes from the Passion are the A g o n y in the G a r d e n , Christ before Pilate, the V i a Dolorosa ( F i g . 1 7 6 ) , and the Crucifixion, and the saints depicted at three-fourths length in the predella are A n n e ( w i t h the V i r gin and C h i l d ) , Catherine, 4 Nicholas (resurrecting the three boys from the v a t ) , and the penitent Jerome. I say that " e v e n t u a l l y " the panels are seen to come from the Paredes Master's brush because his range here is broader than usual and therefore not all the types are recognizable in his other preserved productions. Perhaps the nearest to a repetition of type emerges in the Simon of C y r e n e in the Via Dolorosa w h o vividly recalls the kneeling M a g u s in the Epiphany of the pair of panels in the episcopal palace, Palencia, 5 and w h o is one of the Paredes M a s t e r ' s most faithful instances of h o m a g e to the m a n n e r of Pedro Berruguete. I n the standing Caucasian M a g u s his tendency to excessive keenness of g a z e reaches almost the phrenetic, a trait that is carried still further in the soldiers at the left behind Christ in the V i a Dolorosa. T h e St. J o h n in the A g o n y in the G a r d e n has a head that the M a s t e r regularly uses for one class of his w o m e n . I n the Crucifixion the fellow looking to the l e f t just back of the cross incorporates a h a g g a r d type not u n c o m m o n in the Master's output, as in the St. M a r k in the retable in Sta. Eulalia at Paredes de N a v a , w h i c h he did in collaboration with the C a l z a d a M a s t e r , and the Crucified himself is distinguished by a countenance anticipating the exaggeration of agonized suffering cultivated by the Spanish seventeenth century and not unparalleled in such productions of his as the M a n of Sorrows in the predella belonging to a dealer at Barcelona. 6 V o l . X , fig. 188. P . 268, n. 2. 3 F r o m the l a n g u a g e of the Guía of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, 1 9 5 4 , p. 94, I cannot tell whether it is meant that such was the panels' provenience. 4 A s not infrequently, with no other emblem than the sword. 5 V o l . X , fig. 187. 6 Ibid., fig. 188. 1

2

Fie. 175. T H E PAREDES M A S T E R . VIRGIN, ST. JOHN, A N D NICODEMUS. MUSEO ARQUEOLÓGICO, M A D R I D {Photo. Museo Arqueológico')

FIG. 176. T H E PAREDES MASTER. PASSION SCENES. MUSEO ARQUEOLÓGICO, MADRID {Photo. Museo

Arqueológico)

APPENDIX

408

T H E CALZADA M A S T E R

T h e incalculable service that the Mas Archive has performed for historians of art by the extensive, excellent, and constant photographing of Spanish monuments of all sorts is strikingly demonstrated in the case of this charming Palencian painter of the early Renaissance. On the evidence of my visual memory and of my own miserable photograph I assigned to him no more than provisionally the retable at Torremormojón, 1 but the new Mas photograph (Fig. 177) conclusively reveals his craft. Amongst the multiple proofs, the feminine types definitely belong to him, as is illustrated especially by a comparison of the Virgin's companions in the Pietà of the predella with the St. Lucy of the altarpiece at Calzada de los Molinos. 2 T h e St. John Baptist of the predella has counterparts in the Christ of the Deposition and in two of the participants in the scene of the bull in the Monte Gargano story in the retable at Melgar de Arriba. T h e St. John Evangelist in the body of the Torremormojón retable accords with a highly individualized kind of youngish man frequent in the Master's production, exemplified particularly by the magistrate and executioner in the compartment of St. Margaret's martyrdom in the retable at Paredes de Nava and by the St. Hippolytus in the predella at Villasabariego de Ucieza. Small items are often determinative, and so it seems impossible that two different artists should have done peculiar, pointed, and sharply projecting beards so completely alike as those of Nicodemus standing at the right in the Pietà of the Torremormojón predella and the Isaiah in the corresponding section of the Calzada retable. As long ago as when I wrote volume IV, 3 I discussed the handsome retable of the Virgin in the church at Monzón de Campos, without arriving at an attribution, and I have never returned to it by reason of the inadequacy of the old photograph taken by Señor Alonso of Falencia, who, however, deserves great praise for his initiative in making reproductions of the early paintings of the city and its province. As a matter of fact the dimness of his photograph is by no means his fault, since the darkness of the edifice and the accumulation of dirt on the retable have prevented even the recent ones made by the Mas Archive from turning out much clearer. Nevertheless they are sufficient to show it probably an achievement of the Calzada Master and not, as I was already loath to believe in volume IV, of the Sirga Master, whose real name we now know to be Master Alejo. 4 M y guess would be that it falls in his beginnings when he was under Alejo's influence. In the predella the standing Magdalene and M a r y in the Anna selbd.ri.tt conform to the Calzada Master's regular feminine type, and in this matter the Virgin of the Annunciation should be compared especially with the St. Lucy in the altarpiece at Calzada de 1

2 3 4

Vol. I X , p. 494. and fig. 184.

Ibid., p. 488, and vol. X, p. 434.

P. 1 9 2 . Vol. X I I , p. 7 3 1 .

FIG. 177. T H E CALZADA MASTER. R E T A B L E OF T H E MADONNA AND CHILD. PARISH CHURCH, TORREMORMOJON {Photo.

Mas)

4io

APPENDIX

los Molinos. T h e St. Helen of the predella is like the St. M a r g a r e t encountering her suitor in the retable of Paredes de Nava, one of the figures that most tangibly reveals the dependence of the Calzada Master upon Master Alejo. T h e St. J o h n Evangelist of the Pietá provides another example of his highly personal conception of young men, which I have stressed in the last paragraph. T h e landscape of the Pietá resembles the backgrounds of nature in the altarpiece at Melgar de Arriba. T h e manner^ of Master Alejo and the Calzada Master, occasionally impinge upon each other to such a degree that I have hesitated for some time between their claims to a panel of the consecration of St. Peter as pope in the Viñas Collection at Barcelona (Fig. 1 7 8 ) ; but the ties of the latter with the modes of the picture have finally seemed to me more mandatory. T o begin with, the tightness and asperity of the old Hispano-Flemish style that still linger in Alejo have been slightly relaxed, and the details imply that this relaxation has taken place under the hand of the Calzada Master. T h e figure most decisive for an assignment to either of the two artists is the prelate at the right who extends the primatial cross to St. Peter. T h e face is of a parrot-like sort much affected by them both, but the examples in the Calzada Master are perhaps more akin, for instance the visage of St. Gregory in the scene of the appearance of St. Michael on the Castel Sant' Angelo in the Melgar retable or, in the retable at Calzada de los Molinos itself, the countenances of St. Catherine and of the Virgin in the Epiphany. T h e bishop placing the tiara upon the Apostle's head reproduces the intensity of expression that impresses us in Gabriel in the Master's renderings of the Annunciation. T h e donor, queerly introduced as holding ready a ritualistic feather dipped in one of the oils of consecration, recalls vividly in general nature of the head and modelling, though scarcely in actual features, the kneeling Magus in the Epiphany at Calzada de los Molinos, who may also be a portrait. T h e most conclusive proof, however, is afforded by the half-seen profile at the upper left, a type with protuberant, pointed beard, that I have emphasized above as peculiarly characteristic of the painter. I n the case of two compartments from a retable in the Collection of M r . Julius Mifsud, Gibraltar, representing St. Sebastian's ordeal of the arrows and the Mass of St. Gregory, 5 the style has progressed decidedly beyond Master Alejo, although reminiscences of his types and treatment of the hair still linger on; and, if we are right at all in classifying the panels in just this phase of the Palencian school, our choice must settle upon the Calzada Master, who carries the phase into the realm of the early Renaissance. Individual peculiarities of an artist are so little marked in the pictures that we cannot absolutely set aside the possibility of execution in some other school of the peninsula by a painter whom I have not isolated or here fail to recognize; but agreement with what we have learned of the methods of the Calzada Master, whose traits after all are not very distinctive, turn out to be virtually persuasive, and even a gradual 5

The dimensions are 28 inches in height by 18 in width.

FIG. 178. T H E CALZADA M A S T E R . CONSECRATION OF ST P E T E R . COLLECTION VIÑAS, BARCELONA {Photo. Mas)

412

APPENDIX

and laborious process of exclusion does not seem to leave us with any other k n o w n candidate. L u c k i l y for the sake of the attribution some of the types in his authenticated w o r k s are repeated or closely approximated. R e f l e c t ing his predilection for baldheads, one of St. Sebastian's executioners finds a counterpart in the kneeling M a g u s in the Epiphany of the retable at C a l z a d a de los Molinos, and even the St. G r e g o r y has much the same kind of countenance, for which analogues in the Master's other productions can easily be discovered. T h e actual profile of St. G r e g o r y is duplicated in Gabriel in the Annunciation of the retable. E x c e p t for the moustache, the upturned head of the other executioner recalls that of Daniel in the predella of the retable, particularly in the lock of hair falling upon the brow and in the lines of the rest of the tresses. T h e background of St. Sebastian's ordeal agrees with the Master's fondness for introducing bodies of w a t e r into his landscapes.

T H E M A S T E R OF S A N T A M A R Í A DEL M E R C A D O

T h e compulsory quiescence of a l o n g illness, to which I have referred on a f o r m e r page, 1 has afforded me the time to ponder intently and to solve another problem that has constantly perplexed me, i.e., the authorship of certain paintings which more and more seemed to me Leonese but which I could not ascribe securely to the heads of the school of L e ó n in the early Renaissance, J u a n R o d r í g u e z de Solís and the A s t o r g a M a s ter, or to any artist of the region. G r a d u a l l y there has emerged to m y consciousness and vision the surety that they are by the author of the six panels from the church of Sta. M a r i a del M e r c a d o n o w grouped on a lateral w a l l of the apse of the cathedral of L e ó n , 2 and thus to the Leonese circle w e can add a n e w personality quite as eminent as any of his rivals. Stylistically he is so close to the A s t o r g a M a s t e r that I have often sought to attribute to the latter the problematical w o r k s w h i c h , h o w e v e r , betray differences from his m a n n e r that will be brought into relief in our subsequent discussion. T h e first of the paintings assignable to the M a s t e r of Sta. M a r í a del M e r c a d o is a triptych in the Collection of D o n José M a r i a M u ñ o z , B a r celona, devoted to the military tribune St. Acacius and his soldier c o m panions the ten thousand martyrs of M o u n t A r a r a t , w h o m w e have seen 3 to have been probably popular in the hagiolatry of the region of L e ó n ( F i g . 1 7 9 ) . In the central compartment St. Acacius and t w o of his co-martyrs, perhaps Eliades and T h e o d o r u s , bound to a tree, undergo flagellation; in the middle g r o u n d they are depicted carrying their crosses like Christ in See a b o v e , p. 305. V o l . I X , p. 5 8 1 . I a m still no nearer than w h e n I w r o t e this v o l u m e to a n a n s w e r to the question w h e t h e r the a u t h o r of the six panels did also the D o r m i t i o n and Pentecost f r o m Sta. M a r í a del M e r c a d o a n d n o w b u i l t into the c o n g l o m e r a t e retable o v e r the h i g h a l t a r of the c a t h e d r a l of L e ó n . 3 Ibid., p. 5 4 2 , n. 37. F o r a detailed account of the m a r t y r s , see a b o v e , p. 202. 1

2

fe o te u >

h & 2 h

o o
2 « D

OS • s !73> *33> *35> 258, 259. Aras, Bernardo de, 49, 52, 53, 55, 157, 2 S9-

Arévalo Master: see Pinilla, Marcos de. Argüís Master, 322. Armisén Master, 8, 235, 237, 360—361, 381. Arnoult Master, 46, 47, 358—360. Astorga Master, 412, 414. A v i l a Master, 331, 333. Baget, Francisco, 381. Balaguer Master, 165, 231. Beck Master, 319. Bellini, Giovanni, 417. Belorado Master, 266. Bermejo, 3, 6, 18, 20, 39, 41, 105, 137, 196, 237, 243, 25i> 354) 357> 35«, 360, 362, 368, 372, 375. Bernat, Martín, 57, 136, 218, 259, 265, 354~35g,

362.

Berruguete, Pedro, 4, 384—386, 404, 405. Bonilla Master, 329-331. Bonnat Master, 377-378, 379. Borgoña, Juan de, 4, 5, 61, 64, 65, 66, 87, 386-390, 391, 395, 397. Borja Master, 7, 184-193. Bosch, 215. Bru, Anye, 432. Burgunya, Joan de: see St. Felix Master. Burnham Master, 319, 322. Bustamante, Juan de, 274. Cabanyes Master, 217, 404. Cáceres, Francisco de, 5. Calzada Master, 291, 405, 408—412. Canales, Juan de, 381. Canalt, Antón, 381. Canapost Master, 350—354. Canillo Master, 153. Caravaggio, Polidoro da, 424. Cardeñosa, Cristóbal, 66. Carpaccio, 417. Castellig Master, 305-310. Castellnovo Master, 257. Catalan Monogrammist, 224, 296, n. 51. Ciérvoles Master, 231. Comontes, Antonio de, 388, 397. Correa de Vivar, Juan, 388-398. Cosida Vallejo, Jerónimo, 122, 258. Coteta Master, 3, 9-20, 260. Crivelli, 333. Dalmáu, Luis, 300. Delgado, Pedro, 333. Delli, Dello, 315. Despallargues, Pedro, 160, 196. Díaz de Oviedo, Pedro, 6, 16, 36, 53, 54, 55, 56, 211, 218, 258-272, 368. Dürer, 7, 81, 115, 165, 166.

INDEX OF NAMES OF ARTISTS E g e a Master, 105-1

L a n g a Master, 3 1 7 .

u.

Lasaosa, Pedro, 100.

Eycks, v a n , the, 340.

Leyden, Lucas van, 76, 79. F a l c ó , Nicolás, 218.

L l a d ó Master, 358.

Fernández, A l e j o , 59.

Llanos, A n d r é s de, 425.

Fernández R o d r í g u e z , Juan, 7, 184, 186,

Llanos, Fernando de, 146, 238, 4 1 9 , 422,

203-215,

424.

253.

L o u v a i n , Juan de : see L o v a i n a , Juan de.

Ferrer, Jaime, II, 125. Ferrer, M a t e o , 125.

L o v a i n a , Juan de, 1 1 5 , 1 7 1 .

F l o r i d a Master,

Lugano,

382-384.

Forment, D a m i á n , 136)

137)

216—217,

140,

5,

7,

141,

77,

157,

123-124, 159)

i65)

Paolo

da:

see

San

Leocadio,

P a o l o da. L u n a Master, 205, n. 23.

228, 245, 368.

Francés, Nicolás, 329.

M a d r i d , Juan de, 5.

Francesca, Piero della, 288.

Maestro del Bambino Vispo, 3 1 5 .

F u e g o , Pierres del, 357, n. 1.

M a m b r i l l a s Master, 2 1 1 .

Fuenteovejuna Master, 220.

M a n t e g n a , 136, 1 3 7 , 138. M a n t o l i n , Valentín, 384. M a r t í n e z , A n t ó n , 259.

G a l l e g o , Fernando, 333. Gallipienzo Master, 6, 262,

M a r t í n e z , Jerónimo, 436.

284—297.

M a r t í n e z , Jusepe, 48—49.

Garas, Pedro, 284. García,

Martín,

8, 9 2 - / 0 5 ,

117,

122,

M a r t í n e z Master, 2 1 7 . M a r t o r e l l , Bernardo, 145, n. 29, 322.

238. García de Benabarre, Pedro, 160, 196.

M a r z a l de Sas, Andrés, 303-304, Masip, Vicente Juan, 142, 422, n. 2.

Geria Master, 358. G i l Master: see A l c a ñ i z , M i g u e l .

Master A l e j o , 408, 410.

Giner, Francisco, 8.

Master

Girard Master,

310,

317-

Gaseó, Juan, 16, 155.

Jerónimo : see

Martínez,

Jeró-

nimo.

350-357.

Goes, H u g o van der, 388.

Master of Losarcos, 272.

Gossart, Jan, 73, 280.

Master of San Pedro, T e r u e l , 3,

G o t o r Master, 4, 173 — 184, 238.

Master

of

Santa

María

del

37—44.

Mercado,

412-414.

Greco, E l , 375, 377.

Master of the A g r e d a Predella,

368-375.

Harris Master, 336.

Master of the K n i g h t of Montesa, 137.

Hearst, Master, 3, 44—46, 4 7 , 238, 239,

Master of the L a r g e Figures, 529—550. Master of the M i l i t a r y Orders, 555—559.

243. Huesca Master, i°5>

135)

3, 20—31,

19O)

2 3*>

36, 56,

58,

245) 368, 372.

H u g u e t , Jaime, 20, 5 7 , 345, 350, 353, 354-

Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 353) 354)

43°~436-

Master of the Prelate M u r , 5 1 , 52. Master of the Valencian Hospital, 339— 34*-

Javierre Master, 231.

Mianos Master, 7,

Jiménez, Juan, 36, 232, 245.

M i r a n d a , Pedro de, 259.

Jiménez, M i g u e l , 3, 20, 23, 25, 28, 36,

M o g e r , R a f a e l , 305, n. 1.

169—172.

46) 47) 57) 135) ! 3 6 , 149, 245, 247,

Monterde Master,

358, 360, 368, 372, 375.

Montesión Master, 307.

J o l y , Gabriel, 1 1 7 , 122.

319-324.

M o r a t a Master, 20, 52, 575—577. M o r e t o , Juan de, 33, 100, 1 0 1 , 184, 197,

Lana, Jaime, 259. L a n a j a Master, 247, 269, 3 1 7 , 319, 322.

204. Morlanes, G i l de, 1 1 7 , 122.

INDEX OF NAMES OF ARTISTS Muntadas Master, 382.

Rubiales, Francisco de, 4 2 4 . Rubiales, P e d r o de,

Nunyes, P e d r o , 1 5 3 . Obispo, G u i l l e n , 5 1 .

Oslo M a s t e r ,

286,

297.

331-335.

St. A n n e M a s t e r ,

342-345.

St. M a r t i a l M a s t e r , 3 2 9 , 3 3 1 , 3 3 3 , 4 0 4 . St. Quiteria M a s t e r , 3 2 2 . Salviati, Francesco, 4 2 4 , 4 2 5 .

31—36.

Salzillo f a m i l y , 4 2 8 .

¡60-368.

San L e o c a d i o , F e l i p e P a b l o de, 4 1 9 , 422—

Osma M a s t e r , 36.

424.

Osona, R o d r i g o de, the eider, 1 3 7 . Osona, R o d r i g o

St. A g n e s M a s t e r ,

St. Ildefonso M a s t e r , 36.

O r o r b i a M a s t e r , 6, 2 5 7 , 275-283, 287, 288, 294, 296,

424—430.

St. F é l i x M a s t e r , 3 8 7 , 4 3 0 , 4 3 2 .

O b r a y , Esteban de, 5 1 , 2 0 4 . Orley, van, 280.

Ortiz, G a s p a r , 3,

de, the y o u n g e r ,

283,

342-

San L e o c a d i o , P a o l o da,

Schretlen M a s t e r ,

150—157.

414—418.

Serrat, J a i m e , 4 6 , 4 7 .

Payá Master, 336.

S e v i l l a , J u a n de, 2 2 7 ,

Peñaranda, Miguel, 100. Perea M a s t e r ,

257.

San V i c t o r i á n M a s t e r ,

404—409.

418-422.

San M a r t í n , D i e g o de, 2 5 8 . San Quirse M a s t e r ,

Pacully Master, 1 3 . Paredes M a s t e r ,

441

324—326.

Signorelli, 3 8 6 .

342-345.

Sigüenza M a s t e r : see S e v i l l a , J u a n de.

Pereda, J u a n de, 4 , 2 2 7 - 2 3 0 . P é r e z de N o v i l l a s , M a r t í n , 5 1 .

Sijena M a s t e r , 4 , 5 , 7, 123—149,

Pertus, P e d r o , 2 5 8 .

Siloe, G i l de, 2 5 . S i r g a M a s t e r : see M a s t e r A l e j o .

P i c a r d o , L e ó n , 6, 2 5 8 , 2 7 2 , 2 7 5 , 2 8 3 . P i n i l l a , M a r c o s de,

Sittow, M i c h e l , 3 3 9 .

404.

Pissarro, 2 2 7 .

Solibes, Francisco, 345-349,

Plasencia, A n t ó n de, 5 , 2 0 4 .

Solórzano, Esteban, 4 , 5 , 7,

Plasencia, A n t o n i o de, 9 3 , 98—104,

184,

168,

115,

157—

Son M a s t e r , 2 3 1 .

186, 1 9 7 , 200, 238.

Soria, M a r t í n de, 3 7 7 .

Portillo Master,

Starnina, 3 1 5 .

398-404. 387.

T a p i a s , P e d r o de, 1 5 8 .

Puente, Francisco de l a , 1 9 7 . Puente, J u a n de l a , 197—203,

256, 257.

Puente, Prudencio de l a , 197—203,

256,

257-

T e n a M a s t e r , 193—197,

249, 2 5 1 ,

324.

Tintoretto, 72, 280. T o r r a l b a Master, 326. T r á n s i t o M a s t e r of T o l e d o , 2 2 4 .

Raimondi, Marcantonio,

208.

Vergós, Rafael, 57.

Raphael, 184, 386, 424. Requena, G a s p a r , 4 2 4 , 4 2 5 , 4 2 6 , 4 2 8 . Retascón M a s t e r , 3 1 5 - 3 1 9 . R i n c ó n , F e r n a n d o del, 5 , 1 4 2 ,

218—227.

R o b l e d o , B e l a n d i a de, 2 7 5 , n. 30. Hernando :

see

Fernández

Rodríguez, Juan. R o d r í g u e z de Solís, J u a n , 4 1 2 . Rossellino, A n t o n i o ,

Villalobos Master, 3 2 6 - 3 2 9 . Villarroya Master, 3 4 5 ,

377—379.

V i l l a viciosa, Alonso de, 5.

R e y , M i g u e l del, 3 2 4 .

Rodríguez,

377.

232, 233.

Pompién M a s t e r : see A r a s , B e r n a r d o de. Predis, A m b r o g i o da,

173.

141.

Vinci, L e o n a r d o da, 1 3 7 , 1 3 8 , 4 2 4 . Vivel Master, 368. Vizcaíno, J u a n , 284. Y á ñ e z de l a A l m e d i n a , F e r n a n d o , 2 1 7 , 238, 4 1 9 , 422, 424.

Roussillon, 3 5 4 .

Zoppo, Marco,

R o v i a l e : see Rubiales, P e d r o de.

Z u e r a , P e d r o de, 1 5 7 .

138.

146,

INDEX OF PLACES In cases where there are two or more numerical

references

indicate the pages on which the principal paintings

in question may be found.

denote the presence of

after an entry,

italics

discussions of the Asterisks

illustrations.

A l c a r a z , T r i n i d a d , Sts. Christopher and

Agreda,

James M a j o r , 238.

church of Nuestra Señora de la Peña, predella by Master of the A g r e d a

A l c o c e r , retable, 388.

Predella, 368, 370, 372, 375.

A l c u d i a , rector's house, D o r m i t i o n

church of Nuestra Señora de los M i l a -

St. T h o m a s ' reception of

gros,

girdle by M i g u e l A l c a ñ i z ,

retable of St. L a w r e n c e , 267. retable

of

St.

3'4*y

Vincent^ school

of

Pedro D í a z de Oviedo, 267—277*. church

of

San

Gregory

Juan,

panels

the Great

of

St.

and St.

Ca-

prasius, 199, n. 16. church of San M i g u e l , retable of high altar by Pedro de A p o n t e ,

76—80*,

81, 86, 87, 89, 9 1 , 235. Alagón,

parish

church,

church

of

church of the V i r g e n de la Peña, Crucifixion

Pedro de A p o n t e , Almonacid

by

Apostle

de Zorita,

A l m u d é v a r , retable

retable by

of

St. Dominic

Bautista,

(?), Prioress

by

A l q u é z a r , sacristy of the former C o l e g i ata, panel by Esteban

with

Juan

Juan de la A b a d í a the elder, 381.

A l b e l d a , parish church, of

84-86*.

A l l , retable by A l l Master, 301.

retable, 425, n. 3. panel

by Pedro de A p o n t e , 84, 86.

parish church, remains of retable by

Correa de V i v a r , 391.

Crucifixion

S. Juan

310-

3I5-

Alfajarin,

Coteta Master, 9—73*, 16, 20. Albacete,

and

Mary's

by

Solórzano

165-166.

Ambel,

Sijena Master, ' 3 3 — 1 3 5 , 146.

church of the V i r g e n del Rosario,

panels f r o m the retable f r o m the con-

retable of St. Christopher by

vent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 125, panels

126.

of

Noli

retable of St. John Baptist by T e n a

Entry

into Jerusalem

me tangere

from

the

Sijena

f r o m the retable

convent

Master,

and

at

Sijena

131—132*,

by

142—

i43> i 4 S , 146. the

Sijena

convent

Master,

at

Sijena

131-133,

by 134,

149. Sts. Jerome

and

Gregory

from

the

by Sijena Master, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6 , 149. Matthew

193—196*,

197,

249,

251. retable of the M a g d a l e n e by Juan Fernández R o d r í g u e z ,

211—212*,

parish church, retable of St. L u c y by Juan Fernández R o d r í g u e z , 208— 211*,

213,

215.

Amsterdam, Schretlen Collection,

retable f r o m the convent at Sijena Sts.

Master,

213.

panels of the Apostles f r o m the retable from

Ara-

gonese school, 249—251*.

and

Mark

from

the

retable f r o m the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 1 3 5 .

Circumcision by Schretlen Master, 4 1 7 . Visitation by Schretlen M a s t e r , 4 1 7 . Anento, parish church, retable by L a n a j a Master, 247. retable of St. John the Baptist by A r a gonese school, 2 4 7 - 2 4 9 * ,

251.

INDEX OF PLACES

443

retable of St. Roch by Aragonese school, 251—253*. Arándiga, parish church, retable of St. Anthony Abbot by Armisén Master, 360-361*. Arens de Lledó, Ermita de S. Hipólito, panels by Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 430-432*, 434. Arévalo, church of S. Miguel, retable of high altar by Marcos de Pinilla, 4°4Arezzo, fresco of the invention of the Cross by Piero della Francesca, 288. Argaviesco, church, retable, formerly in, Gaspar Ortiz, 34. Argelés-sur-Mer, retable by Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 4 3 0 , 434Artajona, retable by follower of Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 8 1 , 262, 265. Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, school of Pedro Díaz de Oviedo, 211. Atri, panels of the Nativity and Flagellation by J u a n de Borgoña, 387. Avila, cathedral, St. Peter enthroned between two clerics by Bonilla Master, 331church of Sto. Tomás, retable by Pedro Berruguete, 386. Nuestra Señora de Gracia, retable by Bonilla Master, 3 3 1 .

the Virgin and Purification by Gotor Master, 176-178*, 184. Corominas Collection, Madonna and Child by Francisco Solibes, 3 4 5 , 347*dealer, predella, formerly owned by, by Paredes Master, 405. Despujol Collection, Adoration by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420. Martínez Collection, panel of St. Peter Enthroned, formerly in, by Coteta Master ( ? ) , 16-18*. Mateu Collection, St. Sebastian by Florida Master, 3 84. M i l a Collection, Predella of the Passion by Martin Bernat, 357.

Balaguer, Catalan retable, 165. Barbastro, cathedral, panel of enthroned St. Victorianus by A l f a j a r í n Master, 1 5 0 . retable by San Victorian Master, 150-

retable by Miguel Jiménez, 372. retable of St. Anne by Burnham Master, 322. Perdigo Collection, St. Michael by B o r j a Master ( ? ) 188, 1 9 0 - 1 9 3 * . private collection, panel of the standing Madonna, with Child, by J u a n de la Abadía the elder, 382. Rivière Collection, Crucifixion by Francisco Solibes, 345—346*. Viñas Collection, consecration of St. Peter by Calzada Master, 410—411*. panel by Damián Forment, 2 1 7 . Bayonne, panel by Bonnat Master, 3 7 7 .

'57*• Barcelona, Balanzó Collection, panel of the M a donna and Child by Pedro de Aponte, 7 2 - 7 4 * . Bofill Collection, St. Lawrence Bestowing Ecclesiastical Treasures upon the Poor by Huesca Master, 20-23*, 56, 58. Carreras y Candi Collection, Birth of

Muñoz Collection, Consecration of a Bishop by San Victorian Master, 155-157*. triptych of St. Acacius by Master of Santa M a r i a del Mercado, 412—414*. Muntadas Collection, St. Augustine by Beck Master, 3 1 9 . Museum, panel of Archangel by J u a n de la Abadía the elder, 382. Museum of Catalan Art, compartment of the young Christ among the Doctors from the retable from the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 1 2 6 , 135, 136, 138-140, 141, 142, 1 4 3 . Madonna and Child, 336—339. retable by Mianos Master, 171— 172*.

INDEX OF PLACES

444

B e n n i n g t o n , V e r m o n t , M u s e u m , p a n e l of St.

Sebastian

by

Rincón ( ? ) ,

Fernando

m i á n F o r m e n t , 216—217,

parish

Burgos,

Mundi

by

tomb

Calatayud,

Emerich

Collection

P.

Korecz,

Pedro

of

(lost), Díaz

of

Mr.

Pope

Cor-

nelius b y C o t e t a M a s t e r ( ? ) ,

13-

the

Infante

Alonso,

collegiate

Maria,

panel

church of

St.

by Bonnat Master, Caldegas,

retable

by

of

Sta.

Christopher 377-378*.

Canapost

Master,

353-

16*.

C a l z a d a de los M o l i n a s , r e t a b l e b y

Bolea, C o l e g i a t a , r e t a b l e b y P e d r o de A p o n t e , 5°.

57. 5^-66*,

76,

80, 8 1 ,

98, 1 0 8 ,

68, 7 1 ,

84, 86,

87,

72,

73,

89,

91,

113.

parish c h u r c h , r e t a b l e , s c h o o l of P e d r o de A p o n t e ,

jo,

n.

ii,

in—113,

1 6 9 , n. 2 2 . B o n i l l a de l a S i e r r a , r e t a b l e o f St. M a r t i n by Bonilla Master, 529—352*. cathedral,

Agony

in

the

Garden

by

J u a n C o r r e a de V i v a r , 3 9 7 . treasury

of

cathedral,

retable

M a s s of

St. G r e g o r y b y

Master,

400-404*.

of

the

Portilla

C o l e g i a t a de Sta. M a r í a , the

Dead

Lamentation

Christ

M a s t e r , 184-186*,

by

Borj a

188, 190, 193.

r e t a b l e o f St. Sebastian

(non-extant),

f o r m e r l y i n , b y A n t ó n de P l a s e n cia

and

Hernando

Rodriguez,

204. Museum

of

Fine

Arts, F l i g h t into E g y p t b y Schretlen M a s t e r , Musée

417.

d'Art

Castellig

44-46*,

Ancien,

Master,

triptych

505—307*,

Collection,

funeral of an episcopal Florida Master,

panel

of

saint

by

384.

Buenos Aires, Koenisberg

by

e n t h r o n e d M a d o n n a b y J u a n de P e r e d a 104—105.

MuseMaster,

240.

de S a n t a F l o r e n t i n a , , p a n e l of St. N i c h o l a s b y M a s t e r o f the A g r e d a P r e d e l l a , 370-371*,

375.

C a r a m u l o , M u s e u m , panels by Juan C o r Castejón

de

of A r a g o n , Castejón

397-398.

Monegros,

(destroyed), de

Castellig,

Castle,

formerly

by

retable

retable

in,

school

255-237*.

Valdejasa,

retable

parish

Antonio by

church,

de

Aniano,

Castellig

Master,

122.

307. Cervera, Archivo-Museo panels

of

Municipal,

Annunciation

and

Nativity

by Girard Master, 550. r e t a b l e o f St. M i c h a e l b y G i r a r d

Mas-

ter, 5 5 0 . Virginia,

Mrs.

R.

Cecil

G a r l i c k , St. E n g r a c i a b y A r m i s é n M a s t e r , 360. de

Monte-Aragón,

Nativity,

4 2 5 , n. 3. C h i p r a n a , E r m i t a de N u e s t r a S e ñ o r a Consolación,

panels

from

de a

retable b y Retascón Master, 3/5— 317*. school,

Aragonese

231—232.

C i n t r u é n i g o , parish church, Madonna

227-250.

panels b y M a r t í n G a r c i a ,

Fogg

Hearst

Ciérvoles, E r m i t a , retable by

Collection,

Cal-

412.

C a n e t de M a r , C o l l e c t i o n in the C a s t i l l o

la

Herzog

(?),

retable

Chinchilla

310. Budapest,

Massachusetts,

um,

Charlottesville,

Boston, Massachusetts,

by

Cambridge,

1 1 6 , 117—120*,

B o r j a, over

zada Master, 408, 4 1 0 ,

rea de V i v a r ,

Bordeaux,

Brussels,

de

260.

Master,

317Virginia,

by

s c u l p t u r e b y G i l de S i l o e , 2 5 .

283.

Retascon

at,

171.

retable

O v i e d o , 258-259,

245.

retable by O r o r b i a M a s t e r ,

(Louvain),

church,

formerly

Da-

Bilbao, Museum,

Bluemont,

de L o v a i n a Buñuel,

222—225*.

Berbedel, parish church, retable b y

Salvator

B u j a r a l o z , retable of h i g h altar by Juan

del

by

Fernando

Almedina or pupil,

Yáñez

de

217-218,

la

INDEX OF PLACES by f o l l o w e r of M i g u e l

predella by Pedro de Aponte, 5 1 , 59,

245-247*,

7 3 - 7 6 * , 79, 80, 81, 89. C i z u r M a y o r , retable by Juan de Busta-

Jiménez,

249, 2 5 1 .

Estella, church of S. M i g u e l , Mass of St. G r e g o r y , school of Navarre, 297—

mante, 274. Cracow,

445

Czartoryski

Museum,

298*.

portrait

of Cecilia Gallerani attributed to

Esztergom,

Leonardo da Vinci, 387.

Primate

of

H u n g a r y , portrait of a lady

Gallery

of

the

by

Juan de B o r g o ñ a ( ? ) ,

386-388.

D a n v i l l e , Virginia, Collection of Father T h o m a s W e l c h , panel of the V i r -

Fanlo, retable, 382.

gin of the P i l l a r by D a m i á n F o r -

Florence,

ment, 2 1 6 , 2 1 7 .

Contini-Bonacossi Collection, St. F r a n -

Daroca,

cis in the church of San D a m i a n o ,

Colegiata, portraits of Ferdinand, Isa-

f o r m e r l y in, by Pedro Berruguete,

bella, and their children on the doors of the Miraculous Corporals

384-386*. Geri Collection, panel by Felipe Pablo

by M o r a t a Master, 52.

de San Leocadio, 422.

Museum of the Colegiata, fragment

of

S.

a predella, school

Miniato,

of

from

B e r m e j o , 20.

tondo

tomb

Portugal

panel of the birth of St. John Baptist by Fernando del Rincón

(?),

of

of

the

the

Madonna

Cardinal

by A n t o n i o

of

Rossellino,

141. Fuentes

de

218—220, 222, 224, 227.

Año,

retable

by

Portillo

Master, 398, 400, 404.

retable of St. T h o m a s by M o r a t a Master, 377. Dijon,

Musée

Gallipienzo, E r m i t a del Salvador, retable

Magnin,

St.

Christopher

by Oslo Master, 362, 365. Dresden,

Gallery,

Crucifixion

Juan

Correa de V i v a r , 388—391,

395.

E g e a de los Caballeros, church of

Sta.

María, Egea

Master,

105-106*,

by

Gallipienzo 296.

Gandía, retable by P a o l o da San Leocadio, 4 1 8 , 420. Geneva, Ganzoni G a l l e r y , P a x by

Mas-

ter of the M i l i t a r y Orders,

336-

m e j o , 18—20*,

105.

of the V i r g i n and Ascension f r o m the retable f r o m the convent at by

Sijena

Nativity by Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 430, 432, 434.

E n g l a n d , private collection, Presentation

Sijena

Gerona, Diocesan Museum,

H I .

retable of St. T h e c l a , f o l l o w e r of Ber-

Epila,

Saviour

337*-

by

io8,

the

Master, 284-289292,

by

retable

of

Master,

126,

retable by Canapost Master, 353. retable by St. F e l i x Master, 387. Gibraltar, Collection of M r . Julius M i f sud, St. Sebastian and the Mass of

1 2 9 * , 130*, 1 3 1 , 136, 1 3 7 , 138,

St. G r e g o r y by C a l z a d a

140, 1 4 1 , 142, 143-144,

410—412.

Collection

of

the

145.

Duke

and

Master,

Gloucester, Massachusetts, H a m m o n d M u -

Duchess of A l b a , St. M a r t i n and

seum, fragment of a retable

the B e g g a r

Villalobos Master,

Vivar,

b y Juan

Correa

de

391-395*.

Gotor, parish church, Lamentation

E r l a , retable, school of B e r m e j o , 357. Escatrón,

Ermita

Fabian,

de Sta. A g u e d a , Sebastian,

Sts.

Magdalene,

Quiteria ( d e s t r o y e d ) , f o r m e r l y in,

by

326—329*. over

the D e a d Christ by G o t o r Master, '73~'74*>

'76> 180, 184.

Granen, parish church, panel of the F l a g e l l a t i o n by colleague

INDEX OF PLACES

446

of Cristobal de Cardenosa 66.

(?),

retable by Pedro de Aponte, j o , 5 8 , 5 9 , 66-72*,

73,

76, 79,

57, 86,

87> 89, 9 1 , 98, 1 0 1 , 1 1 3 , 1 3 5 . two panels of a predella by Cristobal de Cardenosa, 66. Greenville, South Carolina, B o b Jones University, Annunciation by J u a n de Sevilla, 324— 327*.

Nativity and F l i g h t into E g y p t by Master of the L a r g e Figures, 3*9-33°*-

Purification b y Canapost Master, 350— 355*. retable of St. Bartholomew Enthroned by Master of San Pedro, T e r u e l , H i j a r , parish church, facsimile of retable by Gaspar

Ortiz

(0,33. retable (destroyed), f o r m e r l y in, by Gaspar Ortiz ( ? ) , 3 3 . Hospitalet de L l o b r e g a t , parish church, retable by L l a d o Master, 3 5 8 . Huarte, retable by J u a n de Bustamante, 274. Huesca, Archives of the church of S. Lorenzo, fragment of St. Lawrence's burial by Huesca Master, 2 1 , 2 3 , 56, 58. panels by Pedro D i a z de Oviedo, 53~55-

church of the M a g d a l e n e , retable of St. Catherine ( n o w dispersed), f o r m e r l y in, by J u a n de la A b a d i a , 1 5 8 , n. 1 0 . retable of the high altar, f o r m e r l y in, by Esteban Solorzano, 1 5 8 , 1 6 0 . Diocesan Museum, fragment by Esteban Solorzano, 1 5 7 . Magdalene by Esteban Solorzano, 1 6 1 * , 162, 165. panels f r o m a retable f r o m the church of Lascasas by f o l l o w e r of Esteban Solorzano, 166—167*, 232. Hospital of Nuestra Senora de Esperanza, retable by Pedro de Aponte, 49, 50.

Museum, f o u r panels f r o m the life of the V i r g i n f r o m the retable f r o m the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 126, 1 2 7 * , 138, 140, 1 4 1 , 142, •43, ' 4 + - I 4 5 . '45~'46Herod's banquet by Huesca Master, 28. panel of meeting of Sts. J o a c h i m and Anne f r o m the retable f r o m the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 1 2 5 . panel of the Baptist's birth by Huesca Master, 28. panels f r o m a retable of the Baptist f o r m e r l y in the convent at Sijena by Huesca Master, 23—25*, 26, 3 1 . panels of St. Bartholomew by J u a n de la A b a d í a , 5 3 , n. 24. panels of St. Vincent and the Crucifixion by Bernardo de A r a s , 49— 5 o» 5 2 - 5 3 predella, No. 1 7 , by Huesca Master, predella by Huesca Master, 368. St. John of the Baptism by Huesca Master, 26. Sijena panels of St. J o h n Baptist by Huesca Master, 2 5 , 3 1 . Visitation by Huesca Master,

23—24*.

Ibdes, parish church, M a d o n n a of M i l k by Gotor Master, 176*1 180, 184.

the 173-

Jaca, cathedral, retable of St. Anne, school of A r a g ó n , 233-234*. episcopal palace, M a d o n n a and Child by J u a n de la A b a d í a the elder, 382. J a é n , church of L a M a g d a l e n a , fragments of a retable by Pedro de Aponte, 87—go*. panel by Pedro de Aponte, 2 3 5 . Játiva,

Colegiata, retable by Master ( ? ) , 344.

St.

Anne

L a M u e l a , E r m i t a de S. Antonio, Crucifixion by A r n o u l t Master, 358— 360*.

L a Seca, parish church, fragments of a

INDEX OF PLACES retable by Portillo Master, 3 9 8 199*Larrangoz, parish church, retable by Gallipienzo Master, 297. Lascellas, Ermita de S. M i g u e l , retable (destroyed), formerly in, ascribed to Esteban Solórzano, 158. León, cathedral, Dormition and Pentecost from Sta. M a r í a del Mercado, 4 1 2 , n. 2. panels from the church of Sta. M a r í a del Mercado by Master of Santa M a r i a del Mercado, 4 1 2 , 4 1 4 . Lérida, Diocesan Museum, retable, school of A r a g ó n , 255—235. Sts. Ambrose and Augustine from the retable from the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 135, 136, 149. Sts. Peter and Paul from retable from the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 1 3 1 , 133, 134, 136, 138, 149. Museum, St. John Baptist by M a r t i n Bernat, 136. Provincial Museum, series from cuñáu by A l l Master, 301.

Es-

Liesa, Ermita de la Virgen del Monte, retable (destroyed), formerly, by Esteban Solórzano, 158, 159—160, 162, 165. Lisbon, Museum, Madonna and Child by Master of the Military Orders, 336-338*. Loarre, parish church, retable, school of Esteban Solórzano, 166, 168*. Logroño, Collection of Don Agapito del V a l l e , predella by Master of L o sarcos, 2 7 2 - 2 7 5 * . London, Harris Collection, Birth of Christ from the retable from the convent at Sijena by Sijena Master, 126, 144. retable by M i g u e l Alcañiz, 312. National Gallery, Dormition by Gil Master, 315. Pietà by Marco Zoppo, 138. sacra conversazione by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420. M r . Julius H. Weitzner, St. Martin's

447

Vision of Christ by Rodrigo de Osona the younger, 342. Longares, church, retable of St. Anne, school of A r a g o n , 255—256*. Los Angeles, California, Collection of M r . H. A . Franklin, fragment of retable by Oslo Master, 5 6 7 - 5 6 5 * , 365. County Museum, panel of the delivery of the keys to St. Peter by Girard Master, 350. Losarcos, retable by Master of Losarcos, 272. Lot, Chateau of Castlenau de Bretenoux, retable

by

Perea

Master,

342-

345*Luna, St. Anthony Abbot by Master of the A g r e d a Predella, 372. church of Santiago, Crucifixion by Huesca Master, 31. retable by Huesca Master, 2 5 - 2 7 * . retable of the Virgin by Master of the A g r e d a Predella, 370—372. Lyons, Museum, story of St. Michael by Gil Master, 312. Madrid, A g u i l a r Collection, St. Anthony Abbot by Portillo Master, 404. Arenaza Collection, fragments of a retable by Juan de Borgona or follower, 388, 390*. Collection of the Condesa de Portalegre, Via Dolorosa and Crucifixion by Juan Correa de V i v a r , 39', 393*> 395Collection of D o n Antonio Pedrol Rius, funeral of St. Evaristus by Monterde Master, 324-325*. panel of an episcopal saint by M a r tin Bernat, 354-357*. panel of St. Anthony Abbot by Gotor Master, 176, 179*. panels of St. Anthony Abbot and T h o m a s the Apostle by T e n a Master, 296—197. St. Martin, St. Roch, Sts. Barbara and A g a t h a from the retable from Fuentes de Jiloca by follower of Martin Bernat, 3 5 7 - 3 5 8 .

INDEX OF PLACES

448 Madrid (cont.) Collection

of

Don

Bernardo

Sáez

Martín, Entombment

by

Portillo

Master,

by

Portillo

Master,

400. Resurrection Collection

of

Don J o s é

Domínguez,

diptych by J u a n de B o r g o ñ a , 3 8 8 389*. Collection of Don J o s é Antonio López Huerta, Crucifixion f r o m a retable f r o m Fuentes de J i l o c a by

fol-

lower of M a r t í n Bernat, 5 5 7 - 3 5 1 ? . Collection of Don Luis Ruiz, panels of the calling of Sts. J o h n and J a m e s and the arrest of

a

virgin martyr, f o r m e r l y in, 2 7 4 , n. 26. panels of the Visitation, A g o n y in the

Garden,

Betrayal,

and

Via

Dolorosa, f o r m e r l y in, school of N a v a r r e , 274—275. Collection of Don Raimundo Ruiz, Christ of the Passion, f o r m e r l y in, by Oslo Master,

¡65-368*.

St. Blaise in Prison, f o r m e r l y in, by Huesca Master, 28-29*,

31.

Collection of the Duchess of Parcent, panels

of

St.

Orentius

and

St.

Patientia enthroned, f o r m e r l y in, by

Huesca

Master,

31, 56-57,

21,

23,

25,

61.

Collection of Romero Rodrígales, St. Peter W a l k i n g on the Waves by Borja

Master

191*,

193.

(?),

188,

190-

Collection of Señor Bernaldo de Quirós, Entombment by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 391-392*, Cortes

Fundación L á z a r o Galdeano, panel of the mounted Santiago, 8 7, 91. panel of

402*.

400,

retable f r o m the Convento de los Angeles, T o l e d o , by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 5 9 5 - 5 9 7 .

Collection,

395. retable, school

of

Aragón, 256-257. dealers, E p i p h a n y by Schretlen Master, 4 1 4 418*. St. J o h n Baptist by Portillo Master, 400. episcopal palace, Nativity and E p i p h a n y by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 5 9 7 .

Sts. Roch and J a m e s

by

Pedro de Aponte, 2 3 5 . panels of Sts. Sebastian and Michael by J u a n de la A b a d í a the elder, 381-382. Museo Arqueológico, panel of the V i r g i n , St. J o h n E v a n gelist, and Nicodemus by Paredes Master, 404—406*. retable of St. Catharine by St. Agnes Master, 333, 3 3 5 * . retable of the Passion Master, 4 0 5 , 4 0 7 * .

by

Paredes

Museo Cerralbo, panel of Sts. Sebastian, Fabian, and Thyrsus by Fernando del Rincón, 220—222*. St. Sebastian by J u a n de Sevilla, 326. Prado, Lactatio 391.

by J u a n Correa de V i v a r ,

panel of St. Vincent by Master of the Prelate M u r , 5 1 , 5 2 . panel of the miracle of Sts. Cosmos and Damian by Fernando del Rincón ( ? ) 1 4 1 — 1 4 2 , 218—220, 222, 224. St. Peter M a r t y r before the Crucifix by Pedro Berruguete, 386. private collections, Annunciation by B o r j a Master, 188189*, 1 9 0 . Crucifixion by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 391M a d o n n a of Montserrat by Pablo de San Leocadio,

Felipe

422—424*.

Meeting at the Golden Gate by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 5 9 5 . predella by

Morata

Master,

575-

377*Stigmatization of St. Francis by J u a n Correa de V i v a r , 5 9 5 . Santillana Collection, St. M a r k by Portilla Master, 398.

INDEX OF PLACES Weissberger

Collection,

retable,

for-

merly in, by Prudencio and Juan

449

M o n d é j a r , church, main retable ( d e s t r o y e d ) , f o r m e r l y in,

de la Puente, 200—202*, z5.

by Juan Correa de V i v a r , 391. retable in the chapel of the Encarna-

Magallón, Baptist by Coteta Master, 18.

ción (destroyed), f o r m e r l y in, by

retable by Coteta Master, 16, 18, 20.

Juan Correa de V i v a r , 391.

St. A n t h o n y A b b o t by Coteta Master,

Montearnedo, retable by Esteban Solórzano, 160—162, 165.

1 3-

Monterde,

St. M i c h a e l by Coteta Master, 13.

323*>

Maluenda, of

Sts. Justa

and

Rufina

Maqueda, Epiphany by Juan Correa de M a r a n ó n , parish church, retable, school of Pedro D i a z de Oviedo, 2 6 6 2 68*.

the

Calzada

Master,

de

la

Solana,

parish

church,

panel of St. L a w r e n c e enthroned b y Pedro D i a z

de Oviedo

( ? ),

260—261*. Munich,

cycle of Juan Correa de V i v a r , 391.

Alte

Pinakothek,

Last

Judg-

ment, 3 1 5 .

retable by Juan Correa de V i v a r , 397. V i a D o l o r o s a by Juan Correa de V i v a r , 388.

Murcia, cathedral, panel of St. Barbara by Pedro de Rubiales

M e d i n a del Campo, convent of Sta. C l a r a ,

panel

Master, 400. de A r r i b a ,

retable by

Gaspar

Requena,

of

St. Ursula by

Pedro

de

St. John Evangelist

by

Rubiales, 425, 426—428.

Calzada

retable

Master, 408, 410.

and

428.

retable of the Passion by Portillo

of

Pedro de Rubiales ( ? ) , 425, 426.

M e x i c o City, Pani Collection, T r i n i t y , f o r m e r l y in, by Master of San Pedro, T e r u e l (0) 4'~44private collection, Huesca Master, parish

by

rea de V i v a r , 3 9 1 , 397.

by

Meco,

Virgin

M o r a , retable, f o r m e r l y at, by Juan C o r Muniain

Nativity

34—36*.

408—410.

Juan de la A b a d i a the elder, 382.

Mianos,

324.

Gaspar Ortiz,

Marseilles, Bresset Collection, panels of

Melgar

Señora,

M o n z ó n de Campos, church, retable of

V i v a r , 397.

and

Nuestra

mer, predella f r o m A r g a v i e s o by

by

Francisco Solibes, 345.

Annunciation

de

M o n t r e a l , collection of M r . E . B. Hos-

retable by M i g u e l del Rey, 324. retable

Ermita

retable by Monterde Master, 3 2 2 -

St. Ursula by Coteta Master, 13.

Crucifixion 31—32*.

church,

retable

of

Sebastian by Mianos Master,

pieces f r o m the retable of the high altar in Ermita de Santiago, M u r cia, by Pedro de Rubiales,

by St.

M i l a n , Brera, retable f r o m S. M a r i a del M e r c a t o at Fabriano by Signorelli, 386. Molinos, parish church, retable of St. James M a j o r , school of A r a g o n , 239—240. retable of the V i r g i n , school of A r a -

428—

43°*retable

of

St. James by Pedro

de

Rubiales ( ? ) > 425.

i6ç—

iy 1*.

g o n , 2 3 7 - 2 39.

Museum,

Naples, Cappella della Sommaria in the Castel Capuano,

frescoes by

Pedro

de

Rubiales, 425. Pinacoteca Nazionale di Capodimonte, Via

Dolorosa

by

Polidoro

da

C a r a v a g g i o and collaborator, 424. N e g u r i , A r a s Collection, panels by rata Master, 3 7 7 .

Mo-

450

INDEX OF PLACES

New Y o r k , Anderson Galleries, Annunciation and Epiphany, formerly in, school of Pedro de Aponte (0,259. Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Pedro de Aponte, 8g—giy 259. panels of the Baptist and St. Peter, formerly in, by Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 259—260. Collection of Martin Beck, Madonna and angels, formerly in, by Beck Master, 3 1 9 . Collection of M r . Eric de Kolb, retable, school of Aragon, 253254*Collection of Mrs. Elizabeth Drey, Christ at the Column and Saints by Fernando del Rincon ( ? ) , 2 22—223*. dealer, panel of demon transfixing the soul of the unredeemed thief by Francisco Solibes, 34 j . French and Company, predella, 238. Hispanic Society, retable of St. John of the Entombment by Gil Master, 3 1 2 . Sts. Jerome and Michael by Coteta Master, 13—14*, 20. Kienbusch Collection, Christ of the Resurrection by Oslo Master 365. Metropolitan Museum, retable by Gil Master, 3 1 2 . Jacques Seligmann and Comp ny, Virgin of the Annunciation by Retascon Master, 3 1 7 . Noguera, Teruel bishop's palace, narrative scene by Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 41. retable of St. Catharine by Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 4 1 . St. Anthony Abbot enthroned by Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 4 1 , 43*. Trinity by Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 41—42. parish church, panels of St. John Baptist and St. John Evangelist by

Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 3 9 41, 44. Nueno, retable by J u a n de la Abadía the younger ( ? ) , 3 8 1 . Olite, Sta. M a r í a la Real, retable by Pedro de Aponte, 7 3 , 8 0 S 4 * , 89, 1 1 5 . Ores, parish church, retable by Egea Master, 108-111*. Orihuela, retable of St. Catharine by Pedro de Rubiales ( ? ) , 4 2 5 , 426, 430. cathedral, retable of the Madonna, St. Peter, and St. Anne by Pedro de Rubiales, 426. Ororbia, parish church, retable by Ororbia Master, 275-283*, 286, 287, 288, 294. Os de Balaguer, parish church, late medieval retable from the Ermita de Ciérvoles, school of Catalonia, 231. Oslo, Epiphany by Oslo Master, 3 6 j . Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, St. Paul by Marco Zoppo, 1 3 8 . Palencia, episcopal palace, panels by Paredes Master, 4 0 j . Pallarvelo de Monegros, retable by M a r tin de Soria, 1 3 3 . Palma, Casa Olesa, triptych by follower of Castellig Master, 307-310. cathedral, retable of Sts. Matthew and Francis, 386. church of Alaró, retable of St. Sebastian (lost), formerly in, by M i guel Alcañiz, 3 1 5 . Convento de la Concepción, Crucifixion by Alcudia Master, 3 1 2 . Convento de la Crucifición, Crucifixion by Alcudia Master, 3 1 2 . Guardian Angel of Pollensa by A l cudia Master, 3 1 2 . Museo Arqueológico, fragment by Castellig Master ( ? ) , 307. predella by Castellig Master, 305, 307. Museo de la L o n j a , Resurrection and

INDEX OF PLACES Pentecost by Castellig Master, 307—309*. Pamplona, cathedral, retable donated by Pedro Marcilla de Caparroso by follower of Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 2 6 5 - 2 6 6 . retable of the Miraculous Crucifix by follower of Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 2 65. Collection of Don José M a r i a Huarte, panels of virgin martyrs by Gallipienzo Master, 294. Hospital, retable of late 16th century dedicated to Remigius of Reims, 199, n. 17. Museo de Navarra, panels of Sts. Bartholomew and Quiteria by E g e a Master, io8-iog*, hi. private collection, fragment by Ororbia Master ( ? ) , 2 8 3 . Paredes de Nava, Sta. Eulalia, retable by Paredes Master and Calzada Master, 405, 408, 4 1 0 . Paris, Arnoult Collection, Crucifixion, formerly in, by Arnoult Master, 358, 360. Baude Collection, Ecstasy of the Magdalene by Francisco Solibes ( ? ) , 345, 349*. Flaying of St. Bartholomew by Huesca Master, 28-31*. Collection of Paul Botte, Life of St. Martin by A l l Master, 301-302*. Collection of Don Eduardo Lucas M o reno, Coronation, formerly in, by Villarroya Master, 3 7 9 . Collection of Louis Philippe, panel of two saints, formerly in, by J u a n Correa de Vivar, 3 9 1 . Collection of Monsieur G. Hamburger, Madonna and Child enthroned by Oslo Master, 365-366*. Collection of René F . Zierer, Virgin of Mercy by Oslo Master, 36 2— 365*Mengin Collection, Pentecost by Oslo Master, 362, 365. Pastriz, retable by Miguel Jiménez, 149. Perpignan,

451

banquet of Herod by the Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 3 5 3 , 354> 4 3 0 . 43 2 > 434cathedral, compartments of the Annunciation and Coronation from the retable of Notre Dame de la Magrana by Canapost Master, 354. retable of Notre Dame de la M a g r a n a by Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 4 3 2 , 434. Musee Rigaud, triptych by Florida Master, 382-384*. St. Jacques, Trinity by Canapost Master, 350, 3 5 3 , 375. Philadelphia, Johnson Collection, Madonna by Martorell, 1 4 5 , n. 29. Nativity and Dormition by Andres Marzal de Sas, 303. Port Sunlight, Cheshire, England, Leverhulme Collection, Madonna and angels by follower of Beck Master, 3 7 9 , 3 2 1 * . Portillo, retable by Portillo Master, 404. Princeton,

New

Michael

Jersey, by

panel

Villarroya

of

St.

Master,

379Providence, Rhode Island, Annmary Brown Memorial Collection, Epiphany by J u a n Correa de Vivar, 397. Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, Agony in the Garden by Rodrigo de Osona the younger,

Raleigh, North Carolina, North Carolina Museum of Art, retable of the Crucifixion by J u a n Correa de Vivar, 395—396*. Reggio Emilia, Parmeggiani Collection, triptych by Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 55Retascon, retable by

Retascon

Master,

3i7Rocafort, church, Holy Family by Felipe Pablo de San Leocadio, 422. Rochester, New Y o r k , Memorial Art Gallery, panel of enthroned M a g d a lene and surmounting crucifixion by Hearst Master ( ? ) , 46.

INDEX OF PLACES

452

Rome, church of S. Spirito in Sassia, Con-

polychromy of sculptured retable of

version of St. P a u l by Pedro de

St. Augustine by M a r t í n

Rubiales, 424, 425.

and collaborator, 92.

Ruesta,

parish

church,

panel

of

St.

Michael by Master of the A g r e d a Predella, 3 7 2 , 3 7 4 * .

retable

of

All

Saints

Garcia

by

Martin

Bernat, 259. church

of

S. Pablo,

retable

of

Sts.

Peter and Paul by G o t o r Master Sa

Vail,

Majorca,

March

Collection,

C r o w n i n g with T h o r n s by Master of Sta. M a r i a del M e r c a d o , 4 1 4 -

Santos Juan y Pedro,

St.

John Evangelist by A r n o u l t M a s -

de

Gallego,

Martín

church,

García

retable

by

and A n t o n i o

de

Plasencia, 93, 98-104*,

church of the Pilar, retable ( 1 5 0 9 ) by D a m i á n Forment, 1 4 1 , 2 1 7 .

331—334-

by St. A g n e s Master,

105, 186,

238.

D e Pano Collection, M a d o n n a , formerly in, by Coteta Master, 18. L a Seo, sculptured retable designed by Gil

Saltsjôbaden,

Collection

of

Sjogren, Epiphany Solibes, 34s,

Mrs. by

Anna

Francisco

Legion

of

Honor,

George

Slaying

San

Juan

de

San

Lorenzo

panel

the

of

St.

Dragon

by

350—3^1*.

Girard Master,

las Abadesas,

by

Morúnys,

retable

by

panels by Pedro de A p o n t e , 86,

by

Aniano

and

Martin

Jerónimo

Cosida

Vallejo,

117,

122. monastery of S. A g u s t í n , retable of St. (lost),

formerly

in,

by

Hernando R o d r i g u e z , 204. Coteta Master,

12-13.

Museum, 303-304*.

Sas,

Baptist's Sermon by Huesca Master, 28.

retable by Pedro de Aponte, 235. San M a t e o de G a l l e g o , predella by D a Forment,

217.

church of S. Salvador, retable of St. Anthony

Abbot

by

follower

of

Pedro D í a z de Oviedo, 262-2154*, 269. of

Carmelite

Saints

by

f o l l o w e r of Pedro D i a z de O v i -

and

the

Via from

Sijena

Master, 1 3 1 , 136, 138, 146. fragment No. 482, Annunciation and Nativity, school of A r a g ó n , 243— 2

45*-

7 2 2*.

panels from the E r m i t a de Sta. E n panels f r o m a retable of the Baptist f o r m e r l y in the convent at Sijena

Master, 262. lateral

chapels,

by Huesca Master, 2 1 , 2 5 - 2 5 * . predella f r o m San M a t e o de

284, 292. de Buil,

Pilate

gracia by D a m i á n Forment, 368.

edo, 262—265*. retable of the Pietà by Gallipienzo retables decorating

before

Dolorosa f r o m the retable

panel by A n t o n i o de A n i a n o , 120—

church of the Carmen, fragments

Christ

the convent at Sijena by

Sangüesa,

St. A n t h o n y

Pedro de Aponte, 108. cathedral,

executed

Annunciation by A n d r e s M a r z a l de 87,

91 •

Saragossa,

de

Provincial

San M a r t í n de Buil, v i l l a g e church,

María

Morlanes,

Pérez Cistué Collection, M a d o n n a by

Francisco Solibes, 345.

mián

tonio

Alexis

retable

Canapost Master, 353. de

de

Gabriel J o l y , polychromy by A n Garcia, painted base attributed to

348*.

San Francisco, C a l i f o r n i a , Palace of the

Santa

180-184*. of

ter, 46.

415*. Salamanca, Museum, St. A g n e s enthroned Salient

(?), church

by

lego by D a m i á n Forment,

Gal123-

124. retable by Juan de la A b a d í a the elder ( ? ) ,

3 7 9 S 3 « * -

INDEX OF PLACES retable from the church of S. Pablo, Saragossa,

by

Miguel

453

Museum, Nativity, E p i p h a n y , and V i r -

Jiménez,

gin of the Assumption, 230.

46. retable

of

St.

Onuphrius

Augustine by

and

St.

T a f a l l a , church of S. Pedro, retable of

of

the

the Visitation by Gallipienzo M a s -

Master

A g r e d a Predella, 368—370*,

ter, 291—293*,

375.

retable of St. Joseph f r o m A l b a l a t e del Arzobispo, school of A r a g ó n ,

296.

T a m a r i t e de Litera, parish church, Epiphany, school of A r a g o n , 232. retable, f o r m e r l y in, by M i g u e l

Master of the Perpignan shutters,

Organ-

Tarazona, cathedral,

432—434*.

S. M i g u e l de los Navarros, retable by D a m i á n Forment, 77, 79. Sarasota, F l o r i d a , Hately Collection, predella by Pedro D í a z de Oviedo,

antependium attributed to Juan Fernández R o d r í g u e z , 2/5. retable by M a r t i n Bernat, 362. retable

St.

Lawrence

by

Juan

210, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 , 2 1 5 .

Ibarra Collection, M a d o n n a and C h i l d , 336~339-

sculptured retable by Juan de M o rete, 197, 199, 200. church of San M i g u e l , retable by Pru-

Provincial Museum,

dencio

predella by Hearst Master, of the M i l i t a r y

Master

of

Fernández R o d r í g u e z , 204—208*,

259—260. Seville,

retable

and

Juan Jiménez (destroyed), 232.

Román Vicente Collection, Nativity by

of

the

239-240.

Orders

Military

by

and

Juan

de

la

Puente,

797—200*, 203. church

Orders,

of

the

the

Magdalena,

Virgin

of

the

Immaculate

and

the

Last

Judg-

ment by Juan Fernández

Rodri-

Conception

336. St. Cyprian by Coteta Master, 9, 12.

panel

of

guez, 211—275*.

triptych by Coteta Master, 12. Sigiienza, cathedral, St. Liberata by Juan

episcopal palace, N a t i v i t y and E p i p h any by E g e a Master,

de Pereda, 2 28—230*.

105-108*,

hi.

Sijena, church, predella of high altar by Sijena

Hospital,

predella,

school

D í a z de Oviedo,

Master, 124.

predella

Convent,

by

Pedro

of

Pedro

269—272.

Diaz

de

Oviedo,

260.

E p i p h a n y f r o m the retable f r o m the convent at Sijena, f o r m e r l y in, by

retable by M a r t i n Bernat, 357.

Sijena Master, 126.

retable by Pedro D í a z de Oviedo, 55.

Purification f r o m the retable

from

the convent at Sijena, f o r m e r l y in, by Sijena Master, 1 3 1 . retable, f o r m e r l y in, by Sijena Master, 124, 125—146*,

148, 149.

Panteón Real, retable, f o r m e r l y in, by Sijena Master,

135,

138,

139*,

147-149.

Puente, 257. T a r r a g o n a , Diocesan Museum, Nativity by A l f o r j a Master, 425, n. 3. Sts. A b d o n , Sennen, and E l o y by G i rard Master, 350. Teruel, cathedral, panel of Pentecost, 238.

Sinlabajos, Anna selbiritt

retable by Prudencio and Juan de la

by Portillo Master, 400.

St. Benedict by P o r t i l l o Master, 404. Soria, church of S. Pedro, Purification, 230.

retable by F l o r i d a Master, 384. church

of

Sta. C l a r a , retable

Honoratius

(lost),

of

St.

formerly

in,

by Jerónimo M a r t í n e z , 436. episcopal

palace,

panels

from

the

454

INDEX OF PLACES

church of S. Pedro, Teruel, by Master of San Pedro, Teruel, 3 7 - 3 9 * , 4i> 44Iglesia de la Merced, retable of St. George from church of S. Miguel by Jerónimo Martinez, 436. Toledo, cathedral, retable of the Conception by Juan de Borgona, 388. chapel of the Conception, retable by Juan de Borgona, 61, 64. triptych, formerly in, by Juan de Borgona, 64. church of Santas Justa y Rufina, sculptured retable with polychromv by Juan Correa de Vivar, 391. convent of Sta. Ana, Epiphany by Juan Correa de Vivar, 397. Provincial Museum, busts of Our Lord and His Mother, copy after Hugo van der Goes, 388. cycle from Guisando by Juan Correa de Vivar, 397. Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Juan Correa de Vivar, 388. Pentecost from San Martin Valdeiglesias by Juan Correa de Vivar, 397Toledo, Ohio, Museum, retable of St. Andrew and a canonized deacon by Juan de Sevilla, 326. Tordesillas, church of S. Antolin, retable by Portillo Master, 398—401*. Tornabous, retable, school of Catalonia, 232. Torralba de Ribota, predella by Francisco Solibes, 345. Torralbilla, retable by Florida Master, 384. Torremormojón, parish church, retable of the Madonna and Child by Calzada Master, 408—40g*. Toulouse, Archevêché, Madonna and angels by Beck Master, 319-320*. Musée des Augustins, predella of a retable by Master of the Perpignan Organ-shutters, 434—436*. Tudela, cathedral,

retable of St. Joseph, 204, n. 21. St. Luke by Borja Master, 186188*.

Villaespesa retable, 386. retable by Pedro Diaz de Oviedo, 55, 250, 262, 269. Uncastillo, church of S. Martin, predella of retable by Martin Garcia, 93—98*,

100, 1 0 1 ,

104.

retable by circle of Pedro de Aponte, Urrea de Jalon, church, panel of the enthroned Eternal Father by Master of the Agreda Predella, 372—575. Uztârroz, parish church, retable of St. Augustine by Gallipienzo Master ( ? ) , 294-296*. second retable by Gallipienzo Master (?),

296-297.

Valencia, retable of St. Ursula by Pedro de Rubiales and Gaspar Requena, 424, 425, 426, 428. Benicarló Collection, Vision of St. Joachim by Retascón Master, 317. cathedral, Adoration by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420. Crowning with Thorns by Vicente Juan Masip, 142. Collection of the Marques de Montortal, panel of St. Agatha by Pedro de Rubiales, 425, 426—427*, 428. Diocesan Museum, Christ of the Resurrection by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420. triptych by Alcira Master, 146. Hospital, Evangelists by Master of the Valencian Hospital, 340. Navarro Alcâcer Collection, series by Master of the Valencian Hospital, 340. private collections, Pietà by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420—422.

St. Luke Healing by Paolo da San Leocadio, 420—421*. Provincial Museum,

INDEX OF PLACES Anna selb¿ritt by Damián Forment, 217. Baptist and predella from Huesa del Común retable by Florida Master, 382, 384. drawing of the Deposition by Pedro de Rubiales, 425. retable by Felipe Pablo de San Leocadia, 422, 424. retable of the Holy Cross by Miguel Alcañiz, 312—314*. S. Esteban, painting by Felipe de San Leocadio, 422. Valladolid, Museo Arquelógico, Flagellation by Juan Correa de Vivar, 391. Velilla de Jiloca, parish church, retable of the Virgin by the Master of the Valencian Hospital, 339-342*. Venice, Academy, calling of Sts. John and James by Marco Basaiti, 274, n. 26. Vienna, Lanckoronski Collection, Trinity by Miguel Jimenez, 375. Vigo, Museum, St. Lucy from San Mar-

455

tin de Valdeiglesias by Juan Correa de Vivar, 397. Villandry, Chateau, Carvalho Collection, Nativity by Fernando del Rincón (?), 224—227*. Villarreal, church of Santiago, retable of high altar by Paolo da San Leocadio, 418—419, 420. retable of the Saviour by Paolo da San Leocadio, 419. Villarroya, predella by Villarroya Master, 379. Villasabariego de Ucieza, predella by Calzada Master, 2 9 1 , 408. Yebra, parish church, retable by Esteban Solórzano, 162—16 ¡*. Zabalza, parish church, panels of Sts. Barbara and Bridget by Gallipienzo Master, 288-291*, 296. Zuera, parish church, St. John Baptist by Master of the Agreda Predella, 372-373*, 37J.