Lot Essay
As early as 1456 Pedro García is recorded as a well established and masterly painter. A contract of 1455 between García and the widow and son of the great Barcelona painter, Bernat Martorell, enabling García to run a 'company' to operate the master's studio, to complete his works and to undertake his own new commissions, attests to the high esteem in which this artist was held. García remained in Barcelona for the next five years, and though no documentary evidence has yet come to light, it is probable that he left Barcelona at the end of his contract with the Martorells, circa 1460, to establish his own workshop, first in Lerida (see J. Gudiol, op. cit, p. 186) and then in Barbestro where he is recorded running his own studio in 1481.
The present painting, which once formed part of a retable, can be dated to this latter phase of García's development circa 1480-96. The influence of the great Barcelona painters, in particular Jaume Hughet, became more pronounced during this period, with his natural affinity to the drawn structure of a painting superceding his interest in the painted surface giving a more conventional image. This trend can be observed in other works of the same period most notably panels from a retable from the church of Montanyana (see Gudiol, ibid, no. 552, figs. 943-5).
The present painting, which once formed part of a retable, can be dated to this latter phase of García's development circa 1480-96. The influence of the great Barcelona painters, in particular Jaume Hughet, became more pronounced during this period, with his natural affinity to the drawn structure of a painting superceding his interest in the painted surface giving a more conventional image. This trend can be observed in other works of the same period most notably panels from a retable from the church of Montanyana (see Gudiol, ibid, no. 552, figs. 943-5).