Saint Michael

We are grateful to both Isabel Mateo Gómez and Fernando Benito for independently proposing the attribution on the basis of transparencies. The Girard Master is the sobriquet given to an as yet unidentified Valencian painter who was active in the western regions of Catalonia, in the province of Lerida, during the second half of the fifteenth century. His oeuvre was first defined by Post who remarked on the artist's distinctive blend of Valencian and Catalan elements (C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, VII, part II, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1938, pp. 575-95). Thus, as illustrated by the present work, the Italianate painterly qualities inherent within the Valencian tradition are mixed with the Catalan taste for decoration and the use of raised stucco. For instance, the artist here adopts the Catalan fashion for embossing the details and borders of the costume and using embossed rings for haloes. In this case, the Girard Master outdoes his rivals by multiplying the number of rings to a dozen or more ('one of the peculiarities by which this hand can be recognized', according to Post, loc. cit.).

This hitherto unrecorded panel relates closely to the artist's best known work - a Saint Michael which originally formed the principal compartment of an altarpiece (now dismembered) in the Museum of Vich, formerly in the parish church of Verdú (see Post, op.cit., p. 577, fig. 214). Although the thrust of the two compositions is very much the same, the pose is here adjusted with the figure shown cross- legged rather than astride the devil, and holding scales rather than a shield in his left hand.