Lot Essay
Pedro Berruguete was from a family of artists, and his son Alonso is arguably the most important and influential Spanish artist of the sixteenth century. Pedro Berruguete may have been painter to the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand II, King of Aragon and Isabella, Queen of Castile, and to Philip the Fair (later Philip I), King of Castile, and his influence on the Castilian School of painting until the first quarter of the sixteenth century was considerable.
Between 1470-5 Berruguete painted the St. Helen altarpiece (Paredes de Nava, S. Juan) displaying his mastery of the oil technique, as is visible in the present painting. Another Adoration of the Magi, now in the Academia de San Carlos, Mexico City, shows a similar arrangement of figures, albeit in reverse, especially the kneeling Magus and the pose of the Virgin and Christ Child (see C.F. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, 1947, IX, Part I, pp. 117-9, fig. 33). Both paintings include a Wise Man pointing to the Celestial Star above the stable. In Urbino in 1477 there is cited a 'Pietro Spagnuolo pittore' who is possibly identifiable with Pedro Berruguete, who was probably there from 1475-8, when he may have assisted the Flemish painter Justus of Ghent in the execution of a number of works for Federigo da Montefeltro, including the decoration of his library and studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.
Berruguete returned to Spain circa 1480 and continued to paint in a Hispano-Flemish style, presumably as a result of his training in Castile, where the style was dominated by the naturalism of Jan van Eyck. He was an excellent colorist, and combined techniques learned from Piero della Francesca with an interest in the Flemish master's perspectival and light effects.
The present panel seems to have been a component of one of the artist's masterpieces, the altarpiece of the church of Becerill de Campos in Palencia of 1490, which Camon Aznar believes was devoted to scenes from the Life of the Virgin and from the Life of Christ (see C. Aznar in Summa Artis, 1970, XXXIV, pp. 189 and 194). Three panels from this altar (The Birth of the Virgin, The Presentation, and The Suitors of the Virgin) are now in the Archbishop's palace in Palencia.
We are grateful to Isabel Mateos for her assistance in cataloguing this painting.
Between 1470-5 Berruguete painted the St. Helen altarpiece (Paredes de Nava, S. Juan) displaying his mastery of the oil technique, as is visible in the present painting. Another Adoration of the Magi, now in the Academia de San Carlos, Mexico City, shows a similar arrangement of figures, albeit in reverse, especially the kneeling Magus and the pose of the Virgin and Christ Child (see C.F. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, 1947, IX, Part I, pp. 117-9, fig. 33). Both paintings include a Wise Man pointing to the Celestial Star above the stable. In Urbino in 1477 there is cited a 'Pietro Spagnuolo pittore' who is possibly identifiable with Pedro Berruguete, who was probably there from 1475-8, when he may have assisted the Flemish painter Justus of Ghent in the execution of a number of works for Federigo da Montefeltro, including the decoration of his library and studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.
Berruguete returned to Spain circa 1480 and continued to paint in a Hispano-Flemish style, presumably as a result of his training in Castile, where the style was dominated by the naturalism of Jan van Eyck. He was an excellent colorist, and combined techniques learned from Piero della Francesca with an interest in the Flemish master's perspectival and light effects.
The present panel seems to have been a component of one of the artist's masterpieces, the altarpiece of the church of Becerill de Campos in Palencia of 1490, which Camon Aznar believes was devoted to scenes from the Life of the Virgin and from the Life of Christ (see C. Aznar in Summa Artis, 1970, XXXIV, pp. 189 and 194). Three panels from this altar (The Birth of the Virgin, The Presentation, and The Suitors of the Virgin) are now in the Archbishop's palace in Palencia.
We are grateful to Isabel Mateos for her assistance in cataloguing this painting.