The Birth of the Virgin

Details

Workshop of Miguel Ximénez active Saragossa 1462-1505
The Birth of the Virgin
tempera and gold on panel
37 x 24¾ in. 94 x 62.9 cm.

Provenance

Francisco Guin de Gabalda, Barcelona.
Albert S. Ludlow, Kentucky, by 1893, and by descent to
Frederick H. Ludlow, on loan to The Saint Louis Art Museum, 1938.
The Saint Louis Art Museum, accession, 1963.

Literature

C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, Cambridge, 1938, VII, i, pp. 254-59, fig. 80, as possibly by Espalargucs.

Exhibited

Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, on loan, c. 1893.

Special notice

No sales tax is due on the purchase price of this lot if it is picked up or delivered in the State of New York.

Lot Essay

Independent works by the Aragonese painter Miguel Ximénez, while rare, are among the best examples of early Hispano-Flemish painting. They include two signed panels, Saint Michael and Saint Catherine (Private Collection, Barcelona), from the retable at Egea de los Caballeros; and a retable depicting Saint Martin of Tours, painted for the church of San Pablo in Zaragoza (Museo de Bellas Artes, Zaragoza; see Post, op cit., VIII, p. 89, fig. 33). Strongly influenced by his famous predecessor, Bartolomé Bermejo, Ximénez's work is characterized by robust figures wrapped heavily folded drapery.
The greater part of Ximénez's work is collaborative - he worked with Martín Bernat, Salvador Roig and his son Juan Ximénez, among others - and this Birth of the Virgin is likely to be the result of just such a collaboration.

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