Lot Essay
The present unpublished picture is an addition to the oeuvre of the artist, as established by C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, VII, 1938, pp.238-242. Espalargues' name has come down to us through a signed altarpiece of the Adoration, of which parts are in the Hispanic Society, New York and in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia (Post, op. cit., p.241, fig.69). The distinctive features of the artist's manner appear in expression of the faces of the protagonists and the naive landscapes. These characteristics probably derive from Pedro Garcia de Benabarre. The same backgrounds can be seen in the Retable of the Madonna, in Casa Ordaz, Mexico City (C.R. Post, "Unpublished early Spanish Paintings in American and English Collections", Art Bulletin, XXXIV, 1952, pp.281-282, fig.9) and in the panel of the Annunciation of Saint Joachim, sold at Sotheby's New York, 11 January 1990, lot 23, with ill. (C.R. Post, op. cit., p.255, fig.77) with which the present lot is mostly comparable.