Saint James of Compostela in a niche, with Saint Ursula attended by her Virgins, and the Charity of Saint Martin of Tours

This impressive panel has long been recognised as the work of a Spanish artist painting in the style of Juan de Flandes, a Netherlandish master documented working in the Iberian Peninsula from 1496 for Isabella of Castile who had a fundamentally important influence on Spanish art. The Master of Tejerina, probably identifiable with Juan Tejerina, is documented as working in Paredes de Nava, Palencia between circa 1515-1530. Here he would have had easy access to works by Juan de Flandes both at the Miraflores Charterhouse near Burgos and even in Palencia itself where Flandes had painted a Crucifixion for the high altarpiece of the city’s cathedral (Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado), in which the grieving women and horses of the centurions behind the Cross evidently had a strong influence on the St Ursula and her Virgins and mounted St Martin in the present work.