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Lot Essay
In early 15th-century Flanders, the standard iconographic representation of Saint Francis was essentially established by Jan van Eyck’s Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, which proliferated throughout Northern Europe. Existing in two versions (Turin, Galleria Sabauda and Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art), the composition was evidently so popular that copies were available as far as Valencia, where they were owned and reproduced by the city’s artistic elite.
The present panel, while separated by almost a century from van Eyck’s original design, still bears the traces of his influence. This is perhaps tempered by the Master of Hoogstraten’s St Francis, dated circa 1510 and now in the Prado, Madrid, which bears a more striking resemblance to this composition. The accuracy with which the buildings beyond Saint Francis have been rendered suggests that they depict a real, topographical view, probably of either a Franciscan or Clarissan monastery in the Netherlands.
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for assisting in the cataloguing of this work.
The present panel, while separated by almost a century from van Eyck’s original design, still bears the traces of his influence. This is perhaps tempered by the Master of Hoogstraten’s St Francis, dated circa 1510 and now in the Prado, Madrid, which bears a more striking resemblance to this composition. The accuracy with which the buildings beyond Saint Francis have been rendered suggests that they depict a real, topographical view, probably of either a Franciscan or Clarissan monastery in the Netherlands.
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for assisting in the cataloguing of this work.