Lot n° 419
Estimation :
6000 - 8000
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 6 000EUR
Late 15th century VALENCIA school, follower of Paolo di San - Lot 419
Late 15th century VALENCIA school, follower of Paolo di San Leocadio
The Nativity with the Annunciation to the Shepherds
Pine panel, one board, unparqueted, ogival at the top
No frame
Height : 50 cm
Width : 40 cm
Old labels on reverse
Damage to frame edges
Expert Cabinet Turquin
In the foreground of this Nativity, the Virgin Mary, the midwife Salome and St. Joseph, all kneeling, surround and adore the Child seated on the ground. Behind this central group are the walls of the crib, a half-ruined building of stone and wood, housing the donkey and ox on the left, and a crevice from which the three shepherds emerge on the right.
In the background, on the left, under the archway of the stable, a fortified city rises, flanked by a wide river and animated by a crowd of characters. On the right, hovering over the shepherds, a seraph holding a phylactery announces the birth of Christ. Two iconographic elements stand out here: one illustrates the story from the Golden Legend in which the midwives Zebel and Salome were called by Joseph to assist in the delivery of Mary. Zebel confirmed Mary's virginity, while Salomé, having refused to believe it, had her hand paralyzed and only recovered when she touched the Child. The second is an allusion to the vision of St. Brigid of Sweden, according to which the divine light emanating from the Child eclipsed the material light of the candle held by St. Joseph.
These anecdotal elements can be found in Flemish painting of the early 15th century, in the Nativity scenes painted by the Master of Flémalle (Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, c. 1420-1430) and by his contemporary, Jacques Daret (1404-1470), in the altarpiece of the Abbey of Saint Vaast in Arras (1433-1435); Madrid, Thyssen Collection, no. 124). These motifs spread to Spain in the mid-15th century, where, as in our panel, only Salome appears.
The Adoration of the Shepherds, an unfortunately mutilated fresco (Valencia, Cathedral) painted before 1474 by Paolo de San Leocadio, an Italian painter (Reggio Emilia 1447-1520 Valencia) called to Valencia in 1472 by Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, must have influenced the author of the present Nativity.
The latter uses the same composition, placing the group of holy figures in the foreground, at the center of the crib, an imposing architectural structure whose ruined side walls open onto a distant, animated landscape, characteristic of the Gandia region, stronghold of the Borgia family.
Several elements of Paolo di San Leocadio's later works in Gandia must also have struck the anonymous artist of our painting: the attitude and design of the Virgin's head at prayer, her oblong face, the high, unobstructed forehead encircled by a long golden head of hair that barely clears the auricular pavilion and spreads widely over the mantle. As for the Child, a small, sickly creature, he adopts the same seated position as in the Epiphany of San Leocadio (Gandia, Museo, Convent of Santa Clara). While the shepherds and St. Joseph provide the earthy note befitting their condition, the two more delicate female figures temper their rusticity.
Finally, the architecture of the frame, the iconography and the engraved and punched ornamentation of the halos and the gold background, testify to the work of an artist, still anonymous, linked to Gothic habits but timidly opening up to the novelties of the Renaissance style, imported by the Italians present in Valencia from 1472 onwards, as the perspective of the stable attempts to express here.
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