The Museo del Prado will be exhibiting the first documented Hispano-Flemish painting by a Castilian artist for a period of ten years
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Jorge Inglés
With the exception of the document that links him to the Marquis of Santillana, little is known of Jorge Inglés, who was both a painter and miniaturist. Due to his surname it has been suggested that he or his family were English, but there is no information at the present time on his place of birth or where he trained. For this reason the starting point for a definition of his style and for a reconstruction of his oeuvre is the present “Altarpiece of the Angels” in the collection of the Duque del Infantado.
To judge from the present work and others attributed to him, particularly the Saint Jerome Altarpiece commissioned by Alonso de Fonseca, Bishop of Ávila from 1469 to 1485 for the Hieronymite monastery of La Mejorada in Olmedo (Valladolid), it seems most likely that Jorge Inglés trained in the international style or with a transitional master and that he had early access to Flemish models such as the donor figures by Rogier van der Weyden, undoubtedly via intermediary sources (which explains why the Marquis is depicted in Burgundian dress in the present work). Although the figure types, the realism with which they are depicted and the forms of the folds in the drapery recall Flemish painting, works attributed to Jorge Inglés do not reveal any direct contact with a specific Flemish painter. Furthermore, the figure types that he repeatedly used reflect an expressive tendency not characteristic of the Low Countries and closer to Germanic and English painting. This may once again suggest that the artist was English, as his surname indicates.
