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This is a scene from the New Testament (Luke 1, 39-56) when the Virgin Mary is pregnant with Jesus. Accompanied by Saint Joseph, she goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is pregnant with Saint John. The scene immediately previous to the main scene is visible in the background: the Virgin and Saint Joseph are directed to the house of Elizabeth and her husband, Zachariah, by two angels. The elon
This triptych is the principal creation and the work that has given the name to an anonymous follower of Rogier van der Weyden, previously identified as Vrancke van der Stockt. The triptych belonged to Leonor de Mascarenhas (1503-1584), a Portuguese lady who moved to Spain in 1526 and was aya to Philip II and afterwards to his son Don Carlos. When in 1564 she founded the convent of Franciscan nuns
Jesus is shown half-length, crowned with thorns and with a haggard face, parted lips, prominent cheekbones, and moist eyes raised in an attitude of submission to the divine will. His hair, beard, moustache and eyelashes are minutely rendered in a light brown colour. Similarly detailed is the treatment of the tears and drops of blood. The latter, caused by the thorns piercing his forehead and the w
This panel and its companion, Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine (P8124), must have been part of the predella of a mid-sized altarpiece. Like most of the works attributed to Pedro Berruguete, they are not documented, but there is no doubt about his hand, which is patent in both the human types depicted in them and, fundamentally, their style. One characteristic of Berruguete’s approach is his inter
This panel is by an anonymous Hispano-Flemish painter active in Burgos and Palencia who was influenced by Diego de la Cruz and the Master of Los Balbases. His name derives from his best known work, the Altarpiece of the Visitation in Palencia Cathedral. The apostle can be identified by the inscription on his halo and his attributes: the pilgrim’s staff, water gourd, hat and cockle shells. In his l
The theme of this triptych is the advent of salvation -a message about the universality of Redemption. The Eucharistic meaning inherent in the theme of Saint Gregory’s Mass is also found in The Adoration of the Magi in the wheat stored in the upper part of the hut, above the figure of the Antichrist. Unusually, Bosch includes in his depiction of the Mass of Saint Gregory in semi-grisaille seven Pa
This panel depicts a miracle of Saint Anthony: the conversion of a heretic when he realised that a hungry mule refrained from eating a basket of barley with a consecrated Host on it. Sculpture is used to characterise the different buildings in the urban setting in which the episode takes place, with saints on churches and kings on the town hall.
This painting is a slight variation of the central panel in the predella of the Don Álvaro de Luna Altar Piece which is in the Toledo cathedral (doc. 1488). Mary, helped by Saint John and Nicodemus, is in front of the cross holding her dead son. Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene and two Marys also show their sorrow. This painting is a pair with The Virgin of Milk (P-1289).
The Birth of the Virgin at the Museo del Prado, the only painting on this subject by the hand of Luis de Morales and a work that remained unpublished until 2003, and the two pieces at the Museum Schloss Fasanerie in Eichenzell, The Presentation in the Temple and The Visitation, which are little known in Spain, belong in all probability, as Gabriele Finaldi pointed out, to one and the same set, a j
The panel shows the moment when several angels shatter the spiked wheels on which Catherine of Alexandria was to have been torn into pieces after having rejected the advances of Emperor Maxentius and triumphing in a philosophy competition. The painter of this markedly expressive work belongs to the circle of Fernando Gallego and may have been Francisco, a member of the painter’s family.
Mary, who is very richly dressed, is holding the Christ child above the altar; Joseph is at her side. Simeon is also in the room, along with some women, one of whom has a basket with two doves in it. The painting comes, together with five others of the same group (P-1254-P-1259), from the Hieronomite monastery of La Sisla (Toledo).
In the autumn of 1636, Peter Paul Rubens was commissioned by agents of Philip IV to produce his largest series of painted canvases to decorate the recently completed hunting lodge at El Pardo, near Madrid -the Torre de la Parada. Documents reveal that he was already at work by December. His main assignment comprised some sixty mythological subjects and individual figures, chiefly drawn from Ovid´s
Borgoña was a key artist for the development of painting in Castile from the time of his arrival in Toledo in 1495. His surname suggests a Burgundian origin but in this composition the delicate figures, the landscape and the limpid light can be associated with the Italian schools of Tuscany and Umbria. Considered to have introduced Italian Quattrocento forms into Castile, Juan de Borgo&ntil
These works (P944 and P7948) embody a more decorous variation of the breastfeeding Madonna, a reference to the succour afforded by the Virgin to all believers. Morales designed a composition which avoids both the representation of Mary’s nude breast and explicit lactation. With both hands, Mary holds a Child who seeks maternal consolation, lifting the veil with one hand and touching the modestly c
