Master of the Saint Lucy Legend

This painter’s conventional name is based on the altarpiece with three scenes illustrating the Legend of Saint Lucy in the church of Saint James, Sint-Jakobskerk, in Bruges. In 1903 Max Friedländer noted similarities between this work and the Brussels “Virgin among Virgins” (Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten, inv. 2576) and initially referred to its author as Master of 1480 after the date inscribed on the Bruges panel. In 1928, by which time the definite name had been adopted, he increased this corpus to twenty-eight works. Several authors progressively defined this artist’s characteristics, adding further works to make up the current fifty or so ascribed to him, and established a chronology based chiefly on the presence in many of them of the Bruges Belfort or belfry, in various stages of construction, making it possible to ascertain that he was active between 1480 and 1501. However, scholars do not unanimously agree on the link between the Bruges and the Brussels paintings assumed to be the core of his corpus. Recent in-depth analyses have highlighted certain differences that raise doubts about their connection, leading the Brussels painting to be considered the work of a different anonymous artist and hindering the ascription to this master of the pictures traditionally given to him.
The common features that define this master’s style, established by the eponymous Bruges work, are based on highly stereotyped and repetitive facial models for both male and female figures, which are easily recognised as his. The compositions are generally static, with cold colours, and there is a noticeable absence of emotions that lends his works great solemnity. He is assumed to have trained initially with Dirk Bouts and his oeuvre displays the influence of Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes and especially Hans Memling. Identifications with painters documented in Bruges in that period have been suggested, such as Jan Fabiaen (before 1469–1520),3 Jan I de Hervy (act. 1472–1509)4 and Frans Vanden Pitte (act. 1453–1503), but without much success (J.J. Pérez Preciado, "Fifteenth-century netherlandish painting at the Museo Nacional del Prado. Catalogue raisonné", Museo del Prado, 2024, p. 238).