MAÎTRE DE TORRALBA ACTIF À SARAGOSSE ENTRE 1420... Lot n° 1

Calvary Egg & glue tempera, oil, on gilded pine wood c. 1430-1440 63 3/8 x 46 in. I n the 14th century, painting in Aragon was strongly influenced by Italian art. After the last wave of Byzantinism in Italy, Giotto’s narrative of interacting figures aimed for a more deliberate pictorial fiction of the visible reality in a harmonious composition, animated by contrasts and variety. Since the 12th century, Catalonia was united with Aragon, but it only joins Spain and its Catholic Kings at the end of the 15th century. From the be - ginning of the 14th century, the lands of the Crown of Aragon had adopted the Italian style with ele - ments of the Franco-Flemish style of International Gothic painting and its linear mannerism. From the 1340’s on, Tuscan pictorial models influenced artists in Mallorca, Aragon and Catalonia, where Ferrer Bassa (active c 1320 - 1350) and his son Arnau are the main figures. His illuminated Book of Hours of Maria of Navarra, realized with colla - boration of his workshop illustrates the distinction in quality between the autograph illuminations and these by his assistants. Juan de Levi and Bonanat Zaortiga were other influential artist in Aragon. In the second halve of the 14th century, the local patronage by civil and religious elites turned mainly to the Barcelona workshops. Standard iconographic models, adapted by each individual artist, developed there in the workshops of the Serra brothers: Francesc, Jaume, Pere and Joan. They created a new pictorial paradigm, incorpo - rating certain elements of International Gothic painting from the region between Paris and the Meuse River in Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia and the islands of the Catalano-Aragonese Crown. At the beginning of the 15th century, Catalan painting, blending idealization and realism, had acquired an identifiable local idiosyncrasy by naturalizing Franco-Flemish elements into Italian prototypes 1 . The presence there of Florentine painters such as Gherardo di Jacopo, known as Starnina (c. 1360 - 1413), mixing ideal beauty and caricatural deformity, greatly influenced the local art production. The exchange of gifts between the Catalan-Aragon’s princes and the Valois kings, travelling Italian, German, French and German artists and prelates, played a decisive role in the reception of the Franco-Flemish pictorial altarpiece models and the manner in which they overlay the Italian stylistic substrate in Aragon’s Crown lands. Towns as Toledo, Valencia and Saragossa became independent artistic centers. The influences of Starnina and of the more expressionist Marzal de Sax, of German origin, were the two main artistic vectors there, from which local artists achieved a personal synthesis between aesthetic idealism and caricature. Lluis Borrassa as well as Marzal de Sax, each in a different manner, adopt the facial types imported from Firenze by Starnina. Borassa in a more idealized style, de Sax more caricatural. Blasco de Grañén integrated the stylistic idealization into the peasant like facial caricatures. Lluis Borrassa (Gerona c. 1360 - 1426 Barcelona), Pere Serra’s greatest pupil, is widely considered to have introduced the International Gothic style in Catalonia. He worked first with his father in Girona. Later in 1383, his studio is documented in Barcelona and it became the 1. Chandler Ratphon POST, The Aragonese School. A History of Spanish Painting, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press 1930 - 66, Vol VIII, 2. largest and most successful in town. Influenced by the Flemish naturalistic-based aesthetics, his flowing and dramatically interacting figures, the incised golden halloes and landscape backgrounds as well as complex patterning rendering brocade and textile, became the trademark of all his followers. Color fields are compartmentalized into a complex interconnected rhythm of undulating forms. The lack of circumvent space gives a certain flatness to the composition. Jaume Ferrer was the leading painter in Lleida. His general composition, textile rendering and background landscapes influenced Blasco de Grañén, the leading artist in Saragossa in the second quarter of the 15th century, before the novelties of the Eyckian pictorial influence arrived there circa 1445/50. Documented since 1422 (or 1415), Blasco was the Pintor del Rey de Navarra, the future Juan II of Aragon and acted as a transition between the style of Zaortiga and Huguet (actif in Saragossa 1435 - 45). He had a great number of followers and pupils. Pedro Garcia de Benabarre was after 1445 his most outstanding collaborator. His activity is documented until 1483. Blasco de Grañén’s most important commissions are the altar pieces in Lanaja and in Ontinena, ordered by the prioress of the Sijena monastery Beatriz Cornel (1427 - 51); and in Anento 2, all indebted to the stylistic expressiveness of Marçal de Sas and the standard models developed by Lluis Borrassa. An artist as important and prolific as Blasco de Grañén had many followers, disciples and pupils, coming from different Aragonese areas, helping him in the execution of altarpieces. This explains some of the quality differences in the output of his circle 3. The towns of Lanaja and Ontinena were under the jurisdiction of the Monastry Sant Maria de Sixena and Royal Pantheon of the order of Sant John of Jerusalem, founded in 1188 at Villanueva de Sijena (Huesca), a strong-place for the itinerant court of the kings of Aragon. In Torralba de Ribota, north of Calatayud, 14 km from Zaragossa, Benito Arnaldin (Calatajud (Z) active 1420 - 30.9.1435) was the main disciple of Blasco de Grañén. He signed the Retable of Sant Martin of Tours: BEN (e) DICTO ARNALDIN ME PINXIT (Fig. 2). His two sons Juan (active 1433 -59) and the younger Jaume , followed in his steps and working in his studio, before achieving their apprenticeship with other masters. They finished the uncomplete altarpieces ordered to their late father (after 1435). The Torralba master and his relation to the Arnaldin Family Juan Arnaldin (doc. 1433 - 1492), painted the Retable of Sant Andrea Apostle and the Retable of Sant Felix 4 in the Iglesia parroquial there in a somewhat naïve expressive style. The particular facial types are clearly indebted to the stylistic 2. M. del Carmen Lacarra-Ducay, Blaso de Granén, pintor de retablos 1422 - 59, Institucion Fernando El Catolico, Zaragoza 2004. 3. M. Del Carmen Lacarra-Ducay, Retables de l’atelier de Blasco de Granén, in Joyas de un patrimonio, exh. Zaragossa, Palacio de Sastago, 28/12/1990 - 3/3/1991. 4. J. Gudiol, Pintura Medieval en Aragon, Institut Fernando el Catolico, Zaragoza 1971, p 45. particularities developed by Marzal de Sax, less idealizing than the style of Blasco de Grañén. A figure, a man wearing a reddish chaperon (seidelbinde) welcoming Sant Felix in this retable is the identical (but inversed) with the man pointing his finger to the dead Christ in the present Calvary. Eric Young attributed the painting The Virgin and Saint John surrounding Christ in the Tomb in the Bowes Museum to the Torralba master, dating it 1425/30 5. There, the figure of Saint John is extremely close in style and ductus to the one in the present Calvary. Another Calvary with Soldiers attributed to the Torralba master is published by Chandler Post 6 in the Sheldon Keck collection, given to the Delaware university, exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum New York, and later sold (Christie’s New York, 16 January 1992, nr 2 7 ), dating it 1430 - 40. A Sant Blaise and Sant Anthony Abbot are in the museum of Springfield. In a Spanish collection, now in the Museu de Pontevedra, there is an Assumption of the same hand (donacion Pastor 8 ). The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Cat fig 327) has part of a predella representing the Deposition and the Entombment by the Torralba master, datable 1430 - 40, stylistically close to the present Calvary. Also, the Calvary in the Retable of Sant Barthelemy in the chateau de Castelnau-Bretenoux at Prudhomat (Lot, Fr), attributed to the Torralba Master 9 is close the present one, but with less figures and more simply executed. The two elements of its ‘banco’ predella are in execution and style close to the two present predellas. Gudiol published also the Retable of Sant Pedro (1971 cat nr 101) in the Varez colleccion at San Sebastian and a Retable de la Vida del Virgin (1971 cat nr 102) in the collection Junyer at Barcelona. An Altarpiece of the Virgin, datable 1435 -40, by the same master was bequeathed by the Vares Fisa family to the Prado museum in 2013 (inv P008121). In the 40s’, the same artist painted probably the Retable of Sant Nicolas in the Iglesia Sant Justa and Rufina in Maluenda. In the Parmegianni Galeria (Reggio Emilia) is another similar predella (Gudiol cliché A-11588, 1958). Camon Aznar assumes he did this for a patron named: Miguel del Rey, which name is written on the painting 10 ; but this mention could also be the name of the artist executing it. Jaume Arnaldin started as a pupil (24. 8. 1433 - 30. 9. 1435) of Pascual Ortoneda in Zaragossa 5. E. Young, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Catalogue of Spanish Paintings, introduction E. Conran, Durham 2nd Ed. 1988, inv nr BM 1082. 6. C. R. Post, The Catalan School in the Late Middle Ages. Spanish Painting, VII, I, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1938, p 820, fig 326 and see also Gaya Nuno, 1958, p 310 nr 2.728. 7. Exhibited : Pintura espanola Recuperada, SevillaMadrid 1997 8. J. Filguera Valverde, Dos tablos del Maestro de Torralba Siglo XV in El Museo de Pontevedra, 1972, XXVI pp 71. 9. Cat Exh. Peintures Primitives Aragonaises du XIV et XV e siècles, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau (15/1 - 15/3, 1971), pp 74-81. 10. C. Aznar, La Pintura Gotica en la Corona de Aragon, exh. Museo e Instituto de Humanidades Camon Aznar, Zaragoza, 10-11/ 1980, p 112 before working (9/1435 - 4/1442) with Blasco de Grañén as his first known assistant. He signed his Sant Ursula panel (Mus Nat Catalunya): JACOBUS ME FECIT. He appears in a document as master, being a witness to a commission given to Blasco de Grañén (28/8/1446). The present Calvary scene by the Torralba Master On the left of the Christ on the cross are the Magdalen and the Virgin, supported by one of the Holy Woman. On the right are Saint John, three soldiers and their lord, pointing at the dead Christ. A red Jewish flag with a scorpion and stars represents the troups of Herodes. The present Cavalry formed the central pinnacle of the retable. It the highest in quality of the known works by the Torralba Master. The iconography of the present Calvary scene and its pictorial style and ductus follow the initial concept of lluis Borrassà 11, as can be seen in the Calvary in the Vich Museum, and in the Retable of Sant Lorenç de Morunys 12 dated 1419, an adaption after Blasco de Grañén. For both stylistic and iconographic reasons, Maria del Carmen Lacarra-Ducay confidently attributes it to the early circle of Blasco de Grañén (1435 - 40), and more precisely to Juan Arnaldin, known as the Master of Torralba de Ribota. Its elaborated gilded and black fine architectural woodwork indicates that it was part of one of the large Marian altarpieces that have been dismantled before the second halve of the 19th century, when it appeared in the “de Witte collection”. This Calvary, datable early in the second quarter of the 15th century, is an integrated and upper-central part of a large “retablo mayor”, surrounded by narrative scenes detailing the life of a saint. It filled the main apse of the church. This Cavalry has a finely carved ‘chambrana’, a gabled, curving frame flanked by pinnacles, and highly ornate borders. After the carpenters had sculpted the decorative parts of the retablo, coats of gesso and gilding were generally applied before the painting stage. The ‘embutido (stamped modelling)’ is applied in the highly burnished gilded gesso to adorn the background, the gilded halloes around the saints heads and the borders. The paint medium is tempera (pigments & glue and egg-yolk binders. Generally, the main large subjects in the first tier and the “banco” of the retable are of the best quality. The second tier was usually left to collaborators in the studio. Such a big size Cavalry occupies generally the upper part of the central vertical section of the retable. The horizontal banco completely occupies the apse. The present banco, divided in two parts to be situated one above the other on a side of the tabernacle, follows the same stylistic and narrative concept of the artists of the circle of Lluis Borassa and Blasco de Grañén. The ductus and micro-style are extremely close to the works known by Blasco de Grañén, as we see by comparing them to the retable of Sant Martin of Tours. The donor figure in the painting in the Museum Lazarro Galdiano 11. L. Borrassa, Retable de Saint Jean Baptiste, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris inv nr… 12. J. Gudiol, 1971, op cit, nr 404 (Madrid) is executed by a hand, stylistically close to the present predellas. The characters’ haloes are executed in relief embossed stucco outlined by an external dotted line as in other works by Blasco y atelier, following the International Gothic Tradition ( until c 1445). Other details predellas The distribution of tasks in the workshop and the delegation of creativity in relation to the standard models is totally undocumented. Only the records of the commissions by the patrons and the payments are documented. At each retable many different hands collaborated. The old inscription “Blasco… Zaragoss” on the back (discovered by Mr Filip Moerman in 2019) is the first known mention of this name, which became only known a few decades ago. We thank Ph. D Alberto Velasco, former director of the Lleida Museum and the D r . Jan de Maere for the attibution to the Master of Torralba and authors of the entry.