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Premium Aragonese school. Gothic. Late 15th century.
Aragonese school. Gothic. Late 15th century.
Lot no. 16
Description
Aragonese school. Gothic. Late 15th century.
'The Preaching of Saint Peter'
Tempera on panel.
77 x 49,5 cm.
With the schematic style of a medieval miniature, as if it were a fresco, the vivid colours of this late 15th-century panel stand out, with very marked lines in the figures, and with great expressiveness in the faces and spaces, narrating a medieval classic, ‘The Preaching of Saint Peter’.
It is very reminiscent of a panel by Pedro Serra (Barcelona 1345-Barcelona 1405) from the second half of the 14th century, acquired in 1959 by the Bilbao Museum and which we can now admire in situ, with the same composition and scene, the same tightly packed composition of a listening crowd and the same architectural background of a church.
Two perfectly differentiated parts can be discerned. On the left is The Apostle on a pulpit, in an attitude of preaching the word of God to a crowd that is huddled on a lower level, on a chequerboard paved floor, in a tight but harmonious composition depicting a chapel or side of a church, near an apse. The crowd is concentrated there, men in the foreground, women in the background, with their headdresses and head coverings. Their eyes show astonishment and they are silently communicative.
The composition reveals a certain ‘horror vacui’, since all the figures listening to St. Peter occupy almost the entire space.
The artist avoids cutting the composition of his scene with a column or other architectural element, so as not to disturb the delicate, floating effect of his painting.
The background of the scene is of an architectural nature, a Gothic panel of apses, joined above in projecting ribs like petals, with a closed tabernacle or expositor in the centre, in fine gold, a focus for his preaching. The gilding work lacks the definition of the carving and detailing in ochre on the gold (lines, columns and windows can be glimpsed, etc.), possibly due to losses caused by the weakness of the binder used to mix with the tempera.
It must have hung on the wall of the interior of a church, with other paintings or, most likely, the back of an apse.
Provenance: Private collection. Spain.
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