Valencian School, 1553 [Recto] and Attributed to The Alcira Master (active Valencia 1520s-1550s) [Verso]

This double-sided panel is part of a large, dismembered altarpiece depicting the Condemnation and Martydom of St. James the Greater (recto) and Scenes from the Life of St. James the Greater (verso).  Three other panels from this same altarpiece can be found in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin¹ depicting The Martyrdom of St. James the Greater (recto) and The Holy Kinship: Maria Cleopas and Alphaeus with their Children James the Less, Joseph, Simon and Jude Thaddaeus (verso); Landscape with an Angel Bearing the Crown of Martyrdom (recto) and St. James the Greater and Hermogenes (verso); and Landscape with Canopy and a Legionary (recto) and The Apparition of the Virgin to St. James the Greater (verso).

The present panel fragment recto depicts Herod Agrippa, his figure cut off above the shoulders, giving the order for the saint’s execution.  The verso depicts the family and ancestors of St. James.  As Rosemarie Mulcahy points out (see Literature), the dismemberment of the altarpiece, done in the 19th century, was executed with no regard for what was originally the more important side and seems to have been more concerned with cutting out, presumably for ease of transport, the four scenes on the reverse side.  This panel and the three Dublin panels are the work of two distinctly different artistic personalities.  The recto is clearly by a more skilled hand, someone with an accomplished technique and influenced by Italian Mannerism.  The paintings on the verso are cruder in execution and more consistent in style with works by the so-called Alcira Master, named for five scenes from the Virgin’s life formerly in the church of St. Augustine in Alcira and now in the Pares Escolapis, Gandía, Valencia.  For a depiction of a possible reconstruction of all four recto panels, see R. Mulcahy, op.cit., Fig. 61.

All four panels were brought from Spain by Grieve D. Christie (see Provenance), a cork merchant in Dublin.  They stayed together until a subsequent owner, Mr. O'Hea, sold them separately with the present panel alone going to Dr. Joseph E. Kenny.

According to legend, St. James the Greater, patron saint and protector of Spain where he is known as Santiago, preached the gospel there.   After his martyrdom in Jerusalem, his body was brought to Galicia and in the Middle Ages a shrine was established at Santiago de Compostela which became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Christendom.

1 R. Mulcahy, op. cit. , Dublin 1988, pp. 67-73, cat. nos. 354, 4025 and 4026. reproduced Figs. 53-55 and 57-59.