Attributed to The Alcira Master Active in Valencia during the second quarter of the 16th century

P.M. Ibanez Jiminez, "Una Navidad de Fernando de Llanos", in Galeria Antiquaria, pp. 72-73.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The poplar panel has been reinforced horizontally with two tapering battens. The vertical central join has been reinforced. There are unstable vertical splits lower right and left. The thin and compromised paint layer in the flesh tones has been restored e.g. Madonna and Joseph, the shepherds and the angels at the top. There are also retouchings where some of the dark cracks are raised and abraded. Tonal improvement if the discoloured varnish were removed."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Although previously attributed to Fernando Llanos, we are grateful to Dr. Fernando Benito Doménech of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia for proposing an alternative attribution to the Alcira Master on the basis of photographs. The Alcira Master was an anonymous pupil of Llanos and Fernando Yañez and was first so-named and identified by Frans Post.¹  The master takes his name from the town of Alcira where there is a large retable in the church of S. Agustín depicting the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Resurrection, the Dormition, the Pentecost and the Coronation. The present work may be best compared on a stylistic basis with the Epiphany of the retable which is reproduced in Post,² and with another work, the wing of a triptych, depicting the Magdalene washing Christ's feet, in the Museo de la Catedral, Valencia.³

1. See F. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, vol. XI, Cambridge (Mass.) 1953, pp. 289-296.
2. Idem, p. 293, fig. 115.
3. Idem, p. 295, fig. 116; or, for a colour reproduction, see F.B. Doménech et al., La Memoria Recobrada, exhibition catalogue, Valencia and Salamanca 2005-06, p. 238, reproduced p. 239.