Calatayud School, Aragon, circa 1525-1530

Probably commissioned for a church in Calatayud, Spain;

José María de Palacio y Abárzuza (1866-1940), Conde de las Almenas, Madrid;

His sale, New York, American Art Association, 15 January 1927, lot 335 (as Calatayud School, early 16th century), for $750;

Eric de Kolb (1916-2001), New York, by 1953;

John and Johanna Bass, New York, by 1962;

By whom donated to the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, 1963 (inv. no. 63.37).

C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, Cambridge 1966, vol. XIII, p. 253, reproduced fig. 99 (under Uncertain Attributions);

The John and Johanna Bass Collection at Miami Beach, Miami 1973, p. 16, cat. no. 37 (as Aragonese School, early 16th century);

M. Russell, in Paintings and Textiles of the Bass Museum of Art: Selections from the Collection, M. Russell (ed.), Miami 1990, p. 84, reproduced (as Attributed to Aragonese School, 15th century).

This imposing fifteenth-century retablo is believed to have originally been commissioned in the second half of the 1520s for a church in Calatayud, in the Aragonese region of Spain. Comprising eleven distinct compartments, it survives as a rare, fully intact ensemble and serves as an example of the region’s rich traditional of visual theology, at once devotional and didactic.

The central panel features a mitred bishop saint (previously identified as Saint Augustine, but lacking definitive attributes). Depicted enthroned in an abbatial chair, he holds a crozier in one hand and an open missal in the other, symbols of both ecclesiastical authority and theological wisdom. He is flanked by Saints Cosmas and Damian, twin physician-martyrs of the early Church. The upper register illustrates two episodes from the bishop saint’s life framing a central Crucifixion: on the left, the saint preaches to a gathered crowd, while on the right, he lies on a bier, receiving the last sacraments and experiencing a vision, suggesting sanctity even in death. Above, an arched panel depicts God the Father with angels, who appear to preside over the events below, reinforcing a sense of divine orchestration and heavenly witness. At bottom, the predella presents three-quarter length figures of Saint James the Greater, the Virgin Mary, the Risen Christ, and Saint John the Evangelist. 

We are grateful to Antoni José i Pitarch, Professor of Art History at the University of Barcelona, for his assistance cataloguing this work.