The Master of Saint Nicholas

The Iglesia de San Esteban, Los Balbases, near Burgos, by 1933;
With Pieter de Boer, Amsterdam, as 'The Master of Burgos';
J. Adler Collection, Buenos Aires;
A. Proske Collection, Buenos Aires;
Anonymous sale ("Property from a Private Collection"), London, Sotheby's, 9 December 2004, lot 303, where acquired by the present owner.

C. R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, The Hispano-Flemish Style in North-Western Spain, Vol. IV, part I, Cambridge (Mass.) 1933, p. 272, reproduced p. 271, figure 95.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a thick panel, with two original joints. It has been cradled in the twentieth century, with several earlier forms of backing still visible, including various layers of dense priming, and matted webbing probably from the eighteenth century. The two outer planks have remained generally stable apart from a short crack at the top of the right plank, with any movement and worm damage confined to the sides of the central plank. There were also knots in this main plank, one of which was in the face of St Anthony, however the paint within the circular rim of the knot has remained perfectly intact. Another knot lower down in the drapery has also retained its central paint with retouching around the cracks. One further knot at the upper edge of the right plank in the silver brocade has lost its internal paint and been retouched. There is marked, writhing, uneven craquelure all down the side edges of the central plank, however amazingly the paint has largely remained strong and resilient, with certain losses. It would seem likely that the painting had spent much of its life in stable, cool surroundings, and it has not had excessive intrusion since. There is no apparently insecure paint. There is retouching down the joints, with two wide areas of retouched damage in the central plank at the top of each. The sides of the central plank further down have long thinner winding retouchings, sometimes over fillings. There are two small patches of retouched filling in the book, a patch in the lower wrist, and a substantial slanting dent between central and right planks in the lower drapery. Other horizontal knocks or dents can be found in the lower centre. The two side panels are remarkably undamaged, with a few tiny nicks at the middle of each edge. Most fortunately the centre of the main panel has also remained quite calmly undisturbed generally, so that the figure itself has largely escaped. The head and flesh painting overall is beautifully unworn, with the underlying hatching of the drawing emerging through the naturally increased translucency of the paint. The paint throughout has been beautifully preserved, with a rich unworn surface, even in the magnificent dark drapery or around any old flaking. The silver leaf of the brocade is tarnished to some extent. There are clear original incised lines around the periphery of the painting. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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."

The Master of Saint Nicholas (or El Maestro de San Nicolás) is named after an altarpiece dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Bari in the Iglesia de San Nicolás, Burgos. The present work was attributed to the artist by Post in 1933 (see Literature), along with two other panels, representing The Nativity and The Epiphany, also in the Church of San Esteban, in Los Balbases, which he believed all originally formed part of the same altarpiece. Although the oeuvre of The Master of Saint Nicholas has been reduced following a recent re-assessment of the artist by Dr. Pilar Silva Maroto, the present painting can be compared closely, for example, to his panel of The Preaching of Saint John the Evangelist, now in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao, in which the handling, the figure types, the punchwork to the saint's halo and the artist's predilection for the depiction of stained glass windows within the architectural setting, share clear affinities with the present work.¹

1. See La Pintura Gótica Hispano-Flamenca, Bartolomé Bermejo y su época, exh. cat., Barcelona, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, 26 February - 11 May 2003, pp. 378-383, cat. no. 52, reproduced p. 379.