Juan Correa de Vivar

Probably commissioned by the Iglesia Parroquial de Meco, Madrid, in 1537;
In the collection of the family of the present owners for at least sixty years.

I. Mateo Goméz, in Boletín del Seminario de Arte y Arquelogía de Valladolid, 1991.

The support appears to consists of four vertical panels cradled to the reverse. There is an old crack of approx 17 cm upper left running down from the top edge. The paint surface is secure and appears to be in very good condition under a dirty yellowed varnish. Retouching work is visible to the naked eye along the aforementioned crack but the thick varnish severely hampers inspection under UV light. Offered in stained wood and gilt frame with painted decorations.
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This exceptional and well preserved work was painted by Correa da Vivar towards the end of the 1530s, soon after he left the workshop of Juan de Borgoña, and has been identified by Dr. Isabel Mateo Gómez as probably one of the missing panels from the altarpiece depicting scenes from the life of Christ in the church of Meco, Madrid. The altarpiece probably originally consisted of at least twelve works of this size, of which only six are still in situ; an Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Epiphany, Road to Calvary, and a Lamentation. Dr. Mateo has also identified a Crowning with thorns and a Flagellation (Valladolid, Museo Arqueológico; see Fig. 1) as further missing panels¹ while Chandler Post, in 1950, suggested that a Circumcision in a Madrid private collection had also once belonged to the series.²  The altarpiece was completed in March 1538 at a cost of 225,000 maravedís, with the artist receiving payment in May of that year.

1.  I. Mateo Gómez, Juan Correa de Vivar, Madrid 1983, reproduced plate XII.
2.  C. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, Cambridge (Mass.) 1970, reproduced fig. 173.