Pere Lembrí

MM Bacri Frère collection, 1925;
Probably with Manuel Gonzalez, Madrid.

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, D'Art Ancien Espagnol, 1925 (as part of a still complete altarpiece).

Each is made up of two panels: a long single panel and a smaller addition at the lower edge. The wood is stable. Previously there seems to have been protective gesso-like layer onthe verso, it has since removed, btu as a result the verso is slightly rough in texture. Both panels have identical engaged frames carved into the wood, with an attractive Gothic arch top. There is delicate punchwork around the inside edge of the carved frame. The paint surface has some small cracks in the gold and in the female saint the red ground is visible. There is some worn paint at the lower part of her skirt, thus the pattern has become difficult to distinguish. However the colours in general are still bold and highly attractive, especially the red of her skirt, the grey blue of his cassock, and the red of his book. Inspection under Ultraviolet light reveals: in the Saint Dominic four tiny spots of overpainting in his cassock, and a larger repaired patch at the lower part of his robe, measuring 2x2 cm. There is old infilling of craquelure in the upper part of his body and face. In the female saint, UV light shows repair upper right of panel, and inside the apex of the arched frame, these have slightly dicoloured and are visible to the naked eye. Repainting in in small areas on her forehead, nose, neck and hair, and in two small areas at the lower part of her skirt. Repairs to chips along the frame. On both panels, there is also a line of repair along the join with the smaller panel on the lower edge. These matching panels are a super pair, in their eye-catching elongated format and corresponding poses.
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We are grateful to Professor Antoni José i Pitarch for proposingng the attribution. The subject of a recent monographic exhibition in Morella, the artist's distinctive hand is recognisable for the large facial features and slight frames of his characters.¹ Pere Lembrí worked in the hilltop towns of Morella and Tortosa. A painter of altarpieces, his style clearly references the beginnings of the International Gothic movement in Valencia.

These upright panels decorated the pilasters of a large altarpiece and may be compared with those of the artist's Retablo de los Santos Juanes in Albocásser, church of Sant Joan, which are dated by Pitarch to 1400-10.²

Chandler Post associated the name 'Domingo Valls' (whose name appears here on the frames) with a number of works by Pere Lembrí, based on assumptions that have since been challenged by modern scholarship.³

1. Valencia, Fundación Blasco de Alagón; see A. J. i Pitarch, Una memoria concreta, Pere Lembrí, exhibition catalogue, Valencia 2004.
2. Ibid., pp. 188-191.
3. See C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, vol. III, Harvard 1930, pp. 112- 113.