The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, miniature by Fray Andrés de León [Madrid, c.1570]

THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST CATHERINE, ILLUMINATED BY FRAY ANDRÉS DE LEÓN

[Madrid, c.1570]

miniature on vellum, c.197×142mm, laid down on pasteboard, depicting the Virgin Mary holding the Christ-Child in the crook of her arm, as he places a gold ring on the finger of St Catherine, surrounded by Joseph(?) and five other women, that in the foreground presumably St Agnes, as she holds a lamb on a book, above an inscription in gold capitals: ‘Sponsabo te mihi in fide et scies qvia ego Dominvs. Osae [sic]. 2.’ (i.e. Hosea 2:20); with minor blemishes but overall in fine condition

ARTIST

Fray Andrés de León was a Hieronymite (i.e. a member of the Order of Saint Jerome) in the service of Philip II of Spain, from 1563 as “iluminador de Su Majestad”, in the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, where he died in 1580. He is the earliest and most important illuminator of the El Escorial school of illumination, which was based on the study of the miniatures by Giulio Clovio that were once located in the monastery; in the extraordinary collection of 214 illuminated Choir Books kept in the royal monastery, he executed many of the illuminations in the style of Giulio Clovio.

His masterpiece is the Capitulary illustrated by nineteen full-page miniatures – valued at more than three thousand ducats at the time – used by the Prior during the celebrations of solemn feasts; he also illuminated the Breviary of Philip II for the personal use of the king, and the precious ‘Evangelistero Rico’, intended for the main altar of the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Some surviving miniatures of this dispersed manuscript are currently framed as small pictures and hung in the rooms of the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia and Philip II in the Palacio Real de El Escorial. Another, depicting the Nativity of the Virgin, is in the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris (inv. M6071) (De Laurentiis, 2015, fig. 8). The present previously-unknown and unpublished miniature is therefore a valuable addition to this major Spanish artist’s oeuvre. We are grateful to Elena De Laurentiis for the attribution and information about the artist.

RELATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

The artist’s works are reproduced and discussed in the following:

Capitulario de Felipe II, facsimile edition (Madrid, 1995)

Libro de Horas de Felipe II, facsimile edition (Madrid, 1996)

De Laurentiis, ‘Giulio Clovio y la “escuela escurialense” de iluminación: nuevas miniaturas de Pedro Sánchez de Ezpeleta y de los frailes jerónimos’, Goya: Revista de Arte, 350 (2015), pp. 3–27 (available online through academia.edu)

De Laurentiis, ‘Lumi all’Escorial: I miniatori di Filippo II’, Alumina: Pagine miniate, 53 (2016), pp. 18–29 (available online through academia.edu)