Master Of The Death Of Saint Nicholas Of Münster

THE MASTER OF SAINT NICHOLAS ACTIVE IN BURGOS FROM 1465 - 1490/1500 measurements note 86.8 by 58 cm.; 34 1/4 by 22 7/8 in. oil on panel PROVENANCE 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. LITERATURE AND REFERENCES 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. CATALOGUE NOTE 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.

The Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Mnster (active inthe second half of the 15th century) Calvary signed (?) 'NVS' oil on panel 50¾ x 70¾in. (129 x 200cm.) Provenance with Kleinberger Galleries. L. Tabourier; (+) sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 20-22 June, 1898, lot193, as École Allemande, 'Panneau des plus remarquables' (17,000francs to Durand-Ruel). with André J. Seligmann, Paris, 1938 (Paysages de 1400 á 1900, 1June-1 July 1938, no. 16, as Maitre NVS and signed NVS). Deposited at the Louvre by the Office des Biens privés in 1951, MNR622 by whom returned to the heirs of André Seligmann,1999. Literature C.G. Heise, Norddeutsche Malerei, 1918, p. 143, under no.29. W. Schöne, Dieric Bouts und seine Schule, 1938, p. 122 as Rhenishschool, circa 1480. A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, VI, 1954, pp. 53-4., fig.81. H. Adhémer, Les Primitifs Flamands - Le Louvre, 1, 1962, p. 37, no.7 as Rhenish school circa 1480. A. Stange, Kritisches Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder vorDrer, I, 1967, no. 373. A.Brejon de Lavergnée and D. Thiebaut, Catalogue sommaire illustrédes peintures du musée du Louvre, II, Italie, Espagne, Allemagne,Grande-Bretagne et divers, 1981, p. 32, illustrated. Exhibited Dortmund, Stadttisches Museum Dortmund, 1913. Zurich, Kunsthaus, Tafelbilder Des 15 und 16 Jahrhunderts, May-July1934, p. 32, no. 82, pl. XXXIII as Low German, circa 1480. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tentoonstelling van Oude Kunst uit hetbezit van den Internationalen Landel, July-September 1936, p. 2 no.5 as Rhenish school, circa 1480. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Exposition des 700 tableaux tirés desréserves, 29 June-29 July 1960, no. 4, as École du Rheininférieur. Paris, Musée du Louvre, from 1951-1999. Lot Notes The identity of the Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas ofMunster has not yet been revealed, but it was Stange (op. cit.,1954, pp. 51-4) who first established an oeuvre for the artist. Theappellation given the anonymous painter results from a wing of analtarpiece in the Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Mnster, depicting theDeath of Saint Nicholas of Mnster on the outside and Saint Georgeslaying the Dragon on the inside, which was previously in theChurch of Buldern in Westphalia. Stange suggests that this is theearliest painting by the master and he dates it to circa 1460.Other paintings that he adds to the artist's oeuvre are the leftwing of an altarpiece with Christ carrying the Cross on the insideand the Holy Family on the outside, in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum,Cologne (op. cit., 1967, p. 118, no. 374), The Perpetual Virginityof Mary, in Pfarrhaus, Munchengalbach-Nuwkerk (ibid., no. 375), theVirgin and Child in a private collection, Regensberg-Nuwkerk(ibid., no. 376) and a Virgin and Child, dated 1478, in a privatecollection, Kreuzlingen. Unquestionably, the Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Mnsterhad very close connections to the Master of the Kalkerer Death ofMary, whose name also derives from a painting in the WestfälischesLandesmuseum, Mnster (see P. Pieper, Die deutschen,niederländischen und italienischen Tafelbilder bis um 1530, 1990,p. 366, no. 173, illustrated). The rendering of the costumes, theclarity of forms and even some of the faces are closely related inboth paintings. However the relation of his figures to the spacethey occupy is more sophisticated than those in the paintings ofthe Master of the Kalkarer Death of Mary, where the walls of theroom appear to have been painted as an afterthought to thefigures. Stange (op. cit., 1954) argues that the attribution of the presentpainting to the Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Mnster isunquestionable and that it shows all the distinctive details of themaster, namely the lively realism and the recognizable figuraltypes. The knight on the white horse is comparable to the SaintGeorge and the relationship of the figures to the landscape is alsosimilar to his other paintings. Stange dates the present picture tothe 1460s, on the basis that stylistically it is closest to theDeath of Saint Nicholas of Mnster than his other paintings,especially the Kreuzlingen Virgin and Child which is dated 1478.The compartmental landscape, the lively genre figures at the baseof the two crosses which in themselves act as borders and thepyramidal grouping of the mourners point to a source close toDieric Bouts. It is tempting to suggest that it derives from a lostCalvary by Bouts which was completed by 1460 at the latest and wasreferred to in 1464 by the Master of the Lyversbergishen Passion.The seated Magdalen also seems to derive from Dieric Bouts' Pietàin the Louvre, Paris. Ludwig Mayer (private correspondence, 15 November 1999) agrees withboth Stange and Schone (loc. cit.) that this highly important paneloriginates from the Rhine and that the painter very likely spenthis formative years in the Netherlands, where a strong influencecan clearly be seen. He suggests an area in the north, betweenCologne and Kleve. This would include Wesel, where Derick Baegert(1450-1575) worked and died. It would seem very likely thatBaegert, who was clearly influenced by his Westphaliancontemporaries, also reacted to the Netherlandish paintingtradition through the Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas ofMnster and that he may have been his pupil. About twenty yearslater Baegert painted several very similar subjects, which areextremely close to the present painting, such as the Calvary in thePropsteikirche, Dortmund, circa 1470-5 (fig. 1) and the centralpanel of an altarpiece of the same subject in the Alte Pinakothek,Munich, executed circa 1500 (fig. 2; see I. Lbbeke, TheThyssen-Bormemisza Collection -- Early German Painting, 1350-1550,pp. 127, 131, figs. 2, 6). Interestingly, Stange speculates thatthe initials to be found on the leg of the right-hand foregroundfigure in the painting ('NVS'), questionably a form of signature,could be those of a painter belonging to the Snackert family, whohad links to Wesel. As early as 1427 Dieric Snackert had painted analtarpiece for the Matenakirche in Wesel. The strong Rhenish feel of the present panel, with its widelandscape under a golden sky, can be seen in two sides of analtarpiece depicting the Virgin and Child with Saints Anne,Christopher, George and Peter and Saints Clare, Bernard,Bonaventura and Francis, attributed to the Master of the WeepingMary, in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (see the catalogue ofthe exhibition, Stefan Lochner, Meisterm zu Köln, 3 December1993-February 1994, p. 378, no. 69, figs. 69a-b). Indeed, Meyerstresses the closeness of this painting to the present one, notonly in the shape of the women's faces, but also in the measuredmovement of the figures and the fluttering flag of the standardbearer. While the identity of the painter of the present work remainsanonymous, the painting itself is undoubtedly a pivotal work in thehistory of the Northern Renaissance, uniting aspects ofNetherlandish painting with Rhenish art and, in particular, withthe art of Derick Baegert, the most important painter of the latefifteenth century in the Rhineland.