Pere Vall (Spanish, fl. 1400-1425). Saint Peter and Saint Louis. Egg tempera and oil on pine panel with gold ground and ...

Description

Pere Vall (Spanish, fl. 1400-1425)
Saint Peter and Saint Louis
Egg tempera and oil on pine panel with gold ground and a shaped top in an engaged frame
35-1/8 x 25-1/2 inches (89.2 x 64.8 cm)

PROVENANCE:
(Probably) Church of San Miguel, Cardona, Spain;
James W. Barney (1878-1948), New York;
Schaeffer Galleries, New York;
Private collection, Green Brae, California, acquired from the above, 1981;
Thence by descent.

LITERATURE:
C.R. Post, A History of Spanish Painting, vol. 10, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950, pp. 298-299, fig. 112, illustrated.

Formerly known as the Master of the Cardona Pentecost, Pere Vall is one of the few identifiable artists active in Catalonia during the early 15th century. Although he may have trained in the Barcelona workshop of Pere Serra between 1405 and 1408, his known activity is limited to the nearby village of Cardona. He contributed works to the Church of San Miguel there, including his altarpiece to Santa Ana (still in situ).

The present work belongs to a group of panels which formed the lower register, or banco (predella in Italian), of one of Pere Vall's retablos, quite likely the ambitious one he created for the Church of San Miguel in Cardona. According to C.R. Post, six of the panels from this retablo belonged to James W. Barney of New York, a curator, collector and connoisseur. Two were sold at auction (one depicting the Madonna Dolorosa and the other Saints Anne and Lawrence) through Sotheby's, New York, January 28, 1999, lot 426. Two further works from the group are in the Clowes Collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Saints Michael and Amador and Saints Stephen and Mary Magdalene). A fifth from Barney's group (Saint Benedict and Onuphrius) was sold through Bonhams, London, July 6, 2016, lot 2. The present work is the sixth of the panels Barney owned. C.R. Post noted that it was rare in Spanish predellas of his time for sacred personages such as Saints Peter and Louis to be depicted as standing full-length. He also added that the gold backgrounds of Pere Vall's works from this retablo are incised with "the most delicate sort of foliate motif."




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