Title

Two Apostles (unidentified apostle -St Mark?- and St Thomas)

Gallego, Fernando (Salamanca. Active 1468-1507)

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Object history

This is one of the twenty-six surviving panels from the former main altarpiece of the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, all of which are now in The University of Arizona Museum of Art. This altarpiece was one of the most important examples of a Late Gothic Castilian pictorial altarpiece, executed, according to an inscription, between 1480 and 1488. Although it was immediately attributed to Fernando Gallego, a painter based in Salamanca, it was soon realised that there was a plurality of styles that led to think, at first, of the participation of collaborators and, finally, of the participation not simply of collaborators, but of two different workshops (a common procedure in large works such as this one): Gallego's and that of Master Bartolomé, whose style, despite his distinctive personality, is so close to Gallego's that it is suggested that he could be an emancipated disciple of his or an artist trained in the same sources.

The altarpiece, of whose original structure it can only be stated that it was huge and had seven vertical lanes, but not how many panels it had or how they were arranged, was painted for the original Romanesque chevet of the cathedral. When this was demolished in the 16th century, it was reinstalled in the new Renaissance chevet, where it remained until the beginning of the 19th century. Once it was dismantled, it is known that there were twenty-nine panels (that is, three more than are currently preserved in Tucson). The chapter of Ciudad Rodrigo rejected several offers of acquisition from institutions with a cultural and historical-artistic interest in the panels, finally selling them in 1879 to an dealer in Madrid (José Fallola), who immediately sold them to an dealer in London (Sir John Charles Robinson). Twenty-six panels remained at that time. In 1882 they were acquired by Sir Francis Cook, a regular client of Robinson, who installed them in the family mansion, Doughty House, near London. They remained in the possession of the Cook family until the middle of the 20th century. They were then offered for sale by the firm M. Knoedler and Co., New York, and in 1954 were acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which undertook their restoration and in 1957 gave them to the museum of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Description

The altarpiece must have had a large number of panels, which made it possible to develop an extensive iconographic programme centred on the life of Christ, preceded by the Creation and concluded by the Last Judgement. It is deduced that it had seven vertical lanes because the panel with which we are now dealing is one of the three surviving panels of the predella, each with a pair of apostles, so there must have been six panels of similar characteristics to allow the depiction of the twelve apostles, plus an additional panel for the central lane (perhaps a Man of Sorrows?). In 1958 Gaya Nuño published a half panel of the predella with the depiction of St Paul that was in the Madrid art market, but nothing has been heard of its whereabouts since. The present panel depicts an unidentified apostle and Saint Thomas. Some scholars identify the former with St Mark because he is holding a book that would allude to his Gospel, but it must be remembered that St Mark was in no case one of the twelve apostles and that the book is a generic attribute of the apostles, making this identification untenable. The only apostles who were, at the same time, evangelists were St John the Evangelist (represented in another panel) and St Matthew, who would be the only candidate to be identified with this apostle if it is assumed that the book necessarily identifies an evangelist. The identification of St Thomas, on the other hand, is unquestionable, as he holds the Virgin's girdle, alluding to the one Mary gave him during her Assumption so that this apostle, who tended to disbelief, would believe what he was seeing. The attribution of the predella panels to Fernando Gallego is unanimous.

Locations

• XV^th c. - 1879

  cathedral

  Cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, Ciudad Rodrigo (Spain)

• 1879

  dealer/antiquarian

  José Fallola, Madrid (Spain) *

• 1879 - 1882

  dealer/antiquarian

  Sir John Charles Robinson, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1882 - Mid XX^th c.

  private collection

  Doughty House, London (United Kingdom) *

• Mid XX^th c. - 1954

  dealer/antiquarian

  M. Knoedler and Company, New York (United States) *

• 1954 - 1957

  private collection

  Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York (United States) *

• 1957 - present

  museum

  The University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona (United States)