Title

Polyptych of Isabella I of Castile

painter

Flandes, Juan de (Posible procedencia de los Países Bajos, ca. 1465 - Palencia, ca. 1519)

Sittow, Michel (Reval (hoy Tallin), Estonia, 1469 - Reval (Tallin), Estonia, ca. 1525)

Morros, Felipe (Illuminator and painter of Isabella the Catholic)

Generic classification

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Cultural context / style

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Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

See the destination of the tables of this set that are outside of Spain: Last Supper; Prayer in the Garden; Weddings at Cana; Coronation of thorns; Christ and the Samaritan woman; Christ appears to his mother alone; Christ carrying the cross; Christ appears to the Virgin with the Old Testament saved; Christ is nailed to the cross; Temptation of Christ; Ascension of Christ; Assumption of the Virgin.

When on November 26, 1504, Isabella the Catholic died in Medina del Campo, the executors of her will ordered that her belongings be gathered and proceeded to the auction, which took place just three months later in Toro (Zamora). The process was the usual one when a monarch died, since the goods were his and therefore he could dispose of them, and generally a large number of testamentary orders were left that required money for their fulfillment. The accountant Juan Velázquez was in charge of executing the sale, for which an appraisal of the objects was carried out. Among these were forty-seven tables that "are in a closet, all these tables are the same...". The valuation was made on February 10, 1505 by "Felipe yluminador" (Sánchez Cantón 1930, 97-133; 1950, 157-158 and 185-189; document in the Archivo General de Simancas, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, 1.ª época, leg. 192, s. f.).

Prior to this news we have no further data, which means that we cannot specify the origin, authorship or function of the tables, nor in all cases their subsequent fortune. Historians have often referred to the ensemble as an altarpiece, but if it was, nothing is said about it and attempts at reconstruction are not satisfactory, perhaps because at the death of the queen the ensemble had not been completed. The only certainty is that the paintings on oak panel were in a cabinet, so perhaps it is more appropriate to refer to them as pieces of a polyptych, probably unfinished. As a whole they were valued at 76,500 maravedís, an important amount but not so much if we take into account that there are almost fifty paintings. However, we must keep in mind the low appreciation for brush works at that time (Zalama 2008, 45-66), so that in the same auction a medium-sized tapestry, the Resurrection of Lazarus (393 x 466 cm. Zaragoza, Museo de tapices de la Seo) was valued at 150,000 maravedís (Zalama 2006, 38). With respect to other paintings in the same auction they were estimated as the most outstanding, and so they must have been considered because they were singular both in the description and in the price that was established, which varied from 2.5 to 6 ducats (Sánchez Cantón 1930, 97-133; 1950, 157-158 and 185-189). Although the cost was not excessive, an average of 1500 maravedís for each panel, most did not find buyers immediately. Only eleven were awarded at first: one to the warden of the Donceles, Diego Fernández de Córdoba, Christ and the Samaritan, and ten to the Marquise of Denia, Francisca Enríquez, wife of Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, II Marquis of Denia and later jailer of Juana I in Tordesillas (Zalama 2010, 282-290). The marquise acquired: Adoration of the Magi, Crucifixion, Descent from the Cross, Christ Carrying the Cross, Ecce Homo, Pietà, Christ is Nailed to the Cross, Flagellation, Anunciationand Christ Appears to the Virgin Alone.

In the following months, no more of the thirty-six paintings that remained in Juan Velázquez's hands were noted for sale. The lack of interest from prospective buyers must have meant their storage and perhaps deterioration, as four panels disappeared before mid-1506. Of these, the Doubt of Saint Tomás and the Doomsday have left no trace, but the other two, Christ Appears to His Mother with the Saved of the Old Testament and the Coronation of the Virgin, must have been sold, or given away, as they have come down to our days. The remaining thirty-two ended up in the hands of Margaret of Austria, the widow of Prince Don John, who had become Duchess of Savoy by marrying Duke Immanuel Philibert II, from whom she had also been widowed. In her palace in Mechelen they were inventoried in 1516 (Eichberger 2002, 234-248; Ishikawa 2004, 170). It was to these tables, at least in part, that Dürer referred when he visited the palace in Mechelen (Ullmann and Pradel 1978, 59: "Und den Freitag [June 7, 1521] wies mir Frau Margareth all ihr schön Ding; darunter sahe ich bei 40 kleiner Täfelein van Ölfarben, dergleichen ich von Reinigkeit und Güt darzu nie gesehen hab"). In a later inventory of the Duchess of Savoy's possessions made in 1524, only twenty-four boards were listed (Michelant 1871, 85-86), so that eight had disappeared for no known reason. When in 1530 Margaret of Austria died, she bequeathed the remaining paintings to her nephew, Emperor Charles V, who sent them to Spain.

The documentation known until a few years ago determined that the buyer of the thirty-two tables was Diego Flores, "conseiller, tresorier et recepveur" of the Duchess of Savoy, who paid for them 51,187 maravedís, although according to the appraisal they amounted to 51,562, that is, for the purchase of the lot he was reduced by 375 maravedís (one ducat). The former wife of Prince John, who knew about the paintings in question, would have been interested in them and ordered their purchase in March 1505, in the first weeks of the auction. However, this did not happen: the panels were not bought on the indicated date, nor were they acquired by Diego Flores on the instructions of Margaret of Austria. The thirty-two panels were acquired by Philip the Handsome at the end of 1506, a year and a half after the auction, during the brief period that he was king of Castile (Zalama 2006, 36-42). The documentation that had been handled was that of the settlement of the accounts, which is sparse in details when it does not obviate them. Thus, we read that "it was sold to the serenysimo rey don Felipe my very dear and beloved son, que santa gloria aya un libro briviario...", and in the following item "que se vendió a Diego Flores una tabla de la ystoria de Lucreçia que se mata con un punal en III U DCCL", and continues, "al dicho Diego Flores çyertas tablas de deboçyón en los preçios que adelante dirá en esta guisa". The list of the thirty-two tables with their prices follows, and without any separation it is linked to the sale of two books "por seys reales" (Sánchez Cantón 1950, 185-188). The document does not dwell on details but wants to balance the accounts with what leads to confusion about who, when and what was bought.

Fortunately, other documents are preserved that allow us to know what really happened. On August 30, 1506, in Tudela de Duero, King Philip I by means of a writ ordered his treasurer, Nuño de Gumiel, to pay Juan Velázquez, senior accountant and responsible for the almoneda of Isabella the Catholic, 63,672 maravedís "por çiertas cosas que del se compraron de las de la cámara de la reyna doña Ysabel en esta manera, por XXXII tablas de ymájenes de deboción LI U CLXXXVII medio...". In the same item it is specified that also "a painting of Lucreçia, ten ducats, and for a table guarneçida of silver and some visagras of some frechas" was bought and, what is definitive, the destination of these works is declared "which was given to Diego Flores waiter of the Duchess of Savoy to carry it" (Zalama 2006, 38-42). There is no doubt that this was the case, since in another later record Doña Juana, in reality Ferdinand the Catholic as governor of the kingdom in the face of the queen's inaction, approved the payment for what Philip I bought "from the chamber of King Ysabel my lady mother that holy glory aya in this way, for thirteen and two tables of images of deboçión LI U CLXXXVIII...". There is even another record, undoubtedly a copy, like the one hitherto known, in which an error has been made by the scribe: instead of thirty-two tablas it is said that there were twenty-three (Zalama 2006, 38-42). Apart from lapsus calami, what is beyond doubt is that the buyer was Philip the Handsome and that he did so in August 1506.

Regarding the authorship, the debate threatens to be endless. The appraisal was made by the painter Felipe Morras, an artist hardly known (Domínguez Casas 1993, 127-128), but we know that Queen Isabella also had two excellent painters: Michel Sittow and Juan de Flandes. The former entered the sovereign's service in 1492 and Juan de Flandes in 1496 (De la Torre 1954). Both remained in the queen's household until Isabella's death and the paintings of the polyptych are attributed to them, although there is no agreement as to the participation of each. It is generally assumed that it was John of Flanders who did most of them (Vandevivere 1985; Ishikawa 2004; Silva Maroto 2006; Weniger 2011), although the only two documented tables, a posteriori, refer to Michel Sittow, as his name appears in an inventory of Margaret of Austria's possessions made in 1516: "...ung double tableaul de la main de Michiel, de l'Assumpcion de Nostre Seigneur et de celle de Nostre Dame..." (Trizna 1976, 72-73). Although there are considerable formal differences between the panels in the set, it has been assumed that these are due to the evolution of Juan de Flandes (Vandevivere 1985; Ishikawa 2004; Silva Maroto 2006), who began work on the paintings as soon as he entered the queen's service in 1496 and continued until her death eight years later. However, the existence of Felipe Morras, or Morros, who in 1504 is also paid as a painter "A Felipe Morroz yluminador y pintor" (Archivo General de Simancas, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, 1.ª época, leg. 153, s. f.), allows us to think of his intervention, as Domínguez Casas and Weniger believe. In any case, there is agreement on the extraordinary quality of the paintings, whose fortune has been mixed, as only twenty-seven have been preserved.

The fortune of the panels has been uneven. Eleven passed into private hands (ten to the Marquise of Denia and one to the warden of the Donceles) in February 1505, of which some have been preserved to the present day. Of the remaining thirty-six, in little more than a year four disappeared, without us knowing the cause, of which two have survived to the present day, and the remaining thirty-two were acquired by Philip the Handsome, who sent them to his sister in the Netherlands. These were in 1516 in the possession of Margaret of Austria, but in a later account of 1524 only twenty-four are reflected. In both documents two panels are separated from the rest, the Ascension of the Lord and the Assumption of the Virgin, and it is stated in the 1516 inventory that it was "ung double tableau de la main de Michiel". The listing eight years later does not name the painter, but the two panels still formed a diptych separate from the rest. By 1527 eighteen paintings had been mounted forming a diptych-like altarpiece with nine of them on each sheet and with a silver frame, and on top were two other boards, thus grouping twenty (Ishikawa 2004 13-14). When Margaret of Austria died, Charles V, her nephew and heir, decided to send these twenty paintings to Spain, to his wife, Isabella of Portugal (Redondo Cantera 2023, 74-75). The latter kept them until her death in 1539 and arranged for them to pass to her daughters (Pérez de Tudela Gabaldón 2017, 657), but they ended up in the hands of Philip II at least the diptych with the two upper panels (Ishikawa 2004, 172), as this is reflected in the post mortem inventory of the king begun in November of 1598.

Of the tables that Charles V gave to his wife, fifteen are preserved in Patrimonio Nacional, currently on display in the Galería de colecciones reales, in Madrid. Five were broken up at different times: the Weddings at Cana and the Tentation of Christ left Spain at an unknown date, perhaps during the French invasion, and after passing through private collectors today the first is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the second in the National Gallery of Art, in Washington. Two others: Christ Appearing to St. Peter and Baptism of Christ, disappeared without subsequent news. The fifth, Last Supper, was seized from Joseph I Bonaparte in Vitoria, when he was leaving for France, and the government of Spain gave it as a gift to the Duke of Wellington, and today it is exhibited in his former home in London.

Not in all cases it is possible to follow in detail the evolution of the boards. In addition to the fifteen preserved in Spain there are twelve in different museums or collections, making a total of twenty-seven preserved, compared to twenty missing. These numbers, however, are questioned in a recent publication which argues that one of the two panels that formed the diptych of the master Michiel (Michiel Sittow), the Ascension of Christ (Lincolnshire, Collection of Earl of Yarbourough), is actually a copy of Sittow's painting, now lost, and therefore cannot be considered as belonging to the original set (Rojewski, 2025). The reasons given are of a formal nature, but they have consistency, although as long as it cannot be demonstrated that it is a copy, we also include it among the panels that belonged to Isabella the Catholic and were sold in Toro in 1505 and 1506.

Locations

• ca. 1496 - ca. 1504

  private collection

  Isabella I of Castile, Segovia (Spain) *

• 1505

  municipality

  Toro, Toro (Spain)

• 2023 - present

  museum

  Galería de las Colecciones Reales, Madrid (Spain)