Title
Saint Michel
painter
Ávila, Lorenzo de (Ávila, ca. 1492 - Toro, ca. 1570)
Generic classification
PaintingObject
PaintingDate
ca. 1550Century
Second half of the 16th c.Cultural context / style
RenaissanceMaterial
PanelProvenance
Possible origin from Castile and Leon (Castilla y León, Possible origin from Castile and Leon, Spain)Current location
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhague (Copenhague, Denmark)Inventory Number in Current Collection
KMS3926Object history
Fiz Fuertes (2003) attributed this panel to Lorenzo de Ávila, a painter who worked in the present-day provinces of Ávila, León, Valladolid, and Zamora. Its origin is unknown, but it may have been part of one of the now-lost altarpieces created by the artist, such as that of San Ildefonso (Toro), the convent of San Francisco (Toro), or San Miguel de Villavendimio (Zamora). In any case, the panel is believed to have left Spain at the beginning of the 20th century (Fiz Fuertes, 2023), a period during which a significant amount of heritage was sold off in Castile and León (Martínez Ruiz, 2009; Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2012). In 1932, the Statens Museum for Kunst (Denmark) acquired the piece, where it remains to this day.
Description
The panel depicts Saint Michael defeating the devil. The iconography of the reptile is striking, as it links the creature to the feminine realm through the depiction of breasts. Despite some colour loss in the painting, both the landscape and the figure of Saint Michael reveal the hand of Lorenzo de Ávila (Fiz Fuertes, 2023).
Locations
ca. 1550 - Early XXth c.
ca. 1932 - present
Bibliography
- FIZ FUERTES, Irune (2023): Pintura y pintores en Zamora (1525-1580). Un estudio del caso sobre la asimilación del Renacimiento en el noroeste castellano-leonés y su irradiación, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid.
- FIZ FUERTES, Irune (2003): Lorenzo de Ávila, Juan de Borgoña II y su escuela. La recepción del Renacimiento en Tierras de Zamora y León, Publicaciones del Centro de Estudios Benaventanos Ledo del Pozo, Benavente.
- MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2008): La enajenación del patrimonio en Castilla y León (1900-1936), tomo I, Junta de Castilla y León, Salamanca.
- MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2012): La destrucción del patrimonio artístico español. W. R. Hearst “el gran acaparador", Cátedra, Madrid.
Record manager
Isabel Escalera FernándezCitation:
Isabel Escalera Fernández, "Saint Michel" in Nostra et Mundi. Cultural Heritage from Castile and Leon around the world, Fundación Castilla y León, 2025. https://inventario.nostraetmundi.com/en/work/61
Lorenzo de Ávila. Saint Michael
Wikimedia Commons, Daderot. Dominio Público
Wikimedia Commons, Daderot. Dominio Público
