Glencairn Museum News | Number 2, 2021
The Glencairn Pietà. Gonçal Peris Sarrià and García Sarrià (?). Valencian School, c. 1435-40. 64”h x 48 1/4”w.(12.PP.372). To view a “zoomable” version of this painting on Google Arts & Culture, click here.
At the beginning of the 15th century, Valencia was one of the most important cities on the Iberian Peninsula. Situated on the Mediterranean with a flourishing commercial traffic, it experienced a century of cultural, literary, pictorial and architectural refinement that placed it at the forefront of the artistic avant-garde. In painting, the first years of the century were marked by the so-called international Gothic with the presence of painters of the highest level such as the Italian Gherardo Starnina and the German Marçal de Sax, who coexisted with very rich local workshops. From the 1430s onwards, the knowledge of Flemish painting began to be introduced with the novelties of the Eyckian style arriving on the Iberian Peninsula, precisely through Valencia. In 1431 King Alfonso the Magnanimous sent the Valencian painter Lluis Dalmau to train in Flanders, where he learned first-hand about the painting of Jan Van Eyck, and put it into practice on his return to Valencia in 1436. The Bruges painter Louis Alyncbrood settled in Valencia in 1439, helping to consolidate these Flemish innovations. A series of local painters, including Jaume Baço, alias Jacomart, and Joan Reixach, developed them, helping to make Valencia one of the pictorial centres from which this interest in Flemish ars nova spread. Catalan painters such as Jaume Huguet and Jaume Vergós came to train in Valencian workshops; later, other painters such as Bartolomé Bermejo began their pictorial careers in this city.
Figure 1: The Glencairn Pietà is located on the north wall of the Great Hall above the second-floor balcony.
The Pietà, or Imago Pietatis, had begun in Parisian schools and was a great success in the Crown of Aragon, particularly in the city of Valencia, where numerous documentary references and pictorial works have been preserved. The traditional representation begins with the Vir Dolorum, the bust of the deceased Christ standing upright inside the tomb. This motif became richer with the passage of time; the bust of Christ may be surrounded by the arms of the Passion, may be held by one or two angels, or may be flanked by the Virgin and Saint John.
The theme underwent certain variations at the beginning of the 15th century, becoming related to the Lamentation before the Dead Christ or Pietà of the Virgin. Essentially, a sorrowful Virgin gazes at the lifeless body of Jesus held in her arms. There are variations that incorporate the figure of Saint John holding Christ's head, the Magdalene at his feet, and, little by little, more figures that gradually enrich the scene, such as the Marys and the male saints who helped to unnail and bury Christ. This change may have been influenced by the spread of the Devotio Moderna, with a series of literary texts dedicated to the life of Christ and the Virgin that are particularly interested in marking aspects of the Passion and death of Jesus. Initially, the theme of the Pietà was used in works of art for private contemplation in the interior of domestic spaces such as small-format devotional oratories. Gradually, it was incorporated into the predellas of large altarpieces, placed in the centre, with the dead Christ showing the wounds of the Passion—supported or not by an angel, and possibly accompanied by the Virgin and Saint John. This iconography began to become increasingly important when it left the private sphere and the small space of the predella to become the main feature of some altarpieces. We have documentary evidence of an unpreserved altarpiece for Valencia commissioned in 1425 to the painter Miquel Alcanys with a central panel depicting the Pietà with the Marys, Saint John, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus. This introduction of the male figures of Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and others around the Pietà was decisive for the outspread of a much richer iconography on the theme of the Lamentation.
Figure 2: Pietà from the altarpiece of Saint Martin, Saint Ursula and Saint Anthony Abbot by Gonçal Peris and Garcia Peris Sarrià (?), c. 1435-40. Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia.
The Glencairn Pietà is the earliest surviving large panel to include this more daring compositional variant and elevate it to a monumental scale. It may have occupied the space at the back of a chapel as we see from the peculiar shape with pointed arch, as it was not part of an altarpiece. It is a scene reduced to a minimal spatial reference of a rocky promontory with sparse vegetation and the cross in the background. The Virgin is situated holding in her lap the body of the dead Christ with the wounds in his side, hands, and feet still bleeding. Saint John holds the head, and at his feet the Magdalene is recognisable by her long hair and the gesture of gentleness with which she holds one of Christ's feet. Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas accompany them. Standing in the background are four male figures, male saints who helped in the descent. One of them, Nicodemus, holds in his hands a jar that must have contained the mixture of myrrh and aloes used to bury the body of Christ (Jn 19:39-40). Joseph of Arimathea holds the cloth used to take Christ down from the cross (Mk 15:46 and Mt 27:59). Other secondary figures, two servants or collaborators, are present, one holding an instrument used to remove the nails from the cross and the nails themselves in his hands, and another one who completes the scene. The gilded background with richly carved vegetal designs helps to achieve the timeless atmosphere that characterises the work. It is a very elaborate and fine type of burin background that is repeated in other Valencian panels of the period with various floral variations.
Figure 3: Detail of the Glencairn Pietà with John, Jesus, and the Virgin.
Figure 4: Detail of the Glencairn Pietà showing a bearded man, perhaps a servant, holding in his hands nails from the cross and also the instrument used to remove them.
The great American historian Chandler Rathfon Post paid attention to the Glencairn Pietà in 1947. He indicated its Valencian provenance and related it to the so-called master of Martí de Torres. This master was the author of the altarpiece of Saint Martin, Saint Ursula, and Saint Anthony Abbot from the Carthusian monastery of Portaceli (Valencia), commissioned by the nobleman Berenguer Martí de Torres and his wife Ursula Aguilar, now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia (Figure 5).
Figure 5: The altarpiece of Saint Martin, Saint Ursula and Saint Anthony Abbot by Gonçal Peris and Garcia Peris Sarrià (?), c. 1435-40. Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia.
For a long time the altarpiece commissioned by Martí de Torres had been attributed exclusively to Gonçal Peris (1380-1451), a painter who had trained in the international Gothic workshop of Pere Nicolau (d. 1390-1408) and would come into prominence after his death. In some of his works, such as the diptych of the Annunciation, today in the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia, we can admire the same delicate vegetal patterns in the gilded background as can be seen in the Pietà at Glencairn.
Figure 6: Detail of Annunciation Diptych with vegetal patterns against a gilded background, Gonçal Peris, c. 1410, Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia.
Figure 7: Detail of Glencairn Pietà with vegetal patterns against a gilded background.
But today, the altarpiece of Martí de Torres is attributed to the workshop of Gonçal Peris in the final stage of his career, with the collaboration of another painter, probably younger—perhaps his nephew García Peris Sarriá (d. 1432-1440) or a painter with knowledge of Flemish innovations, as shown by the treatment of certain figures, especially the Saint Anthony Abbot. The same monumental and sober line of the figure of Saint Anthony Abbot is found in the Glencairn Pietà, which is why both works are considered to have been painted by the same artist. The possibility that it was García Peris Sarriá would imply that it must have been painted before May 1440, the date of his death. The monumentality and severity of the male figures in the Glencairn Pietà are related to Eyckian models, particularly evident in the bearded man holding the nails (Figure 8), who recalls figures from the Old Testament and the group of pilgrims in the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in Ghent (Figure 9), and also figures included in Lluis Dalmau's painting on his return from Flanders, such as Saint Andrew in the Virgin of the Consellers in Barcelona.
Figure 8: Bearded man in the Glencairn Pietà.
Figure 9: Detail of pilgrim from the Ghent Altarpiece, Jan Van Eyck, c. 1425-1432.
In addition, in the Glencairn Pietà, St. Joseph of Arimathea in strict profile recalls some of the figures in the Ghent Altarpiece (Figures 10-12).
Figure 10: St. Joseph of Arimathea in the Glencairn Pietà.
Figure 11: Detail of the Adoration from the Ghent Altarpiece, Jan Van Eyck, c. 1425-1432.
Figure 12: Detail of the Adoration from the Ghent Altarpiece, Jan Van Eyck, c. 1425-1432.
The figure of Saint John with his curly hair and sorrowful face is also reminiscent of these Eyckian models, such as the saint John in the Crucifixion in the Berlin Museum (Figures 13-14).
Figure 13: Saint John in the Glencairn Pietà.
Figure 14: Detail of Saint John from the Crucifixion, Jan van Eyck, c. 1435, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Indeed, the gesture of Saint John holding the head of Christ is linked to Eyckian models found in Books of Hours, such as the well-known Turin-Milan Book of Hours (Figure 17). This motif is also found in a number of Valencian paintings of the period. It is taken up again in the scene of the Pietà in the so-called Corella Triptych, a work now in the Prado Museum, which has been attributed to the circle of the painter Lodewijk Allyncbrood (Figure 16). Luis Alimbrot, as he is known in Valencian documentation, is a painter who trained in Bruges between 1432-37 and came to Valencia in 1439. Recently the authorship of the Corella Triptych has been called into question and it has been thought that it was a piece made in Bruges by a master miniaturist linked to the school of Amiens, the master of the Collins Hours, although not all of the scientific community agrees with this change of attribution. For some historians it is still a work made in the city of Valencia, commissioned by the Count of Cocentaina, Eximén Rois de Corella, to a master of Flemish training such as Alimbrot. Alimbrot is also attributed with a Pietà from a private collection in Milan, in which the characteristic gesture of Saint John’s holding the head is once again repeated (Figure 18).
Figure 15: Saint John holding the head of Christ the Glencairn Pietà.
Figure 16: Pietà, detail of the Triptych with the scenes from the Life of Christ, attributed to the Master of the Collins Hours or to Luis Alimbrot, Prado Museum, c. 1440-1450.
Figure 17: Pietà, attributed to Luis Alimbrot, Valencia, c. 1450, private collection, Milan.
Figure 18: Pietà, Turín-Milan Book of Hours, Hand H or Jan Van Eyck, c. 1435-1440, now lost.
It has been suggested that the Glencairn Pietà may have been linked to the Franciscan Trinity monastery, a royal foundation due to the patronage of Queen Maria of Castile, wife of Alfonso the Magnanimous, outside the city walls. It had a chapel in its church dedicated to the Pietà, and the chronicles recount the fervour and veneration that the city's inhabitants professed. Although we are not sure about its exact provenance, it was undoubtedly a panel that was admired by later Valencian painters, as evidenced by the various copies that follow it with more or less variations. Some painters such as Joan Reixach (act. 1431-1486) took the idea with quite a few variations, as it can be appreciated in a Pietà from a large predella with five Passion scenes now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia, that came from a retable of the Carthusian monastery of Portaceli (Figure 19). The group of Christ, Saint John, the Virgin, and the Marys, closely follows the composition. But the male protagonists are somehow more varied, and the background is filled with a rich urban landscape.
Figure 19: Pietà, detail from a predella of the Carthusian Monastery of Portaceli (Valencia), Joan Reixach, c. 1450, Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia.
But other Pietàs in Valencia look carefully to the Glencairn model. A large-format Pietà (205 x 220 cm) that even retains the pointed form is now in the sacristy of Valencia cathedral, although it was originally located in the church of San Juan del Hospital (Figure 20). It is a work made on canvas, perhaps towards the end of the 15th century, with very few variants. It has the same number of figures, with Christ on the Virgin's lap, Saint John holding the head, the Magdalene at his feet, somewhat simplified, and the two Marys, who modify the original arrangement, as they are both looking at Christ. The male figures are slightly similar: Nicodemus with the jar of ointment, Joseph of Arimathea with the linen cloth in his arms, the servant with the tongs and hammer, and another servant next to Nicodemus, who seems to be holding a key or perhaps the nails. There are variations such as the cross with two ladders resting on the arms and the presence of haloes above all the heads, as well as the background of clouds and sky replacing the gilding.
Figure 20: Pietà, unknown artist, second half of the XVth c., Valencia Cathedral.
Another much smaller panel in the cathedral (113 x 73 cm), by a much less gifted painter, also follows the model of the Glencairn Pietà, as can be seen in the figure in rigorous profile holding the white canvas (Figure 21). One of the Marys changes her position, standing at the back; in addition, the servant holding the tongs and another male figure is added.
Figure 21: Pietà, unknown artist, second half of the XVth c., Valencia Cathedral Museum.
We can find still another work, from the Hallsborough collection, which was auctioned at Finarte Milan in 1998, as Scuola spagnola del XVI secolo (Figure 22). It is a Valencian work that incorporates the same number of figures with a similar arrangement, although with variations in the attributes and in the marked haloes of all of them. However, they closely follow the Glencairn model, again particularly evident in Joseph of Arimathea, the figure in profile holding the canvas. Its background is also gilded, and it seems to be from the beginning of the 16th century.
Figure 22: Pietà, unknown artist, first half of the XVIth c., private collection.
Figure 23: Joseph of Arimathea in the Glencairn Pietà.
Figure 24: Joseph of Arimathea; see Figure 20.
Figure 25: Joseph of Arimathea; see Figure 22.
Figure 26: Joseph of Arimathea; see Figure 21.
The success of variant copies that followed the model of Glencairn Museum’s Pietà shows how important it was in Valencian painting at the time. It helps us to understand the novelties and changes that were introduced into Gothic painting in the mid-15th century by incorporating the knowledge of Flemish models. They also demonstrate the interest in the theme of the Lamentation of the Dead Christ, which had an extraordinary development in the area.
Mercedes Gómez-Ferrer
Professor of Art History
University of València (Spain)
*This article was done under the Research Project, GEOART, HAR-2017- 83070-P, ‘Geographies of Artistic Mobility. Valencia in Modern Times,’ of the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain.
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