(active in Bruges, late 15th Century)
The Resurrection of Christ,
oil on panel, 144.5 x 85 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Madrid;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Isabel Mateo Gómez for confirming the attribution of the present painting and for her help in cataloguing this lot.

Christ is raised up above a porphyry and white marble sepulcher, before soldiers guarding the tomb, some of whom look on astonished while others sleep. Christ is rendered with elongated proportions, he is covered by a white loin cloth, and wears a red-lined, brown-gold brocade mantle. In his left hand he holds a cross while he forms a gesture of blessing with his other hand.

The scene takes place in an open landscape with a city in the distance which may be identified as Toledo, accessed by the Moorish Porta de Bisagra flanked by cylindrical towers, also called the gate of Alfonso VI. On the right is probably the Alcántara bridge and the castle of San Servando.

The work of the Master of San Ildefonso is characterised by the long, elongated proportions of his figures with their chiseled anatomies and cadenced movements, such as in the present painting. The faces of his figures´ have straight noses and eyes marked by shadow. Here Christ´s mantle is drawn in motion with folds that look as if they were sculpted. Gudiol considered this master as one of the great Hispano-Flemish painters: a painter of figures and landscape capable of executing exacting drawings with a near sculptural modelling of the figure, yet also able to render idealism and a spiritual sentiment. This type of hard rendering of tactile objects might derive from exposure to German engravings that were then in circulation in Spain and served as an influential source of inspiration (see J. Gudiol, Pintura gótica, Madrid 1955, pp. 338-341).

This master is named after Saint Ildefonso’s Reception of a Chasuble from the Virgin Mary, a large panel today conserved in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. RF 1537). It is possible to compare this panel with the present Resurrection; indeed, as well as the hard-edged handling of the draperies and their similarly modelled figures, they also have the elongated form of the figures in common. Their pallet is likewise similar, and especially the reds and browns of the mantles, which in both panels show their inner lining. The Resurrection can also be compared to the four panels representing Saint Louis of Toulouse, Saint Anastasius, Saints Peter and Paul and Santiago and Saint Andrew all in the Museo Nacional de Escultura de Valladolid (inv. no. CE0940; CE0941; CE0943; CE0942).

Saint Ildefonso in the Louvre panel is portrayed with the features of Cardinal Cisneros who was the bishop of Toledo in 1495. Both the Louvre panel and the present Resurrection which are stylistically similar, can be dated to this period (see J. Yarza Luaces, Maestro de San Ildefonso, in: La Pintura del Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid, Valladolid 2001, pp. 42-43). Moreover, the Louvre panel represents saints specifically related to the territories of Toledo, such as Saint Ildefonso and Saint Anthony. This would consolidate the idea that the master worked in the area of Toledo, and it would also justify the identification of the city in the background of the present panel as Toledo (see P. Silva Maroto, Pintura hispanoflamenca castellana: Burgos y Palencia: obras en tabla y sarga, Valladolid 1990, vol. 1, pp. 59, 234, 345; vol. 3, pp. 825, 832, 923).