Impressive large miniature attributed to the so-called Spanish Forger, on a sheet from the beginning of the 16thcentury showing a a saint surrounded by medieval figures (Isabella of France and her son the future Edward III?) descending from a ship in front of a city. The miniature is framed by a large floral garland mixed with human figures and natural and fantastic dragon and bird representations. The scene represents a saint surrounded by noblewomen in typical romanticized medieval dresses, in the background a castle is rising above the crowed.
Painted on a sheet from the beginning of the 16th century, thus the text and musical notation on the verso of the left are genuine, adding to the deception. He never painted over text to avoid see-through, he scraped it away wherever he added miniatures.
The Spanish Forger:
Named from the first work identified as a fake in 1930 from a panel in the style of Jorge Inglés, who was active in Spain in the 1440s. Since then there have been suggestions that the forger was Portuguese, Belgian, Swiss, English, or, most plausibly, French. He seems to have worked over a long period, from the 1890s to the 1920s. Bella da Costa Greene gave him this name because one of the first works she exposed in 1930 had been previously attributed to Jorge Inglès who had been active in Spain.
The number of miniatures and panel paintings attributed to the Spanish Forger has steadily grown. In 1939 it was thought to be 14. By 1978, when New York's Morgan Library curator William Voelkle held a show, it was 150. Mr Voelkle, from the Morgan, says his latest tally is 348. All are in the style of 14th- and 15th-century artists. He "suspects there are more examples in private collections and even some in museums, which have not been recognized".
They are mostly painted on wood panels or on old vellum, taken from an Italian antiphony of around 1400. Music remains on the reverse, while the front has been scraped before the illuminations were added.
With time, the Spanish Forger became a full-fledged artist, with his imitations being highly looked for and avidly collected by institutions and private collectors alike, and were exposed as forgeries in the mid-twentieth century (see J. Backhouse "The Spanish Forger", British Museum Quarterly 33, 1968, pp.65-71, and W. Voelkle's comprehensive catalog The Spanish Forger, 1978).
Provenance: Paulus Swaen Inc.