Attributed to the Italo-Valencian school of PAOLO DE SAN LEOCADIO (Reggio Emilia, 1447-Valencia, 1519) - Saint John ...

Attributed to the Italo-Valencian school of PAOLO DE SAN LEOCADIO (Reggio Emilia, 1447-Valencia, 1519) - Saint John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene on panel
Pair of oil paintings on panel representing Saint John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. Oil on panel. Measurements of each table: 145 x 60 cm, good general state of conservation in polychrome. Provenance: private collection, Madrid. Pilar Silva Maroto (Reggio Emilia, 1447-Valencia, 1519). Italian painter who developed much of his activity in Valencia, and helped introduce the Renaissance to the city. Of Ferrari-Paduan training, judging by the style of the first works attributed to him, he must also have known the Venetian painting of the Bellini. Thanks to the protection of Cardinal Rodrigo de Borja - the future Pope Alexander VI - Paolo de San Leocadio arrived in Valencia in 1472 together with the Neapolitan painter Francesco Pagano. The Virgin of the Knight of Montesa (c. 1475, Prado), which is attributed to his hand, the Sacra Conversatione (signed, National Gallery, London) or the San Miguel (c. 1500, Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art of Orihuela, which comes from the chapel of the Ducal Palace of Gandía), demonstrate how he maintained his quality, without being necessary that supposed trip to Italy that Ximo Company places between 1484 and 1488, since the Italian sources of his art remain the same as when he arrived in Valencia in 1472. The best testimony of the reputation he obtained with his painting is, without a doubt, the document dated in Castellón in 1490 on the occasion of the execution of the main altarpiece of the cathedral -unfortunately disappeared-, in which Paolo is described of San Leocadio as the most solemn painter in Spain. Married three times, he had two painter sons, Felipe Pablo de San Leocadio, from his second wife, and Miquel Joan, from his third, who collaborated with him in his final stage. Thanks to the patronage of the Duchess of Gandía, María Enríquez, widow of Juan de Borja, Paolo de San Leocadio made in 1501 the missing altarpiece for the collegiate church of Gandía and in 1507 three altarpieces for the convent of Santa Clara in this town, partially preserved , in which traces of the Hispanic environment in which he had worked for more than thirty years can already be perceived and to a greater extent in the altarpieces of El Salvador and San Jaime that he hired for Villarreal (Castellón) in 1513, also partially preserved in the archpriest church. The Prado has three works attributed to Paolo de San Leocadio, the aforementioned Virgin of the Knight of Montesa, acquired in 1919 by popular subscription, and the panels of La Dolorosa and El Salvador, made between 1482 and 1484 according to the Ximo Company, which entered the the Prado as part of the Bosch legacy. Provenance: important private collection, Madrid.