Lot 157: The Martyrdom of Saints Acisclo and Victoria

Jaume Cabrera (active Barcelona, 1394-1432) The Martyrdom of Saints Acisclo and Victoria on gold ground panel, in an engaged frame 43 x 45¾ in. (109.2 x 116.2 cm.)

109.2 x 116.2 cm.

Madrid, Cason del Buen Retiro, Exposición de pintura catalana, 1962, no. 40.

J. Gudiol, Pintura Gotica Catalana, Barcelona, 1986, p. 96, no. 255, fig. 459, as ‘Jaume Cabrera’. A. Pladevall, L'Art gòtic a Catalunya, Barcelona, 2005, p. 107, as 'Jaume Cabrera, 1405-10'.

Commissioned for the Church of Saints Acisclo and Victoria, Rajadell. Private collection, Barcelona.

This refined panel is a rare surviving example of late Gothic Catalan painting. At the turn of the fifteenth century Barcelona was, along with Valencia, the most important city and trading harbour in Aragon, a kingdom then still independent from Castile and ruling over vast territories scattered across the Mediterranean, from Mallorca to Naples. In this stimulating environment, Barcelona’s talented artists, including Jaume Cabrera, formulated a personal and accomplished interpretation of the International Gothic style that was then spreading across the continent. The panel was commissioned around 1405-10 for the main altar of the parish church of Saints Acisclus and Victoria, in the small town of Rajadell, just north-east of Barcelona. It was certainly part of a monumental polyptych, characteristic of this region, where numerous panels, set above each other in an elaborate architectural frame, narrated the episodes of the Passion of Christ or the life of a saint, the central part of the altarpiece being often occupied by a sculpted depiction of that saint (see for instance the altarpiece of the church of Santa Maria in Sant Martí Sarroca also by Jaume Cabrera). Saint Acisclus and his sister Victoria, to whom the church was dedicated, were two early Christian martyrs from Cordoba, who suffered at the hands of Dion, the local Roman governor depicted standing in front of an elaborate wooden throne to the left. The scene, set in front of a beautifully and imaginatively rendered city, is not that of their martyrdom – Acisclus was eventually decapitated while his sister died by the stroke of an arrow – but instead depicts the tortures they endured without renouncing their faith. Typical of late Gothic painting, this panel displays an elegant and sinuous design that counters the rather gruesome subject depicted.