How Fernando Gallego Paintings Ended Up in Arizona
Among the great Hispano-Flemish painters of fifteenth century Castile, Fernando Gallego stands alone. The Fernando Gallego paintings that survive today preserve the most coherent surviving altarpiece of the late medieval Spanish school, a vast cycle on the life of Christ that once filled the apse of the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, near the Portuguese border. He had absorbed the lessons of the Van Eycks and of Rogier van der Weyden through the long Flemish trade routes that linked Bruges to Burgos and Salamanca, and he combined them with the harsh expressive vocabulary of late medieval Castile to produce a religious imagination unlike anything else in Western art.
This article gathers ten of his most important religious panels, all of them from that great Ciudad Rodrigo Altarpiece now displayed in the United States.
From Salamanca to Ciudad Rodrigo
Fernando Gallego was born around 1440 in Salamanca, in the kingdom of León. The exact date is unknown, but the painter is documented in Salamanca from 1466 onward, and he probably trained in the local workshop tradition that had already absorbed Flemish influence through the great Castilian wool trade of the mid-century. By the 1470s he was the leading painter of his city, and by the 1480s he had been commissioned to paint the high altarpiece of the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, a small but proud diocese on the border with Portugal.
The altarpiece was painted between about 1480 and 1488 in collaboration with his workshop, which included his brother Francisco and a number of assistants. It was a vast retable of more than fifty panels covering the whole apse of the cathedral with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. In the early twentieth century the altarpiece was dismantled and sold, eventually arriving in the United States, where the Kress Foundation acquired the central twenty-six panels and gave them to the University of Arizona in the 1950s.
The Circumcision
From the infancy of Christ, this panel shows the eight-day-old Jesus presented at the Temple for the rite of the covenant. The Virgin and Joseph look on while the rabbi performs the ceremony. Gallego paints the scene with the harsh, slightly elongated faces and the rich brocaded fabrics that characterise his Castilian Flemish manner. The architecture is fantastical late Gothic, with carved pinnacles rising behind the figures.
The panel is part of the Ciudad Rodrigo Altarpiece, now at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.
Christ Among the Doctors
The twelve-year-old Jesus sits in the centre of the Temple court explaining the Scripture to the elderly rabbis. The figures of the doctors are grouped around him in a tight semicircle, each one with a distinctive face and gesture. Gallego paints the scene with the same fierce close observation he gives all his Castilian saints, and the contrast between the calm young Christ and the wrinkled scholars makes the picture one of the most moving panels of the cycle.
The painting is also at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The Temptations of Christ
One of the most theatrical scenes of the altarpiece, the Temptations shows three episodes from the gospel narrative of the forty days in the desert. The devil, shown as a winged demon with bat wings and a tail, attempts to lure Christ with stones become bread, the pinnacle of the Temple, and the kingdoms of the world. Gallego paints all three temptations in a single landscape, with Christ standing calmly while the demon flees back into the darkness of the rocks.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
Christ and the Samaritan Woman
By the well at Sychar, Christ asks the Samaritan woman for a drink and offers her in return the living water of eternal life. Gallego paints the meeting with the rural Castilian colour that gives all his pictures their distinctive flavour. The woman holds her terracotta jar of water on her shoulder, and Christ sits on the stone parapet of the well, his disciples appearing in the distance as small figures returning with food.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The Agony in the Garden
Christ kneels in prayer on the Mount of Olives while the three disciples Peter, James, and John lie asleep in the foreground. An angel descends with the chalice of the Passion. Gallego paints the scene with the same dark colour and the same nocturnal atmosphere as his Castilian contemporaries. The Roman soldiers are already visible at the gate of the garden, coming to make the arrest.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. For a wider survey of the subject, see our article on Agony in the Garden paintings.
Ecce Homo
Pilate presents the scourged Christ to the crowd of Jerusalem. Gallego paints the scene with the same close observation of faces that distinguishes his Christ among the Doctors. The crowd is reduced to a few angry profiles, and Christ stands silent in the centre, his white loincloth bright against the dark robes of the soldiers.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The Deposition
The body of Christ is taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus while the Virgin and the holy women weep around them. Gallego paints the moment with the elongated, painfully thin Christ that the Castilian devotional imagination loved. The figures of the Virgin and the Magdalene are caught in extreme gestures of grief, their robes falling in heavy late Gothic folds.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The Resurrection
Christ rises from the tomb in a flood of golden light while the Roman soldiers below fall back in terror, their bodies twisting in painful Mannerist contortion. Gallego paints the risen Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding the standard of the resurrection. The composition has the gold ground and the strong vertical movement of the late Gothic altarpiece tradition.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. For a wider survey of the subject, see our article on famous Resurrection paintings.
The Last Judgment
The crowning scene of the altarpiece shows Christ in glory presiding over the judgement of souls, with the Virgin and John the Baptist as intercessors and the angels carrying the instruments of the Passion. Below them, the dead rise from their graves and are separated into saved and damned by the archangel Michael. The damned are dragged into the open mouth of Leviathan, while the saved enter the gates of heaven.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
Saint Mark and Saint Thomas
The pair of apostles stands in a niche, each one with the attributes of his mission. Saint Mark holds his Gospel and is accompanied by the lion of his iconography; Saint Thomas, the doubting apostle, carries the architect’s set square that recalls the medieval legend of his preaching in India. Gallego paints the two figures with the close-faced realism and the rich draperies that mark all his late altarpieces.
The panel is at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
For more context on Fernando Gallego’s wider Spanish world, see our articles on the Castilian master Pedro Berruguete and on the slightly later generation of Juan de Juanes and Luis de Morales. The Spanish Renaissance Jesus paintings tradition holds Gallego as one of its most original Castilian voices.
Summary Table of Fernando Gallego’s Religious Paintings
| Name | Artist | Date | Medium | Museum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Circumcision | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| Christ Among the Doctors | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| The Temptations of Christ | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| Christ and the Samaritan Woman | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| The Agony in the Garden | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| Ecce Homo | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| The Deposition | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| The Resurrection | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| The Last Judgment | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
| Saint Mark and Saint Thomas | Fernando Gallego (workshop) | c. 1480 to 1488 | Oil and gold on panel | University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson |
Conclusion
The Ciudad Rodrigo Altarpiece is one of the strangest survivals in the history of Western religious painting. It was made for a small Castilian cathedral in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, dismantled four centuries later, sold across the Atlantic, and finally reassembled in a university museum in the desert of Arizona. Fernando Gallego, the painter who designed it and led the workshop that executed it, gave Castile the most ambitious cycle of Christological painting it would ever produce. To stand in the Arizona room where the panels now hang is to step into the late medieval Spanish religious imagination at the height of its strange power.
Important Facts About Fernando Gallego
- Fernando Gallego was born around 1440 in Salamanca, in the kingdom of León, the central training city of the Castilian Hispano-Flemish school of the fifteenth century.
- Although the documentation is incomplete, the style of his earliest works points to a training in the local Salamanca workshop tradition that had already absorbed strong Flemish influence through the wool trade between Castile and Bruges.
- Gallego is the central figure of the late medieval Castilian school of painting and is celebrated for his harsh expressive faces, his rich brocaded fabrics, and the gold-ground Gothic architecture of his altarpiece panels.
- His most famous religious work is the great altarpiece of the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, painted between about 1480 and 1488, of which twenty-six surviving panels are now displayed at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.
- He died around 1507 in Salamanca, having shaped the workshop tradition of his city, and his style was carried forward by his brother Francisco and by a long line of pupils who worked in the Castilian and Leonese cathedrals of the early sixteenth century.
Questions and Answers About Fernando Gallego Paintings
What is Fernando Gallego’s most famous painting?
His most celebrated work is the great altarpiece of the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo, painted between about 1480 and 1488 with his workshop. Twenty-six panels of the cycle survive and are now displayed together at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Among the individual panels, the Last Judgment, the Resurrection, and the Temptations of Christ are the most often reproduced.
Where can I see Fernando Gallego paintings today?
The single richest collection by far is the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson, which displays the surviving panels of the Ciudad Rodrigo Altarpiece. The Prado in Madrid owns the Trinity from the Saint Catherine Chapel of Salamanca Cathedral, and the cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo itself still preserves several panels in its sacristy.
What style is Fernando Gallego associated with?
Gallego is the leading representative of the Hispano-Flemish school of late fifteenth century Castile. The manner combines the patient observed detail of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, learned through prints and through Flemish panels imported by the Castilian wool trade, with the harsh expressive vocabulary of late medieval Spanish religious art and the rich gold ground of the local altarpiece tradition.
Did Fernando Gallego ever travel to Flanders?
No surviving documents place him in the Low Countries, but his style shows so close a study of the Flemish primitives that earlier scholars sometimes hypothesised a voyage. Most modern art historians now accept that Gallego learned the Flemish manner through imported panels, engravings, and miniatures, all of which travelled in large numbers along the Castile to Bruges trade route in the fifteenth century.
What happened to the Ciudad Rodrigo Altarpiece?
The altarpiece was dismantled in 1818 when the apse of Ciudad Rodrigo Cathedral was rebuilt. The surviving panels passed through several Spanish collections and were eventually sold abroad in the early twentieth century. In 1957 the Samuel H. Kress Foundation acquired twenty-six panels and donated them to the University of Arizona, where they have been reassembled in a dedicated gallery of the Museum of Art.
How does Gallego compare with the Flemish primitives?
He shares with them the patient close observation of faces, the dense brocaded textiles, and the gold-ground glow. But his colour is harsher, his faces are more dramatically expressive, and his Christ is thinner and more ascetic. The Flemish painters give the gospel a domestic Northern feel; Gallego gives it the dryness and the gravity of the high Castilian plateau on which he lived and worked.
Can you buy Fernando Gallego paintings as canvas prints?
The shop at jesuschrist.pictures offers museum-quality canvas reproductions of the great Christian paintings, and the collection keeps growing; it is the best place to look for Fernando Gallego paintings as canvas prints.
