Attributed to Alejo de Vahia (1473 - 1515) and Workshop, Spanish, circa 1500-05

With Mullany Ltd., London, 2017;

From whom acquired.

Until the mid-twentieth century, the Spanish sculptor now identified as Alejo de Vahía remained anonymous. A cohesive group of sculptures preserved in Palencia had long been attributed to an unnamed master conventionally designated the “Master of the Santa Cruz.”¹ This attribution was decisively revised in 1970, when the art historian I. Vandevivere identified documentary evidence revealing that two key works from the group—the Magdalen and Saint John the Baptist in the Cathedral of Palencia—had been commissioned on 4 June 1505 from “Alexo de Vahia, ymaginario, vecino de Becerril.”² This discovery established the historical identity of the formerly anonymous master and provided a secure foundation for the reconstruction of his oeuvre.

Building on this identification, Clementina Julia Ara Gil articulated the defining characteristics of de Vahía’s sculptural language in her seminal 1974 study En torno al escultor Alejo de Vahía, 1490–1510. She emphasized the pronounced dureza of his figures—a deliberate rigidity and frontal stillness—mitigated by the rhythmic, curvilinear treatment of drapery.³ Ara Gil further delineated a consistent repertory of physiognomic features, including downward-slanting eyes, centrally parted hair with loose curls falling onto the forehead, and a symmetrical beard configured to leave a distinctive, cup-shaped recess beneath the lower lip.⁴

The present sculpture of Saint Andrew exemplifies these hallmarks with notable clarity. The figure’s static bearing, lowered gaze, and carefully articulated hair and beard conform closely to de Vahía’s established type. In particular, the facial morphology finds close parallels in the sculptor’s Apostle in the parish church of Santa Eugenia, situating the work securely within de Vahía’s documented corpus.⁵

¹ C. Ara Gil, En torno al escultor Alejo de Vahía, 1490-1510, Madrid 1974, p. 5-6.

² Ibid, p. 6.

³ Ibid, p. 10.

⁴ Ibid, p. 11.

⁵ Ibid, p. 11, pl. II, fig. 5.

RELATED LITERATURE

J. Yarza Luaces, in Alejo de Vahía mestre d'imatges, exhibition catalogue, Barcelona 2001, cat. nos. 4 and 10.