Retable with Scenes from the Life of Saint Andrew

Artist:: Attributed to the Master of Roussillon (Spanish, active 1385–1428)

Date:: ca. 1420–30

Geography:: Made in Catalonia, Spain

Culture:: Catalan

Medium:: Tempera and gilding on panel

Dimensions:: 10 ft. 3 1/4 in. × 10 ft. 3 5/8 in. × 5 1/4 in. (313.1 × 314 × 13.3 cm)

Classification:: Paintings-Panels

Credit Line:: Rogers Fund, 1906

Accession Number:: 06.1211.1–.9

On view at The Met Cloisters in Gallery 20

In the central panel, Saint Andrew—apostle, brother of Saint Peter, and disciple of Saint John the Baptist—sits holding his attribute, a cross, which is more commonly represented in the form of an X. Above are the Virgin and Child surrounded by saints and angels. The flanking panels depict important events in Saint Andrew’s life, while the scenes in the predella below are devoted to a number of more obscure episodes. The center panel represents Christ as the Man of Sorrows. The panel on the right has been lost. A rectangular section in the lower part of the main panel with the seated Saint Andrew was cut out, perhaps to hold a reliquary, and has been replaced with an inpainted panel.
This altar is thought to be the major work of an anonymous artist who was influenced by Lluís Borrassà (active 1380–1424/5) and is known as the Master of Roussillon, after the region in which he worked.

Said to come from a church at Perpignan in Roussillon (modern France); [ Carfax and Company, London (until 1906)]

Baetjer, Katharine. European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by artists born in or before 1865: A summary catalogue. Vol. 1. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. pp. 178-79.

Baetjer, Katharine. European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by artists born in or before 1865: A summary catalogue. Vol. 2. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980. p. 193.

Pope-Hennessy, John. "Roger Fry and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Oxford, China, and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on his Eightieth Birthday, edited by Edward Chaney, and Neil Ritchie. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984. p. 233.

Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain. Gothic Art. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1989. pp. 274-75, fig. 108.

Baetjer, Katharine. European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by artists born in or before 1895: A summary catalogue. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. p. 148.

Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. 75th Anniversary ed. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 129.

Timelines
Iberian Peninsula, 1400–1600 A.D.

Department

The Cloisters (2,343)

Artist / Maker / Culture

Master of Roussillon (1)

Object Type / Material

Geographic Location