Juan de Flandes

Juan de Flandes was a Netherlandish-trained artist who immigrated to Castile in the late fifteenth century. There is no documentary evidence for his early life and training. Artistic similarities between his works and contemporary painters in Flanders have led scholars to hypothesize about connections with prominent artists there. In contrast, Juan de Flandes’s career in Spain is well documented from his first appearance in the court financial records of Queen Isabel of Castile on 12 July 1496 until the painter’s death in 1519. He remained in Castile for the entirety of these years, working first as court painter to the queen and then after her death in 1504 as a contributor to major altarpiece projects. While the general outline and scope of Juan de Flandes’s career is well known, the lack of any signed paintings and his collaboration with Isabel’s other court artists have complicated the ability of art historians to come to consensus regarding the attribution of specific works. This is especially true for the Retablo de Isabel, a collection of small panel paintings depicting the life of Christ. Much scholarly attention has also been paid to the Miraflores Altarpiece, a polyptych attributed to Rogier van der Weyden that exists in two versions: the first located in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and the other divided between the Capilla Real in Granada and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Technical analysis of the panels revealed that the Granada-New York panels are the copy, and that this work was made during Isabel’s reign by one of her court artists (some scholars have debated if the artist was Juan de Flandes or Michel Sittow). The historical significance of Isabel of Castile and the high quality of Juan de Flandes’s paintings has led to his inclusion in several exhibitions and catalogues. However, Juan de Flandes’s position as neither completely Spanish nor Netherlandish has led to a somewhat marginal position within the field and the discourse of its geographic subspecialties.