Baptism of Christ

  • Bonanat Zaortiga
  • Working in Zaragoza (Aragón) ca. 1402 to 1425
  • Tempera and glaze on partially gilded panel
  • 29 x 18 in.

Ex-collection of Bayard Rustin, New York

Baptism of Christ, Bonanat Zaortiga

For comparable example and critical notice of Zaortiga’s work  cf. José Gudiol Ricart, Ars Hispaniae X: Pintura Gótica, Madrid, 1955, pp. 169-170 and p. 172, fig. 137 which shows closely  similar facial and figure types and the same descending interlock of picture puzzle like eccentrically irregular rock outcroppings that mingle the influence of late trecento Tuscan fresco with elements  of early fifteenth century Flemish miniature painting. 

Something of the scarcity of Zaortiga’s important work at the core of his influence in Aragón is indicated by Chandler Rathfon Post, A History of Spanish Painting, vol. VI-Part II, The Valencian School in the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, Cambridge, Mass., 1935, pp. 608-610.