JUAN CORREA DE VIVAR (Mascaraque, Toledo, c. 1510 - Toledo,

Oil on panel. This work and its companion (see lot 188) come from a disassembled altarpiece of which we have no record. Both paintings stand out for their refinement and compositional balance, with the painter displaying great mastery of perspective through the incorporation of background scenes, landscapes, and architectural elements. Their formal and technical characteristics suggest they may have been executed between 1550 and 1560. There is a version of this painting, of inferior quality, which Post attributed with doubt to Correa. This one was kept in the Annmary Brown Memorial Collection (Providence, Rhode Island). The three Magi adopt the same posture and wear a similar type of clothing, while the position of the Virgin and Child is slightly different. The architecture is more fully developed in the American panel, resulting in greater compositional clutter, while in the panel presented here, the composition is much more balanced and uncluttered, opening onto a broad landscape background. Dimensions: 83 x 53 cm.