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Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds
(fl ?c. 1620–40). ?Spanish painter. He was named by Bologna in 1958 after the painting of the Annunciation to the Shepherds in the City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (see fig.). In succeeding years a large, homogeneous group of pictures, of very high quality, have been associated with this work and with a stylistically similar Annunciation to the Shepherds in the Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples. He was a strong and original artist who, in the 1620s and 1630s, created works whose expressive power and warm humanity find parallels in Jusepe de Ribera’s works of the same period. The Naples Annunciation to the Shepherds was probably painted in the mid-1620s; it is distinguished by the harsh realism of the figures, their clothes ragged and their skin weatherbeaten; the work conveys a sympathy with the world of the poor and the suffering. Similarities with the figures in Velázquez’s Feast of Bacchus (The Drunkards, 1628–9; Madrid, Prado) suggest that the artist may be Spanish. The impasto is rich, and the colouring sombre. Two versions of the Prodigal Son (Naples, Capodimonte) are in a similar style, while the Artist’s Studio (Paris, priv. col., see Gregori and Schleier, fig. 722), an extraordinary and complex allegory of the relationship of art to nature, may date from the early 1630s. In this period the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds dominated a vigorous naturalistic movement in Neapolitan art, to which Francesco Fracanzano and Francesco Guarino also adhered. In the mid-1630s the artist, in common with Ribera and other Neapolitan painters, began to develop a more delicate and painterly style, evident in the Adoration of the Magi (ex-Matthiessen F.A., London; see 1982 exh. cat., fig. 83) and the Birth of the Virgin (Castellammare di Stabia, S Maria della Pace); in both these works the elegant, graceful figures and silvery light suggest a close relationship with the art of Bernardo Cavallino. The Master also painted single figures and studies of heads, among them Girl with a Rose (Naples, De Vito priv. col., see 1982 exh. cat., fig. 84) and Man Reading (Lecce, Mus. Prov. Sigismondo Castromediano). Despite his undoubted and powerful influence on Neapolitan painters, the Master has hitherto resisted attempts at identification. Three names have been suggested: Bartolomeo Bassante, the painter of a signed Adoration of the Shepherds (?1640s; Madrid, Prado); Giovanni Do and Nunzio Rossi. None has been generally accepted. In the 17th century Celano described a picture of the Adoration of the Shepherds then in the church of S Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Naples, which he attributed to a Bartolomeo Bassante or Passante. A picture (untraced) of this subject, and of the same dimensions, appeared on the French art market in the mid-1980s, which may perhaps be the picture described by Celano, and which is attributed to the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. It is possible to see, moreover, that the damaged signature on the Artist’s Studio begins with a B. It has been suggested (N. Spinosa, in Gregori and Schleier, p. 474) that the Master of the Annunciation may be the Bartolomeo Bassante, mentioned by Celano; he is not, however, to be confused with the artist of the same name whose signed Adoration of the Shepherds (Madrid, Prado) is in a lyrical, charming style that contrasts sharply with that of the Master of the Annunciation.
Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family
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