Alejo Fernández

ALEJO FERNÁNDEZ (Germany?, ca. 1470-Seville, 1545).
"Nativity.
Oil on panel.
Measurements: 47 x 35 cm.
The one we present here is a Nativity painted by Alejo Fernández, the most significant painter in Seville in the first decades of the 16th century. In it, the Italian influence can be appreciated, especially significant in the perspective, composed in a rigorous manner. The general drawing of the work, especially in the case of the Virgin, is very precisely drawn and at the same time delicately defined. The colour is equally harmonious.
Despite his German origin, Alejo Fernández was the representative of the early Renaissance in Andalusia. According to Pilar Silva Maroto, an art historian specialising in Hispano-Flemish and early Renaissance painting, in her biography in the Museo del Prado, "He remained in Cordoba until 1508, when he moved to Seville with his brother Jorge to work in the cathedral, where he painted the beam of the main altarpiece. His prestige was firmly established in Seville from the outset, and as soon as he arrived in the city he received important commissions, such as the main altarpiece and the altarpiece for the chapel of Santiago in the Charterhouse of Santa María de las Cuevas, which he was commissioned to paint in 1509. Worthy of note are the altarpieces commissioned by the Burgos-born Sancho de Matienzo for Villasana de Mena (Burgos), which were destroyed in 1936, and the one he made for Rodrigo Fernández de Santaella of the Virgen de la Antigua for the chapel of Maese Rodrigo in Seville. From 1520 onwards the works contracted by Alejo Fernández were mostly done in collaboration with the workshop or with other painters, with exceptions such as the Virgin of the Navigators, destined for the Casa de Contratación in Seville (ca. 1531-1536). His style - which combines his Flemish training and his debt to Italian quattrocento art - was maintained in Seville until his death, when other artists who were familiar with Romanesque art, such as Pedro de Campaña, were already gaining ground in the city. He is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the Seville Museum of Fine Arts, the Brussels Museum, the Cordoba Museum of Fine Arts and other important institutions.