Spanish school; c. 1500.

Spanish school; c. 1500.
"St. Andrew and St. Peter".
Oil on panel. Cradled.
It presents faults and restorations.
It has frame of the twentieth century.
Measurements: 106 x 92 cm; 120 x 101 cm (frame).
The representation of these two holy apostles together was common during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in fact in more advanced times the figure of Christ was presented next to them, thus becoming known as the "Vocation of St. Peter and St. Andrew". Iconographically allusive to the moment in the Holy Scriptures when Jesus, who was in Galilee, approached the fishermen Andrew and Peter and asked them to be his apostles, becoming "Fishers of men". In this specific work the figure of Christ does not appear in the scene, probably because it was originally part of the ornamentation of an altarpiece in which the figure of Christ was isolated, differentiated and most probably monumentalized with respect to the figures shown in this panel. It is true that the two saints in the scene direct their gaze towards an external point, so it is understood that it is the figure of Jesus that both are looking at.
The scene has been conceived in a landscape with the saints located behind a bench on which the book of St. Andrew is placed. Both saints carry two attributes, those of St. Peter being the Holy Scriptures and the key, which opens the gates of heaven. St. Andrew, who also holds a book, carries on his back the cross on blades referring to his martyrdom. Behind them extends, through successive planes, a landscape that merges into the horizon with the sky. Technically, the work shows the quality of the artist not only in terms of the precision of the drawing, but also in the technical knowledge that comes from the Renaissance school. The landscape that contextualizes the scene reveals a chromatic treatment typical of the Flemish school, as well as the interest in the excessive detailing of elements such as the golden edging of the pages of the book that St. Andrew holds, the golden trim on the robes of both protagonists, or the damask of the cloths that rest on the stone balustrade. It is this reminder, precisely the balustrade that indicates the artist's knowledge of Renaissance aesthetics. This light trompe l'oeil configures in the foreground the space of the whole scene under the new Renaissance precepts.