Wannenes 29 November 2017 part 4: Spanish or German?

Wannenes, from Italy, sells on 29 Noveùber 2017 a nice collection of Old Masters.

Lots 928 and 928 clearly belong together, but have been separated here presumably for the first time in 500 years, which is a pity. Perhaps the same buyer will acquire them both.

The auction house describes them as "Painter of the 15th-16th century" with estimates of 50,000 to 70,000 Euro each. They are said to be parts of a polyptych (presumably from the predella), and to have a Mediterranean character (Spanish + Provence) with Flemish influences. They were originally attributed to Bartolomé Bermejo (1440-1501, Spain), who is not to be confused with Bartolomé de Cardénas (1575-1628), a Portuguese painter. Wannenes sees a Catalan or Valencian origin for these paintings.

Bermejo is clearly influenced by Flemish art of his period, and is a very good painter, but I don't see the match with the paintings for sale at all. His "Santa Engracia" shows of course that it is from the same period, but is much more restrained, static, "Flemish" than the works for sale, which are more exuberant, lively, caricatural, "German" (I'm using Flemish and German here to describe their art from the late 15th century).

I wouldn't place the paintings in a Hispano-Flemish or southern Mediterranean circle, but in a German or perhaps Northern Italian one. Looking for matches there gave me two names.

The more general influence, and evidence of the link with German painting, is with an engraving by Martin Schongauer (1445-1491), the most important German (or French-German) engraver of his period, before Dürer came along. His "Christ carrying the corss" ha multiple elements which are clearly similar to the same work here. The most obvious one is the horse on the extreme left (engraving) vs the one of the right (painting): a neraly exact mirror (even the position of the rider), apart from the tail which points in the same direction.

The "Garden of Gethsemane" is nearly identical to a fresco by Giovanni Canavesio (ca. 1450-1500), a painter from Piedmont, whose main work is a fresco cycle of the Passion of Christ in La Brigue, a French village very close to Italy (and actually a part of Italy until 1947), but who is also known from panel painting and miniatures. Most of his work was done in this Northwestern corner of Italy. The artists are not the same, clearly, but either the two works have inspired one another directly, or they have some common ancestor. The soldiers coming from the top left behind the wall, entering through the gate: the angel on the top right holding the cup, the figure of Christ, with the way his cape is draped... It all seems a bit too much to only see a coincidence in this.

The two works (which, like I said, should really stay together) are beautiful and worthy of much more attention to find out their origin or even the artist; but to me they seem both visually and considering the influences I found, to be most likely German (or perhaps Austrian or North Italian), not Spanish. Doesn't really change the value probably.