INTRODUCTION INTO CASTILE AND LEON

Philip the “Handsome” and Joanna the Mad of Castile in the gardens of the castle of Brussels, Master of the Joseph Sequence, XVI century, Musée Royaux de Beaux Arts, Bruxelles
© Musée Royaux de Beaux Arts, Bruxelles 

Commerce of works of art - particularly religious art - between the kingdoms of Spain and Flanders dates back to the XIV century as may be seen by documents describing the arrival of shipments of monumental brasses, the first altarpieces of polychrome decorated wood and carved reliefs such as those conserved in Jaca and Sitges today. These initially purely commercial contacts later became increasingly stronger thanks to the policy of alliances and dynastic marriages implemented by the Spanish Monarchs which led to the union of the Low Countries and Castile under a single crown with the albeit brief access to the Castilian crown of Joanna, the Mad (Juana la Loca) and Philip, the Fair (Felipe el Hermoso). The process was consolidated under the Habsburg dynasty beginning with the reign of Charles I (Carlos I).

In this favourable context, government members, ecclesiastic dignitaries and merchants alike travelled frequently to the Low Countries where they had the opportunity of coming into direct contact with one of the most outstanding aesthetic proposals of Western Europe at the end of the Middle Ages: namely, Flemish art. 

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