The Louvre is fortunate in possessing an authentic and extremely
important, though badly restored, altarpiece by Ludovico Luis de
Dalmau, the first Spanish painter whose personality emerges definitely
from the obscurity of the Gothic period in Spain. Dalmau was a Catalan
who flourished about the middle of the fifteenth century, and who,
although not a direct pupil of the Van Eycks, shows such close affinity
with their style that certain modern critics are inclined to ascribe
to him, with insufficient reason, certain pictures, like the _Fountain
of Living Water_ at the Prado, by the heads and founders of the Bruges
school. In spite of the different types and the increased angularity
of the drapery folds in Dalmau’s _Enthronement of St. Isidore_ (No.
1703A), this Eyckian influence is clearly traceable in the Louvre
picture, which shows the Virgin enthroned under a Gothic canopy wearing
a crown of typically Spanish form, and handing the pallium to the
saintly Bishop of Seville, who kneels on the left. Further back on the
same side are four angels with the episcopal insignia. The group is
balanced on the right by St. Anthony the Hermit in the foreground, and
SS. Catherine, Margaret, Agatha, Odilia, and Apollonia grouped around
the throne. The picture was originally in a church at Valladolid, and
was bought for the Louvre at the Bourgeois sale at Cologne in 1904 for
£3025.