FERNANDES, Vasco
Portuguese painter (active 1500-1542 in Viseu)
Portuguese painter. He was the leading painter of northern Portugal during the first half of the 16th century, and it is probable that he received his training abroad. Fernandes is the best-documented Portuguese artist of the period; there are nearly 100 works attributed to him, some of which are securely documented and record his activity either alone or in collaboration with the Viseu painter GASPAR VAZ. Fernandes's most important work was carried out in Lamego and in Viseu, where the term Gr?o ('Great') used in praise of him is first recorded (Ribeiro Botelho Pereira). In 1753 the Director of the Dresden Gallery, Pietro Guarienti, first used the epithet when he referred to Fernandes by the name of Gran Vasco. The many myths about the painter and his work developed from this date and were not clarified until 1846
ID: 63945 Adoration of the Magi 1501-06 Oil on wood, 132 x 79 cm Vasco Museum, Viseu The Adoration of the Magi, is one of the fourteen panels from the altarpiece of the Chancel in Viseu Cathedral, and the earliest dated work of the artist. It is a key work in the evaluation of the impact which the painting and the painters from southern parts of the Low Countries had on the taste of patrons and on the work of painters in Portugal. Despite the controversy surrounding its authorship, everything points to a team, led by the Flemish painter Francisco Henriques, joined locally by the young Vasco Fernandes, elaborating the altarpiece for the bishop of Viseu. The Adoration of the Magi includes iconographic details which confirm that the altarpiece was made locally. The black Wise King, Balthasar, is replaced by an Indian from Brazil. The closeness in time of this artistic representation (the first in Western art) to the discovery of the lands of the True Cross (Brazil) gives it an extraordinary historical value. , Artist: FERNANDES, Vasco , Adoration of the Magi , 1501-1550 , Portuguese , painting , religious
