MATES, Joan

Techniques

• Tempera, gilded with gold and metal leaf on panel
• Painting on canvas
• Painting and gilding on metal

Profile and historiographical debate

Joan Mates was, probably, from Vilafranca del Penedès (Alt Penedès, Barcelona). He had there family ties and he interacted with this place during his entire life. However, he developed his career in Barcelona on the first third of the fifteenth century, where he coexisted with other figureheads of the first generation of international Catalan Gothic as Lluis Borrassà, Rafael Destorrents or Guerau Gener. The first news of Mates are dated in the last decade of the fourteenth century and they present him as a witness in a couple of documents which are related to Pere Serra; a fact that has served to emphasize the idea that Mates was formed in the powerful workshop that this painter had in Barcelona. If so, he soon overcame the assumptions of the Serra’s Italianate painting in favour of a personal, sweetened and vaporous style, which was connected to the new pictorial ways that were emanated from the Franco-Flemish area. Since 1400, when he took over an altarpiece that the painter Jaume Lors had left unfinished, he had been engaged in the making of altarpieces, mostly for the Princedom of Catalonia, but also for other territories of the Crown of Catalonia and Aragon, including Aragon or Sardinia. In his workshop were formed, among others painters, his stepson Francesc Oliva, and his son Bernat Mates or even Francesc Mates, who was son of the tailor of Barcelona Pere Mates. In his will he mentions a sculptor named "Colino", who used to live in the Mates’ house.

Around the altarpiece of Saint Michael and Saint Lucy of the sanctuary of Penafel, in the Penedès, were congregated several works with a common style and it were invented the "Penafel Group" (Post 1935), and the "Penafel master" (Gudiol 1938; Post 1938). Shortly thereafter, J. Ainaud and F-P. Verrié (1942) documented one of the works that had been attributed to the Master of Penafel, the altarpiece of Saint Martin and Saint Ambrose that is preserved in the Cathedral of Barcelona (1411-1414), as a Joan Mates’ work. After this attribution, which made possible to assign the works of the ancient Penafel Group to Joan Mates, the file researches have permitted to document two other altarpieces as Mates’ works: the altarpiece of Saint Sebastian of the Pia Almoina of Barcelona (1417), whose main compartments are preserved in the MNAC (inv. 42340), and the altarpiece of the altar of Santa Maria de Vila-rodona (1422),. Two of its tables are known by two photographs: the Coronation of the Virgin and the Calvary.

Works

Documented works

Documented and totally or partially preserved works, or works which are known by pictures:

• Altarpiece of Saint Martin and Saint Ambrose of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1411-1414), whose main compartments are preserved in the chapel of the ambulatory of the Cathedral
• Altarpiece of Saint Sebastian of the Pia Almoina of Barcelona (1417), from whom it is only known the central panel (MNAC 42,340)
• Altarpiece of the parish of Vila-rodona (Alt Camp, Tarragona) (1422), which was partly destroyed but known by photographs

Documented and non-preserved works:

• Conclusion of the altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Aloysius and Saint Matthew for the church of the convent del Carme de Manresa (1400), which was initiated by the painter Jaume Lors from Liege
• Image of the Virgin for a gold drape for the Confraternity of the Lord King (1407)
• Altarpiece of Saint Michael and Saint Anne of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1408-1409)
• Conclusion of the altarpiece of Saint Thomas and Saint Anthony of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1409), which was initiated by Pere Serra
• Altarpiece for the parish of Sant Quirze de Muntanyola (Osona, Barcelona) (1411), which was finally unfinished
• Altarpiece of the chapel of Saint Agnes of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1412)
• Painting and gold of the bars of the chapel of Saint Martin of the cloister of the Cathedral of Barcelona (1412)
• Painting of the crossbeam of the cross of the cathedral of Barcelona (1412)
• Altarpiece of Saint James for the monastery of Sant Joan de les Abadesses (Ripollès, Girona) (1414)
• Altarpiece for the chapel of Saint Engracia of the Cathedral of Huesca (1416)
• Painting of burial drapes for the Cathedral of Barcelona (1417)
• Altarpiece of Saint Lucy and Saint Catherine for the parish of Vilafranca (1418)
• Altarpiece of Saint James and Saint Lucy for the monastery of Valldonzella (Barcelona) (1421)
• Corpus Christi altarpiece of the parish of Santa Maria de Blanes (Selva, Gerona) (1423)
• Altarpiece for the parish of El Pla de Santa Maria (Alt Camp, Tarragona) (1423-1427)
• Altarpiece for the Lord of the castle of Palau-Sator (Baix Empordà, Girona) (1426)
• Altarpiece of the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity of Barcelona (1428-1429)
• Altarpiece for the church of Bellvei (Baix Penedès, Tarragona) (1434), which was paid to Bernat Mates after his father Joan Mates had already died
• Altarpiece for La Llacuna (Anoia, Barcelona) (1431)

Attributed works

• Altarpiece of the Annunciation of the Church of Sant Francesc of Càller, which is partially preserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Cagliari (Sardinia)
• Table of the Fall of the Rebel Angels (private collection), which has been linked to the Mates’ altarpiece of the Cathedral of Barcelona that has been documented and that is dedicated to Saint Michael and Saint Anne
• Altarpiece of Saint James of the parish of Vallespinosa (Santa Perpetua de Gaià, Conca de Barberà, Tarragona) (Museu Diocesà de Tarragona, inv. 1960-1962)
• Altarpiece of Saint Michael of the sanctuary of Penafel (Santa Margarida i els Monjos, Alt Penedès, Barcelona) (MNAC 214,533)
• Altarpiece of Saint Lucy of the sanctuary of Penafel (Santa Margarida i els Monjos, Alt Penedès, Barcelona) (Casacuberta Marsans collection, Barcelona)
• Triptych of the Virgin from the chapel of Serratosa (Les Masies de Sant Hipòlit de Voltregà, Osona, Barcelona) (MEV, inv. 19)
• Crowning of Saint Eulalia (Pinacoteca Manfrediniana e raccolte del Seminario Patriarcale di Venezia)
• Fragment from the Plane on the body of the dead Christ, whose probably provenance is connected to the old Casa de la Diputació del General de Barcelona (MNAC 15921)
• Plane on the body of the dead Christ (Museu Capitular – Tresor de la catedral de Girona)
• Altarpiece of the Sants Joans of Hostalric, which is partly preserved in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza de Madrid (central panel), in the Musée Goya de Castres (table of Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos) and in private hands
• Compartments of a predella of the Latecoère de Tolosa de Llenguadoc’ collection
• Tables of the Annunciation and the Resurrection (Brimo de Laroussilhe collection of Paris), and the Nativity (Dohan collection, Pennsylvania, USA)
• Altarpiece of Saint Margaret of the Convent of Santa Maria de Valldonzella (Homar collection of Barcelona)
• Table of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (Museo Diocesano de Huesca, inv. 254)
• Compartments of a predella with the Flagellation of Christ and the Plane on the body of the dead Christ (Museo Stefano Bardini, Florence)

Patrons

• Brotherhood of Saint Aloysius and Saint Matthew of Manresa
• Doni family, merchants from Pisa that were established in Sardinia
• Brotherhood of the Lord King, that acted trough the embroiderer Antoni Caranyena
• Alfons de Tous, canon of the Cathedral of Barcelona
• Jaume Pastor, who acted trough his executors: his wife, Margarida, Felip de Ferrera and Joan de Vall
• Francesc Castanyer, archdeacon and canon of the Cathedral of Barcelona, who acted trough his executors: Ferrer de Pujol and Francesc Pinosa, priests
• Nicolau Perer, canon of the Cathedral of Barcelona
• Guillem Tatxó, priest of the monastery of Sant Joan de les Abadesses, who acted trough his executors: Ponç Calvet and Arnau Soler, canon and benefited from the above-mentioned monastery, respectively
• Juan de Oto, canon of the Cathedral of Huesca
• Pere de Condamines, priest, who acted trough his executor, Bernat sa Carrera; Brotherhood of Saint Lucy or community of priests of Vilafranca del Penedès, that acted trough the priest Pere Borrell
• Ramon de Blanes, Knight of Barcelona, who acted trough his wife Sibil·la
• Pere Miquel, lord of the castle of Palau-sator
• Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity of Barcelona
• Bartomeu Tàrrega, merchant of Vilafranca del Penedès
• Pedro Jordán de Urriés, bishop of Huesca (1421-1423) (?)
• Constança de Cabrera i de Foix, abbess of Santa Maria de Valldonzella  (1403-1433) (?)

Documentary Sources

Documented between 1391 and 1431 as Johan Mates, Joan Mata [“Iohannes Mat(h)es” o “Iohannes Mat(h)a” in Latin Documents]. Documents collected by the historiography (vid. infra.)

Text: Cèsar Favà