ALONSO BERRUGUETE
Peredes de Nava 1488-Toledo 1561
Pair of coats of arms
painted gilt wood, cm 40×18
The two wooden shields presented here, covered in gold leaf, display — through the quality of their carving and the refinement of their execution — features that can be attributed to the Spanish Renaissance. Slight variations in the carving suggest that they were executed freehand, without the aid of a preparatory drawing.
The decorative typology belongs to the tradition of Gothic-derived panel frameworks that remained widespread between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly within the Iberian context.
On the basis of their formal and stylistic characteristics, the two objects may be dated to the first half of the sixteenth century, within an artistic milieu close to the school of Alonso Berruguete, a leading figure of the Spanish Renaissance who was deeply influenced by his experience in Italy and by the work of Michelangelo.
Comparable elements can be found in ‘retablos’, the monumental altarpieces characteristic of the Iberian tradition, where sculpture and painting are integrated into complex gilded wooden structures. In works such as the Retablo de la Mejorada of Olmedo (1526), now preserved in the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, similar heraldic shields appear at the ends of the predella, serving both to celebrate the patronage and to provide valuable documentary evidence for the dating and attribution of the work.
In the present case, the field of the shields displays two coats of arms accompanied by honorary ornaments — helmets, wreaths, and mantling — which indicate the rank of the bearer. Their superimposition departs from the customary heraldic partitions, making the identification of the arms more complex, although traces of the quarters still allow a possible reconstruction of the original reading.
The shape of the shields belongs to the so-called ‘accartocciato’ type, characterized by volutes and curls resembling rolled parchment. Widespread in Italy during the sixteenth century and later throughout Europe, this form represents one of the decorative developments of the Renaissance heraldic shield.
