Painted altar panel from Saint Vincent de Fora Portugal, 15th century 
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Painted altar panel from Saint Vincent de Fora Portugal, 15th century
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Nuno Gonçalves (active 1450-1471)
Altarpiece of Saint Vincent, the panel of the Knights
1460s
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
School: Portuguese
Form: painting
There is strong circumstantial evidence that Gonçalves was responsible for the St Vincent polyptych, the outstanding Portuguese painting of the 15th century. The style is rather dry, but powerfully realistic, and the polyptych contains a superb gallery of highly individualized portraits of members of the court, including a presumed self-portrait.
Web Gallery of Art
Referenced on p.46, The Moors - The Islamic West - 7th-15th Centuries AD by David Nicolle
Among the priests, monks, ladies and Christian warriors on a late 15th-century Portuguese painted altar panel from S. Vicente de Fora is this very different soldier (top centre). He looks in the opposite direction to the other donor figures, while his long hair and full beard probably identity him as a Moor. The Portuguese currently occupied part of northern Spain, and although something of a mystery this figure sheds a valuable light on a very little known period of Andalusian or Moroccan arms, armour and military costume. (National Museum of Ancient Art. Lisbon, Portugal)
