About Benito Sánchez Galindo and the Master of the Panel of San Benito of Montserrat: Paintings from the Altarpiece of the Chapel of San Salvador or Talavera (Salamanca, Catedral Vieja)

Abstract

   This article studies the paintings that are part of the Renaissance altarpiece located in the chapel of San Salvador or Talavera, in the Old Cathedral of Salamanca. Although different proposals had already been made about his authorship, the new contributions to the study of 16th century Spanish painting allow us to focus the question more precisely. In this way, the present study attributes them to an anonymous painter whose style is defined by the works published by Carmelo Solís and Isabel Mateo in the name of Benito Sánchez Galindo. However, subsequent investigations force us to separate the paintings from the hand of this master, so in this work the conventional name of the “Master of the panel of Saint Benedict of Montserrat” is coined, while it cannot be identified through documentary evidence. Likewise, it is related to the paintings on the altarpiece of the church of San Pedro in the Extremaduran town of Garrovillas de Alconétar.