Western European painting is represented in the Museum by works of various national schools beginning with the fifteenth century. The Museum has in its possession two wings (Pic. 1) of an altarpiece executed in Aragon by an unknown master and bearing the influence of the Catalan Jaime Huguet.

Fifteenth century Flemish painting is exemplified by a triptych done by Hans Memling (Pic. 2, 3), in which the artist contrived to reflect all the moral power and self-confidence of the bourgeoisie of the time, and not only in figures of the donors, represented on the wings, but in the handling of the traditional subject of the Virgin and the Child itself.

Vittore Carpaccio, a fifteenth-century Italian artist, depicts scenes from the life of the people in which local colour and contemporary detail are even more vividly reflected than in the pictures of Bellini and his sons. Carpaccio’s best known work is the cycle of paintings The Legend of St. Ursula in the Academia, Venice. The piece in the National Museum of Cuba, The Reception of a Legate (Pic. 4), was probably done somewhat earlier, around 1490. It brings out all the splendor of the reception, a splendor that accompanied the Venetian republic’s energetic diplomatic activities.

Among the Museum’s sixteenth-century works by foreign painters mention should be made of two large Flemish pictures, both devoted to the same biblical subject – the building of the Tower of Bibel. One belongs to the school of Marten Valckenborgh (Pic. 5, 6), the other, to the school of the Valckenborgh brothers (Pic. 7). The theme, which often recurs in the works of Peter Brugel, is resolved in a different way in the canvas of Marten Valckenborgh’s school where the huge structure soaring into the sky is given in the form of a pyramid rather than a spiral.

Italian Renaissance art is represented by Jacopo Bassano’s St. Christopher (Pic.8). This is one of the National Museum’s most remarkable works by a foreign master.

Pic. 1 Unknown artist from Aragon            Pic. 2 Hans Memling                                                   

The Holy Pope and St. Sebastian;                 The Virgin and Child with Donors. Triptych.                   

St. Anthony

Pic. 3 Hans Memling                                 Pic. 4 Vittore Carpaccio   The Peception of a Legate                  

The Virgin and Child with Donors. Detail.                                                Detail. Approx. 1490

Pic. 5 Circle of Marten                                Pic. 6 Circle of Marten  van

van Valckenborgh Tower of Babel            Valckenborgh Tower of Babel. Detail.

Pic. 7 Circle of Valckenborgh's                 Pic. 8    Jacopo Bassano
brothers Building of the Tower of Babel                   St. Christopher