Alejo Fernández
1475–1543 · Renaissance painter of the Seville school
Alejo Fernández was a Spanish Renaissance painter, trained in the Hispano-Flemish tradition and a leading figure of the Seville school. Born around 1475 in an unknown place, he worked first in Córdoba before moving to Seville in 1508, where he helped carry local painting from Gothic habits toward the full Renaissance.
His style blends the Hispano-Flemish base with knowledge of Italian painting and German prints such as those of Martin Schongauer. From his Córdoba years come the Triptych of the Last Supper and the Christ Tied to the Column, set in architectural spaces. In Seville he painted panels for the Cathedral altarpiece, which he never finished, and later the altarpiece of Maese Rodrigo and the Virgin of the Navigators, which shows an unusual sea covered with ships.
His workshop formed a real school of collaborators and imitators, and his influence was felt in Seville painting for decades. The last years of his career already show Mannerist and Raphaelesque influences.
Works (3)
This panel depicts the Annunciation, the Gospel episode in which the angel tells Mary she will become a mother. Painted in oil on walnut, it is held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville. The work focuses on the encounter between the heavenly messenger and the Virgin.
Where to see the work
- Museum of Fine Arts of Córdoba Córdoba · 1
- Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla Seville · 1
Curiosities
Columbus among the devotees
In the Virgin of the Navigators, the Virgin shelters beneath her cloak a group of devotees who are portraits of prominent figures in the conquest of America. In the foreground on the left, Christopher Columbus can be identified. The lower part shows the sea crossed by ships, a novelty within the tradition of Marian images.
An altarpiece lost to fire
Sancho de Matienzo, a canon of the cathedral and treasurer of the Casa de Contratación, had a convent of Conceptionist Franciscan nuns built in his native Valle de Mena, where he wished his remains to rest. Alejo Fernández painted its high altarpiece, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, topped by a Calvary. The whole ensemble was destroyed by fire in 1936.