CÍRCULO DE FREI CARLOS - SÉC. XVI Our Lady of the Milk oil on board Portuguese school 16th C. (circa 1510-1520), restoration, traces of wood insects Dimensões (altura x comprimento x largura) - 91 x 30 cm Notes: The first master of the so-called "luso-flemish" painters was Francisco Henriques (act. 1506-1518), whose work is recognizable in the altarpiece of the Viseu Cathedral and documented in the altarpiece of St Francis in Évora and in large panels executed for the side chapels of the same church. Henriques was one of the favourite painters of King D. Manuel I and rooted in Portuguese society by marrying a sister of Royal painter Jorge Afonso. In 1512, at the behest of King D. Manuel l, Francisco Henriques went to Flanders to recruit more painters who could satisfy the growing royal commissions. The painters who came with him to Portugal some would die together with Henriques during the works of the Court of Appeal of Lisbon, in 1518, hit by the plague, and their activity is little visible from the individual point of view, but their influence on Portuguese painting is notorious giving rise precisely to the cycle that we designate as luso-flemish and that marks especially the second decade of the 16th century. Only two of these Flemish masters have a visible activity among their peers, the anonymous master who known by the conventional name of Master of Lourinhã, who executed among others the altarpieces of Palmela, Vale Bem Feito and cooperated in the altarpiece of Funchal, and Frei Carlos, who in 1517 professed at the Convent of Espinheiro and between then and his death about 1540, executed for the Order of the Hieronymites several works. It was the latter that Luis Reis Santos came to assign this painting, with whose circle has notorious activities, although the large scale of certain works remember Henriques'. Which I think is certain is that this is a clearly a painting integrated in the "luso-flemish" masters, with their characteristic technique, less stuck with realistic details of the school of Lisbon and with a technique which we can observe with accuracy in the more prolific of their masters, precisely Frei Carlos. By the shape of the Panel and its composition, maybe it is part of the left panel of a triptych. Despite the restoration in areas where it suffered from faults, the painting is an important witness of one of the most brilliant stages of our painting and the figure of the Virgin has evident elegance in her idealised beauty and vibrant colours of her drapery. Joaquim Oliveira Caetano (curator and art historian)