Enguerrand Quarton

Provence at this time had some of the most impressive painters in France, to judge by surviving work at any rate, with Nicolas Froment and Barthélemy d'Eyck, who both appear to have collaborated with Quarton; the North had Jean Fouquet however.

Many of Quarton's clients were important figures in René's court and administration, like the Chancellor of Provence who commissioned the Missal of Jean des Martins (BnF, Ms nouv.

This work, also known as the Cadard Altarpiece after the donor, uses a motif that is most often found in Italian art, and was developed by Simone Martini a century earlier.

The painting has the same plain gold background as the Avignon Pietà, which by this date was unusual, although it also appears in what is now the best-known version of this theme, completed just a few years earlier by Piero della Francesca.

A recently discovered document of 1466 orders some painted or stained glass for the Town Hall of Arles from a "maître Enguibran" living in Avignon.

As is usual, materials were carefully specified; elements of the language used appear to come from the dialect of Quarton's native Picardy, suggesting much of the final draft was by him.

The Pietà, where the dead Christ is supported by his grieving mother, is one of the most common themes of late-medieval religious art, and this is "perhaps the greatest masterpiece produced in France in the 15th century.

"[5] The curved back form of Christ's body is highly original, and the stark, motionless dignity of the other figures is very different from Italian or Netherlandish depictions.

The bare background landscape falls away to a horizon broken by the buildings of Jerusalem, but instead of a sky there is plain gold leaf with stamped and incised haloes, borders and inscriptions.

Some other attributions have been proposed by Luc Ta-Van-Thinh (2002): A number of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts have been ascribed to Quarton, whose style has many distinctive features, in colouring, modelling and iconography.