Dipre, Nicola

Among the Avignon artists of the late XV - early XVI century, the name of Nicola Dipres belongs to the most famous. It is assumed that Nicola is related to the French artistic dynasty of immigrants from Ypres or Amiens (sometimes his name is written d'Ypre, that is, "from Ypres"). If so, then his grandfather was Andre d'Ipres , an artist about whom records were kept in the documents of the city of Amiens from 1435 to 1444 , and his father was the artist Nicola Dipre Sr. (known from documents from 1464 to 1508 ), who worked in Paris , the documents appear under the name Colin d'Amien , and is known, in particular, for the fact that in 1481 he was involved in the design work of the tomb of Louis XI . Interestingly, Nicola Dipra (Jr.) is referred to in the documents as “parisianus” (that is, Parisian).

Information about Nicola Dipre is not numerous. It is known that from 1495 , when he was first mentioned in documents, Nicola lived and worked in Avignon , in 1508 he married the daughter of joiner Jean Beagles, together with whom he executed orders for the manufacture of altars, and had many orders for paintings, the vast majority of which did not survive. The works of Nicolas Dipre, which have survived to this day, are as few as information about his life. There are so few of them that a clear reconstruction of his work is impossible, in connection with which some of his works are dated very vaguely, with a spread of 25 years. First of all, it is worth mentioning several “Scenes from the Life of Mary” - fragments of the predella of the now defunct altar, of which three (“The Nativity of Mary ,” “ Introduction of Mary to the Temple ” and “The Meeting of Joachim and Anna”) are stored in the Louvre , Paris ; then one at a time: Crucifixion ( Detroit , Institute of the Arts ), Christmas ( San Francisco , Museum of Fine Arts), Adoration of the Magi (Garde, Museum of Religious Art) and Mary 's Betrothal (Cress Collection).

“Scenes from the life of Mary” was attributed to the brush of Nicolas Dipre by the famous scholar of Provencal painting Charles Sterling, finding in them common features with “Altar of St. Anne ”, which in 1499 Nicola Dipre wrote for the Concepcion de la Vierge fraternity in the church of Saint-Sifrin of the city of Carpentra. One of his most famous works, “Meeting at the Golden Gate” (1499), is kept at the Comtaden Duplessis Museum in the same city. But the most interesting should be recognized two of his works from the Petit Palais Museum in Avignon : “The Dream of Jacob ” and “The Fleece of Gideon ”, which are two sides of the same altar. These are quite rare biblical scenes for painting. The “Jacob’s Dream” embodies the fantasy dreamed by the patriarch of the people of Israel, Jacob, when he lay down to rest near the road, and saw in a dream a staircase connecting the earth with heaven, along which angels moved. His dream symbolized the embodiment of Abraham 's covenant for the restoration of peace and community between Heaven and Earth. The Gideon's Fleece illustrates the Old Testament story of Gideon, which the people of Israel called to become a judge for him, but the doubting Gideon first asked God's consent: if the Lord approves, let him wet the sheep’s skin with dew at night and leave the earth dry. The Lord fulfilled the request of Gideon.

Nicola Dipre was one of the last major masters of the Avignon school of painting that faded away at the beginning of the 16th century.

• Albert Chatelet. La Penture Francaise XV et XVI siecles. SKIRA. 1992.
• Michelle Laclotte / Dominique Thiebaut. L'ecol d'Avignon. Flammarion. Paris. 1983.