Nicolau Chanterene

Nicolau Chanterene (also called Nicolas Chanterenne or Nicolas de Chanterenne) (c.1485 – 1551) was a French sculptor and architect who worked mainly in Portugal and Spain.

It is assumed that he was born in Normandy, France. It is not clear whether he got his training in France or Italy. However his style is essentially French, notwithstanding his use of Lombard ornaments.

Chanterene is first mentioned in a document in Santiago de Compostela that states that a payment was made to him for carving 15 of the 16 life-size statues between 13 August 1511 and 1513 in the columns of the transept of the Hospital Real (Hostal de Los Reyes Católicos founded in 1492). These statues introduce influences from the Italian Renaissance in Galicia.

By January 1517 he and an assistant were at work as master contractors at the western portal of the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém. This was probably his first assignment in Portugal. When he arrived, the supporting corbels had already been decorated in Late Gothic style with small angels holding the coat-of-arms and, at the side of the king, an armillary sphere and, at the side of the queen, three blooming twigs.

He filled the splays on each side of the portal with statues, among them king Manuel I and his second wife Maria of Aragón, both kneeling in a niche under a lavishly decorated baldachin. They are flanked by their patron saints St. Jerome and John the Baptist. He then decorated the tympanum with the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Epiphany, each scene set in a tiny niche. Two angels, holdings the arms of Portugal, close the archivolt.

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