(active in Ferrara in the early 16th Century)
Saint Sebastian,
oil on panel, 43.5 x 42.8 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Collection of Giulio Sterbini, Rome, late 19th Century (according to Fototeca Zeri);
Private collection, Rome, 1977 (according to Fototeca Zeri);
Private European collection

Literature:
F. Todini, From Borso to Cesare d’Este, exhibition catalogue, London 1984, p. 76, not illustrated (as Master of the Maddalena Assunta or Santa Maria Egiziaca);
A. Ugolini, Il Maestro della Maddalena Assunta, in: Paragone, no. 467, 1989, p. 77, footnote 13, not illustrated (as Master of the Maddalena Assunta);
M. Laclotte, E. Moench, Peinture italienne. Musée du Petit Palais. Avignon, Paris 2005, p. 129, cited under cat. no. 137, not illustrated (as Master of the Maddalena Assunta);
A. Ugolini, Un nuovo approccio al Mastro della Maddalena Assunta, in: Arte Cristiana, 2013, p. 377, no. 29, not illustrated (as Master of the Maddalena Assunta)

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri, under no. 40290 (as Master of the Maddalena Assunta).

We are grateful to Andrea G. De Marchi for endorsing the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present panel is part of the small corpus of works given to the Master of the Maddalena Assunta, an anonymous artist who was active in Ferrara in the early years of the sixteenth century. He was clearly aware of the work of Perugino, as well as Lorenzo Costa and Giovanni Battista Benvenuti, called l’Ortolano. He was identified by Roberto Longhi (see R. Longhi, Officina ferrarese, Rome 1956, pp. 67–68) and his eponymous work is a large altarpiece depicting the Assumption of the Mary Magdalen executed for a side altar of the church of Sant’Andrea in Ferrara, today conserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Ferrara (inv. no. PNFe 78).

This painting was part of a large altarpiece and other fragments are known including the Saint Francis in the Vendeghini-Bardi collection, Ferrara, a Saint Monk in the Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon, France (inv. no. 137) and a Holy Deacon, now in the Brighton Museum and Gallery of Art (see Ugolini, op. cit, 2013, p. 347, footnote 38). Ugolini claims that the panels, including the present painting, can also be compared to the Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, formerly in the Munro collection, which Berenson also recognised as a work of the Master of the Maddalena Assunta.

This Saint Sebastian was recorded by Federico Zeri in the collection of Giulio Sterbini formed during the 19th century. It has been suggested that the number 91 on a label on the lower right of the present painting refers to this collection.