(active Verona and Venice first decade of the 16th Century)
Madonna and Child,
tempera and oil on panel, 49 x 32.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for suggesting the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The painting depicts an abstract conception of a paradise full of flowers, in which the tender image of the Child, wrapped in striped swaddling and a red mantle, is gently held on the knee of the Madonna while she smiles at him sweetly. The floral background, suggestive of a meadow or a mille-fleur tapestry, belongs explicitly to the Veronese tradition which reached back to the late-gothic style of Michelino da Besozzo and Stefano d’Arbois, also called Stefano da Zevio.

A reminiscence of Mantegna is also evident in the present painting, especially in the figure of the Child, but this is combined with a greater emphasis on volume than line, which characterises the paintings of Francesco Bonsignori, who resided in Mantua for some years.

The result is a pictorial language that can be associated to the so-called Master of the Sagramoso Library, named after the location of the same name, in the convent of San Bernardino in Verona, which was frescoed in 1503 by this anonymous artist. Part of the scholarly community believe that this painter can be identified as Domenico Morone, who had lived at Mantua and worked for the Gonzaga.

Mauro Lucco, however proposes that the anonymous master should be identified with Girolamo dai Libri (circa 1474–1555), a painter and miniaturist from Verona (see M. Lucco, Bartolomeo Cincani detto Montagna. Dipinti, Treviso 2014, pp. 426-428). We have a significant lacuna for the period from 1500 to 1514 during which time we neither know this artist’s movements, nor any of his work.

The present panel shows stylistic similarities to the fragments of the large altarpiece, formerly in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Arzignano, near Vicenza, dated 1509, which Mauro Lucco has attributed to the Master of the Sagramoso Library (see op. cit. Lucco, 2014, pp. 426–428). These fragments were sold at Christie’s in 2010 as works of Domenico Morone (sale, Christie’s, New York, 9 June 2010, lots 5-6-7).

Comparisons can also be made with the Pala Centrego in Sant’Anastasia, Verona, painted by Girolamo dai Libri around 1500, the Madonna in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona (inv. 1291-IB143) as well as the Madonna in the Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara (inv. BPVN 274). At present, the latter two works are believed by some scholars to be by the hand of Domenico Morone, even though the Castelvecchio Madonna has a long-held attribution to Girolamo dai Libri. The Virgin’s hand in the present painting has small, almost round finger nails, which are almost identical to those seen in all the works cited above. Moreover, the way in which the geometric drapery folds are painted recalls the works of Girolamo dai Libri, such as the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne in the National Gallery, London (inv. NG748).

Technical analysis:
Painted on a single wood panel (3 cm thick), the support maintains the two original crossbars. The painting is well preserved, with a part of the original margins of the white ground still visible, some small retouches, some abrasion and a larger loss in the Madonna’s hair.

IR images reveal a contour under drawing, made with a thin brush to define outlines and folds. The drawing is meticulous, without changes and without hatching except in a small shadow in the Madonna’s cloak.

The technique is more likely a “tempera grassa” (egg tempera and siccative oil), with the characteristic thin parallel strokes and small craquelure of the tempera in many parts, like the flesh tones and the blue cloak, and a wider use of oil in the red garments and in the background.

Pigments include precious lapis lazuli in all the Madonna´s blue cloak, verdigris in its lapels and in the green of the background, while azurite is used in the flowers, sometimes mixed with a carmine-type red lake (presumably kermes). A similar coccid-based red lake is used in the Madonna’s dress and in the shadows of the Child’s mantle, which is constituted of vermillion in the lighter areas as well as under the shadows. Ochres can be found in the brown areas, such as in the hair. Lapis lazuli is also employed in the vertical lines of Jesus’ white robe.

A refined shell gold painting is used in the haloes as well as in many lights of the clothes, instead of lead-based yellow.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical examination of the present painting.