(Chivasso 1490–1540 Turin)
Saint Gregory the Great,
oil on panel, gold ground, 65.5 x 43 cm, unframed

Provenance:
art market, France, circa 1998;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Simone Baiocco for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a photgraph.

The present unpublished painting is an important addition to the oeuvre of Defendente Ferrari. It represents one of the Latin Fathers and Doctor of the Church, Saint Gregory the Great, identifiable by his attributes: the papal tiara and the dove of inspiration.

This work can be compared to another painting by Defendente representing a bishop saint, probably Saint Augustine, conserved in the collection of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria (see V. Mosso, in: Rinascimento segreto, ed. by V. Sgarbi, exhibition catalogue, Santarcangelo di Romagna 2017, pp. 94-95, no. 34). The depiction of the two saints is similar: both are posed at a slight three-quarter angle with attention given to the depiction of details of their robes which are richly ornamented with pearls and precious stones. Both works are rendered with the same minutely realistic precision, typical of the painter, who may have trained in his father’s gold-smithing studio. Additionally, both panels are of similar size and share common design elements in their backgrounds, notably traces of an arch enclosing the gilded ground from which the figures emerge. It has also been hypothesised that another possible pendant for the Saint Augstine can be recognised in the Saint Jerome in the Bruno Meisser collection, Zurich (see op. cit. Mosso, 2017). It is possible that both of these panels belonged to a polyptych that was dismembered and dispersed at an uncertain date.

Defendente Ferrari was one of the most prolific and significant exponents of early cinquecento painting in the Piedmont region. He managed to integrate the latest innovations in North-Italian painting into his artistic production, while also expressing a formal elegance and a taste for the late gothic decorative richness that was especially prized by his ecclesiastical patrons. Defendente was apprenticed in the studio of Martino Spanzotti, who moved to Chivasso, his native city, at the opening of the sixteenth century. His long career unfolded in west Piedmont, where he made numerous works prevalently for churches and convents, such as the two polyptychs conserved in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin.