(Gaeta, active in the second half of the 15th Century)
The Crucifixion,
tempera and oil on panel, 46 x 29 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Aristocratic European collection, since the late 18th Century

Literature:
E. Zappasodi, Per la giovinezza di Giovanni da Gaeta, in: Predella, 43/44, 2018, p. 109 footnote 38, not illustrated (as Giovanni da Gaeta)

We are grateful to Alessandro Tomei for endorsing the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present composition is of formal elegance. The Madonna is depicted on the left and Saint John the Evangelist on the right. Mary Magdalen kneels at the base of the cross, embracing the feet of the Saviour. The halos framing the heads of the figures are decorated with finely executed punch-work beadings and rings and the work is stylistically distinctive of Giovanni da Gaeta, who was active during the mid-Quattrocento.

The master’s name is recorded in an inscription ‘Johannes Cajetanus’, on the lower edge of a triptych of The Coronation of the Virgin, which is dated 1456, conserved in the Museo Diocesano e della Religiosità del Parco dei Monti Aurunci, Gaeta. Originally it was in the church of Santa Lucia in Gaeta.

The first corpus of works assigned to this painter was assembled by Federico Zeri (see F. Zeri, Il Maestro del 1456, in: Paragone, vol. 1, no. 3, 1950, pp. 19-25), with subsequent contributions and additions to artist by Luigi Salerno (see L. Salerno, Il Museo Diocesano di Gaeta, Gaeta 1956, p. X ff., 13 ff., and 29 ff.) and again by Zeri (see F. Zeri, Appunti, in: Paragone, no. 129, 1960, pp. 51-53).

The stylistic similarities between the present Crucifixion and the Gaeta Coronation are especially evident in the treatment of the figures, in their elongated outlined forms and in their intensely expressive features, communicating pathos. The muted iridescence of the palette points to Giovanni da Gaeta having trained in southern Italy, in all likelihood in Naples, where he could also have come into contact with examples of Catalan and Valencian painting, which were well represented in the city at the time, and might have especially informed his manner of depicting the features of his subjects, as well as the tonal range in his choice of palette.

The present painting can be compared to another Crucifixion by Giovanni da Gaeta, a monumental, painted cross, conserved in the Museo Diocesano, Gaeta. The similarities between the figure of Christ in the Gaeta cross and in the present Crucifixion are notable, as is the rendering of the Magdalen in both compositions. In both works the Magdalen’s thick, curling locks of hair, her expression and the palette used are all features that point to the work of the same hand.

Although neither Giovanni da Gaeta’s date of birth, nor that of his death are known, Tomei suggests that the present painting can be aligned chronologically alongside the cross in Gaeta and that it therefore belongs to the artist’s full maturity.