(Brescia circa 1430–1515)
Madonna and Child with angels, flanked by Saint Roch and Saint Sebastian,
tempera and oil on panel, 52 x 42 cm (painted surface), 63.5 x 50 cm (overall), integral frame

Provenance:
Private collection, Northern Germany;
art market, Germany, 2014;
where acquired by the present owner

The present painting was intended for private devotion and shows the enthroned Madonna, surrounded by a choir of angels with Saints Sebastian and Roch, who were particularly venerated for protecting against epidemic diseases and plagues.

In contrast to the late-Gothic structure of the frame, with an unusual and decidedly innovative effect, the figures in the painting do not set against a gold background, but a naturalistic background, probably inspired by Flemish or possibly also Venetian models: a sky with streaks of clouds that fade from an intense blue at the top to a lighter tone towards the horizon, overlooking a landscape composed of rocky expanses and woods.

This panel can be dated to around 1450, and is stylistically close to early works by Vincenzo Foppa. It can be compared to the Madonna della Siepe in the Berenson Collection in Settigano, Florence (see P. Toesca, La Pittura e la Miniatura nella Lombardia, Turin 1966, pp. 235–36; M. G. Balzarini, Vincenzo Foppa. La formazione e l’attività giovanile, Florence 1996, pp. 24–25; G. Romano, in: Vincenzo Foppa, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2003, p. 27). The Madonna’s face, depicted slightly turned, shows a type very similar to that of the Berenson panel; the outline and the delicate chiaroscuro are also similar in the Madonna ex-Trivulzio in the Pinacoteca of Castello Sforzesco, Milan (Balzarini, op. cit., 1996, p. 31). The angels can be compared to those of the Madonna della Siepe and also to the groups of angels that appear in the fresco cycle of the Portinari Chapel in Sant’Eustorgio, Milan, completed around 1468, flanking the depiction of God the Father and the Madonna of the Assumption, both in the apex of the archways.

The early relationship of the young Vincenzo Foppa with the Paduan artistic tradition of Donatello and Squarcione is evident in the plasticity and modelling of the two saints. Saint Sebastian is portrayed in an athletic pose tied to a classical column, reflecting sculpture and perhaps even an awareness of the work of the young Mantegna, although the modelling of the chiaroscuro remains stylistically Lombard. The facial features of Saint Roch show a very individual rendering that brings it close to the panel of Saint Siro in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, part of a polyptych bearing the date 1455 or 1456 (G. Romano, in: Vincenzo Foppa, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2003, pp.108–109).

The importance of the painting for the Lombard milieu of the time is demonstrated by the existence of a contemporary derivation: a work (46 x 36 cm) of similar structure and identical subject in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona (inv. no. 107), a work traditionally attributed to an ‘Anonimo Veronese’, but in reality Lombard and probably attributable to the first artistic production of Paolo da Caylina, il Vecchio from Brescia. He was Foppa’s brother-in-law and his collaborator in Pavia in 1458, as shown by the relationship with his polyptych signed and dated to the same year from Sant’ Albino in Mortara in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin (see P. Toesca, La Pittura e la Miniatura nella Lombardia, Turin 1966, pp. 232–33; G. Romano, Vincenzo Foppa, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2003, p. 112).