Lot 92: GIROLAMO MARCHESI DA COTIGNOLA (Cotignola c.1471/5-c.1540/50 Naples)

The Madonna and Child with Saints Mary Magdalen and Augustine oil on panel 831/2 x 58 in. (212 x 147.3 cm.) PROVENANCE with Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, London. Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, 5 February 1910, lot 102, as School of Perugino (80 gns. to G. Lens). LITERATURE S. Reinach, R‚pertoire des peintures du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, IV, p. 344 (as Francesco Zaganelli; the male saint as Saint Nicholas of Bari). B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, London, 1968, I p. 454 (as Bernardino Zaganelli); and III, pl. 1035. A. de Marchi, 'Bernadino Zaganelli inedito: due "Facies Christ"', Prosepttiva, 1994, 75-76, pp. 134-135, note 32, as Cotignola. NOTES Born in circa 1471/5, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola began his training in the workshop of his fellow townsmen Francesco and Bernardino Zaganelli in the first decade of the 15th century. His early works, such as the Adoration of the Magi (from the church of San Francesco a Lugo; dated to 1504), reveal the influence of his teachers, and indeed they have often been wrongly attributed to one or other of the Zaganellis, as is the case of the present altarpiece (see below). With the closure of the Zaganellis' studio circa 1510/11, Marchesi worked for the Sforza court at Pesaro and, by 1513, is recorded in Rimini, where he met Girolamo Genga (c.1476-1511), an Urbino-born artist who had worked with Pinturicchio and Signorelli and was familiar with the works of Raphael. It is Marchesi's association with Genga that largely accounts for the elements of Tuscan-Roman classicism that emerged in his paintings of the next few years (see for example the strong compositional rhythm in The Betrothal of the Virgin of 1516, now in the Gem„ldegalerie, Berlin). Around 1520, Marchesi moved to Bologna where the influence of Raphael, as mediated through local artists such as Francesco Francia, was combined with that of Ferrarese painters such as Garofalo (e.g. The Betrothal of the Virgin in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) and Dosso Dossi, as can be seen in the Adoration of the Magi and Shepherds (private collection) and the Madonna and Child with Saints (Pinacoteca Communale, Forl). After a brief trip to Rome and Naples around 1524/5, Marchesi returned to Bologna, where the influence of Michelangelo and the late works of Raphael is evident in the monumentality and scupltural quality of his figures (see for example Bernardo Tolomei receiving the rules of the Olivetian Order, Gem„ldegalerie, Berlin). The last recorded work by the artist is The Madonna and child in glory with Saints, signed and dated 1528, sold Christie's, London, 8 July 1988, lot 68, œ176,000). The present altarpiece was once considered by Berenson ( loc. cit. ) to have been by Bernardino Zaganelli. However, more recently, the work has been attributed to Marchesi by Andrea de Marchi, who notes, in reference to Marchi's Circumcision in the Gem„ldegalerie, Vienna, the more graceful physiognomy of the artist's figures, as compared to those of the Zaganellis ( op. cit., p. 129 and note 32). The same quality can be seen in both the present altarpiece and in another Madonna and Child with Saints (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), in which the Virgin and young Jesus are very close in type and posture to the figures in this work. The most obvious influence in this altarpiece is not Raphael, but rather his teacher, Perugino. The facial types and the harmonious architectural setting of the scene are entirely typical of the Umbrian master - even the details of the metal bars (designed to absorb the shocks of an earthquake) have a precedent in Perugino's Madonna and Child with Saints in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Senigallia. Also typical is the mood of serenity and quiet contemplation that pervades the scene. Indeed, it is these qualities that distinguish the present work from the increasingly complex and animated compositions the artist produced after his meeting with Genga in 1513, suggesting a dating to before that time.