Lot 81: Innocenzo Francucci, called Innocenzo da Imola (Imola c. 1490-c. 1545 Bologna)

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome
oil on panel
30 1/8 x 24 7/8 (76.5 x 63.1 cm.)

Major J.M. Ashew; Christie's, London, 17 May 1946, lot 80 (30 gns. to Fischer).

The artist is believed to have trained with Francesco Francia in Bologna in circa 1508 - an influence that is certainly implied by the general format of the present picture - and then with Mariotto Albertinelli in Florence for a period between 1510 and 1515. In 1517 Innocenzo moved to Bologna, but evidently carried with him the influence of Raphael, with whose work he would have become familiar in Florence. Thus, for example, Innocenzo's painted frescoes for the chapel of the Sacristy of S Michele in Bosco, are imbued with a monumental, classicist accent suggested by Raphael's Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia (1515; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), which was in Bologna from that time; similarly Raphael's Saint Michael (Paris, Louvre) directly inspired Inocenzo's Virgin in Glory with Saint Michael between Saints Peter and Benedict (1521-2; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale), also painted for S Michele in Bosco. Raphael's influence is similarly evident in the present work, in which the poses of the central figures derive closely from those of the Bridgewater Madonna (Duke of Sutherland, on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh). The latter work is datable to circa 1507, and therefore might have been seen by Innocenzo whilst in Florence.

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