Lot 116: Luca Signorelli (Cortona c . 1450-1523 ?)

Luca Signorelli (Cortona c. 1450-1523 ?)
Saint Michael
oil on panel
19½ x 8 in. (49.5 x 20.4 cm.)
with inscription '... 27- Un Quadro dipinto in Tavola pres...n..[t?]e S:υn Michele Arcange[lo] ...a di Luca Signorelli ...' (on a label on the reverse of the panel)

L.B. Kanter, The Late Works of Luca Signorelli and his Followers, 1498-1559, Ph.D. Thesis, New York University, 1989, p. 116.
L.B. Kanter, 'Some Late Alterpieces by Luca Signorelli', in Studi di Storia dell'Arte, II, 1991, pp. 186-7.
T. Henry, in L.B. Kanter, Luca Signorelli: The Complete Paintings, London, 2001, p. 206, no. 60, illustrated.

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 27 March 1963, lot 43, when acquired by the father of the present owner.

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium
This panel was plausibly identified by Kanter (1989) as from one of the pilasters of Signorelli's Lamentation of 1501-2, originally on the high altar of the church of S. Margherita at Cortona and now in the Diocesan Museum there, which is unquestionably the most distinguished of the numerous commissions Signorelli executed for his native town. Descriptions of the altarpiece establish that the pilasters represented Saints Michael, John the Baptist, Anthony Abbot, Basil, Jerome, Francis, Louis of Toulouse and Bonaventura, and thus suggest that this panel was the topmost element of the left-hand pilaster. Panels of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome which are thought to be from the same series are recorded (Henry, nos. 61 and 63), and Henry associates a Saint Anthony of Padua (his no. 62) with these.