Lot 77: Marco d'Oggiono (?Milan c. 1467-1524)

The Nativity, an extensive landscape beyond oil on panel 17 x 143/4 in. (43.4 x 37.7 cm.) PROVENANCE Senator Giacomo Frizzoni, Bergamo, in 1933. Freiherr Von Kleist, Schloss Hard bei Ermatinger: sale, Fischer, Zurich, 18 May 1933, lot 1267 (3500 Fr. to the father of the present owner). LITERATURE D. Sedini, Marco d'Oggiono tradizione e rinnovamento in Lombardia tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento, Milan, 1989, pp. 234-6, no. 131, illustrated in colour. NOTES This intimate panel was identified by Sedini in his 1989 catalogue raisonn‚ ( loc. cit. ), as the prototype of a group of pictures of this composition, of which versions exist in the Ospedale Maggiore, Milan (42.5 x 35 cm.) and the Church of Santa Maria di Canale, Tortona. Although apparently in a fairly poor state of conservation, the Milan Nativity lacks the quality and detail of the present picture - for example in the treatment of the folds of Joseph's drapery and the absence of his stick in the latter picture - and is considered by Sedini as 'una replica'. The Tortona panel shows a completely different landscape, and differing architecture. Sedini adds to this group another Nativity in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, that Suida had associated with the work of Bramantino and Luini. He considers the quality of the present picture as 'superior to that of the others in the delicacy and balance of the composition' and labels it 'the prototype of a high level, from which derive the others'. SALESROOM NOTICE Please note that this picture is accepted by Dr. Domenico Sedini as by the Master of the Nativit… di Tortona ( loc. cit. ). Please note that the estimate is: œ40,000-60,000.