Lot 28: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION BERNARDINO DI BETTO, CALLED IL PINTURICCHIO PERUGIA CIRCA 1454

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION BERNARDINO DI BETTO, CALLED IL PINTURICCHIO PERUGIA CIRCA 1454 - 1513 SIENA THE MADONNA AND CHILD

tempera on panel, gold ground, octagonal

PROVENANCE

Georges Renand, Paris;
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 31 May 1988, lot 42;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 25 January 2001, lot 50, for $300,000, where acquired by the present owner.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

F. Todini, La Pittura Umbra dal Duecento al Cinquecento, Milan 1989, vol. I, p. 292, cat. no. 1223, reproduced vol. II, fig. 1223;
F.I. Nucciarelli, Studi sul Pinturicchio: dalle prime prove alla Cappella Sistina, Ellera Umbra 1998, p. 292.
CATALOGUE NOTE

Although subsequently obscured by the more famous names of the High Renaissance and Vasari's negative assessment of his work, Pinturicchio (so-called because of his small stature) was one of the leading painters in Umbria during the second half of the 15th century. Trained in the artistic circle of his native Perugia (it is unclear who his master was, but it seems to have been either Bartolomeo Caporali or Fiorenzo di Lorenzo), he was of sufficient standing by 1481-2 to collaborate with the most famous artist of his home-town - Perugino - on the frescoed walls in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. His lively and lyrical style was admired by the Roman élite (Vasari noted in his Vite that Pinturicchio's style was particularly pleasing to 'princes and lords'), and he received a number of important commissions as well as gaining a fine reputation as a painter. He became a favourite painter of the Spanish Pope Alexander VI, and was commissioned to decorate his living quarters, the so-called 'Appartamenti Borgia', in 1492. Despite his lengthy sojourn in Rome, Pinturicchio maintained links with his native Perugia, returning there throughout his life, and also travelled to Siena, where he remained for the last ten years of his life, working for the illustrious Piccolomini family.

Despite his considerable activity as a painter of large-scale altarpieces and frescoed decorative cycles, Pinturicchio also painted a number of smaller devotional works, of which the present panel is a fine example. The Virgin holds the Infant Christ, who, in turn, holds out a goldfinch - a common symbol of his forthcoming Passion. The reason for its traditional association with the Christ Child was the legend that it acquired its red spot at the moment when it flew down over the head of Christ on the road to Calvary and, as it drew a thorn from His brow, was splashed with a drop of Christ's blood. The gold-leaf background, with its elaborate punchwork and intertwining motif, although not unique in the artist's oeuvre is, however, somewhat retardataire and suggests that the patron commissioning the panel may have particularly asked for this, as opposed to a more modern landscape setting (as in, for example, Pinturicchio's Virgin and Child in the Huntington, San Marino; reproduced in Todini, see Literature, plate 88). In fact, the taste for these elaborate gold-ground backgrounds was well-established throughout Italy during the 15th century but they can also be found into the 16th century: one such example is Antoniazzo Romano's large Annunciation of 1500 in the Cappella dell'Annunziata in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome.

In a letter dated 1st November 1993, the late Prof. Federico Zeri endorsed the attribution of the present panel to Pinturicchio, and suggested a dating circa 1492-95.

41.9 by 38.7 cm.; 16 1/2 by 15 1/4 in.