(Perugia circa 1420 – circa 1505)
The Prophet Isaiah,
tempera on panel, gold ground, 50 x 33 cm (overall), in an integral frame

Provenance:
Collection of Charles Loeser (1864–1928), Florence;
where acquired by Paul Joseph Sachs (1878–1965), Cambridge, MA;
thence by descent to his daughter Elizabeth Sachs (1905–1998), Cambridge, MA (according to an inscription on the reverse: Florence 1926);
Private European collection

Literature:
B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi, Milan 1936, p. 108 (as Bartolomeo Caporali);
B. Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools, vol. 1, London 1968, p. 75 (as Bartolomeo Caporali);
F. Zeri, An ‘Annunciation’ by Benedetto Bonfigli, in: Apollo, 1978, p. 124, fig. 165 (as Bartolomeo Caporali);
F. Todini, La pittura umbra dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento, Milan 1989, I, p. 50, not illustrated (as Bartolomeo Caporali);
F. F. Mancini, Benedetto Bonfigli, Milan 1992, p. 73, 124, 143 cat. no. 13 (as Circle of Bartolomeo Caporali?)

The present painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri under no. 19203 as Bartolomeo Caporali.

We are grateful to Andrea G. De Marchi for endorsing the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present composition is one of the most significant examples of Bartolomeo Caporali’s early artistic career. The work is a refined circular composition that once belonged to a series of three pinnacles depicting God the Father in the center and the Prophet David on the left. The series was documented by the art collector, dealer and scholar Charles Loeser (1864–1928), active in Florence in the beginning of the 20th century, who sold the work to Paul Joseph Sachs (1878–1965), a financier, art collector and director of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University.

The present painting was considered by scholars, including Federico Zeri (see literature), to be originally part of the polyptych with Saint Vincent that was partly reassembled and allocated in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia, where it is still conserved today (inv. nos. 142–146). Executed in 1467 by Caporali and his master Benedetto Bonfigli, the polyptych was situated in the church of San Domenico in Perugia, where it remained until 1863. According to Zeri, the three pinnacles probably adorned the uppermost part of the polyptych (see literature).

De Marchi attributes the present work to Bartolomeo Caporali’s earlier period, when the artist was strongly influenced by Fra Angelico (circa 1395–1455). Caporali was one of the most accomplished painters in Perugia in the mid-fifteenth century and he would have been aware of the altar panel that Fra Angelico painted for the church of San Domenico in Perugia.

Caporali’s artistic activity was based in Perugia. Stylistically his works recall the international Gothic taste, as can be seen in the use of soft and fluid lines and decorative colours. Some aspects, such as the engraved rays of the halo in the present work, derive from Florentine painters, such as the aforementioned, Fra Angelico, as well as Filippo Lippi (1406–1469). The modeling of his drapery reveals similarities to the work of Benozzo Gozzoli (1420–1497), who was active in the nearby city of Foligno.