(Bassano 1566–1621)
Christ on the Road to Calvary,
oil on canvas, 98 x 134.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Professor Alessandro Ballarin and Dr. Giuliana Ericani for both independently suggesting the attribution to Gerolamo Bassano for the present painting on the basis of high resolution digital photographs.

Christ on the Road to Calvary was a subject that was addressed repeatedly by the Bassanos’ workshop after Francesco Bassano had completed his cycle of paintings for the church of Sant’Antonio Abate, with Gerolamo and Giovanni Battista as his collaborators. One of these compositions, (see E. Arslan, I Bassano, Milan, 1960, vol. I, p. 196; vol. II, fig. 244), is of upright rectangular format and shows Christ under the Cross in the centre of the scene, with Veronica behind him, the pious women behind the Cross, Herod beneath an arch, and a young boy in an oriental hat carrying a ladder.

Gerolamo dealt with the present subject at least seven times, partly in the form of autograph replicas, partly as ‘reformati’ (reworkings) of the paintings of his father or his brother Francesco. This number derives from Gerolamo Bassano’s testament from 10th November 1621. (see S. Mason, L‘inventario di Gerolamo Bassano e l‘eredità della bottega, in: Notiziario dell‘Associazione Amici dei Musei e dei Monumenti di Bassano del Grappa, special edition, December 2009, pp. 48–70).

Although the artist’s oeuvre and the assessments made by Arslan are still in need of critical analysis, there are several stylistic constants that permit us to attribute the present painting. Ridolfi (C. Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell‘arte, Venice 1648, ed. by D. von Hadeln, Berlin, 1914–1924, vol. II, p. 171) pointed out the idiosyncrasies of the Gerolamo’s typical style of painting as early as 1948, which seems to imitate the work of his father, but is different in terms of the brushwork and the darkness of the colours (see also W. R. Rearick, Jacopo Bassano’s Last Painting: the Baptism of Christ, in: Arte Veneta, 21, 1967, pp. 102–7). The execution of the clouds and the blue sky in the present composition is similarly broad and schematic as in Gerolamo’s Birth of Christ (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which is a copy based on his father Jacopo’s Birth of Joseph from 1568. The coloured surfaces in the present painting seem vibrant and less defined, similar to those in Judah and Tamar in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier (see S. Mason, 2009, p. 11, fig. 2).

The handling of the drapery is comparable to that in other paintings by Gerolamo, such as in the Madonna with Saints Fortunatus and Hermagoras (Museo Civico, Bassano), Saint Giustina Flanked by Saints Mark and Barbara (Museo Civico, Bassano), and the Madonna and Child with Saints Mark and Giustina (Cismon). The characteristic indecisiveness in the brushwork suggests that the painting dates from Gerolamo’s artistic maturity and was made between the late 16th and early 17th century.

We are grateful to Giuliana Ericani for her help in cataloguing this lot.