(Serina 1515–1575/85 Venice)
The Return of the Prodigal Son,
oil on canvas, 32 x 41 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Semenzato, Venice, 7 October 1990, lot 48;
where acquired by the father of present owner

We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for confirming the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present painting is a ricordo of the large canvas of the same subject by Antonio Palma conserved in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (oil on canvas, 108 x 196 cm, inv. no. 186). Compared to the Borghese painting, and owing to its different format, the present work excludes certain details such as the return of the prodigal’s brother from the hunt on the right and the man who appears to be playing with the dog on the left and therefore the seemingly extraneous dog seen here, instead serves as a playful distraction from the main narrative.

If Luisa Vertova (see L. Vertova, Giulio Licinio, in: I pittori bergamaschi. Il Cinquecento, II, Bergamo 1976, p. 554) was correct in suggesting that the Borghese canvas served Giulio Licinio as inspiration for his work of the same subject now in the National Museum of Art, Bucarest, which preceded the altarpiece in the Church of Sant’Antonio Abate, Lonno, of 1553, it would follow that the Borghese painting and the present painting, should date to about 1550. On stylistic grounds this seems entirely plausible.

Antonio was the nephew of Jacopo Palma the Elder and the father of Jacopo Palma the Younger. After the death of his uncle, and the likely acquisition of his entire studio by Bonifacio Veronese, Antonio became one of the most faithful transcribers and continuers of the former’s style, working along side Bonifacio. In contrast to the other studio hands, Antonio Palma’s activity can be reconstructed on stylistic grounds because some of his works are signed ‘…tonius Palma’. These include the Resurrection formerly in the Barbini-Breganze collection and now in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, and the processional standard with the Pietà, painted for the Church of the Annunciata, Serina, which is signed and dated 1565.

Antonio Palma’s style differs from that of Bonifacio Veronese owing to its lesser dependence on colour as a stylistic agent, which results in a certain consequent restraint in the pallet used, together with a greater tendency towards compositional linearity.