(active in Lombardy in the early 16th Century)
The Madonna and Child,
oil and gold on panel, 62 x 47 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Private European collection;
art market, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

This panel originally formed the central portion of a dismembered polyptych, as is clearly evidenced by the arched outline of the original frame, profiling the upper edge of the painting. The work is an example of late Quattrocento Lombard painting, probably dating to before 1490. Another painting on panel of Saint Stephen (60 x 50 cm) is possibly part of the same polyptych and was formerly with Gualtiero Volterra in Florence, and according to the Fototeca Zeri archive, it was believed by Giovanni Testori to be an early work of Bernardo Zenale (see Fototeca Zeri, no. 23137).

The elegant gold ground, ornamented with rhomboid motifs, reveals the influence of the great late gothic Lombard tradition and is in direct contrast with the figure painting, which is fully renaissance in style. Indeed, the style reflects the influence of the finest work of Ambrogio Bergognone, both in the figure types represented and in the soft lighting of the modelling of the flesh tones: the broad, sculptural quality of the forms, recall the manner of Bernardino Zenale and can be compared to the polyptych for San Martino in Treviglio, commissioned in 1485 and made in collaboration with Bernardino Butinone.

There are also notable similarities of style with the more archaic group of works from the circle of Bernardino Zenale, and associated with the triptych of the Madonna enthroned between Saints Ambrogio and Girolamo from the Museo di Sant’Ambrogio, Milan, believed to have been painted by the associates Marco Longobardi (documented, Milan 1466 to 1509) and Giovanni Antonio da Cantù (documented, 1484 to 1498) (see C. Cairati in Bramante a Milano. Le Arti in Lombardia 1477-1499, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2015, pp. 86-88, 206-7). Indeed, the features of the Virgin in the present painting seem to prelude those of the Madonna in the Sant’Ambrogio triptych, and in the fresco in the church of San Teodoro at Cantù, suggesting a possible referent to the early activity of Longobardi, who is recorded as active from 1466.