(Mantua documented between 1447–1516)
Saint Catherine of Alexandria; and
Saint Mary Magdalene,
oil on panel, each 93 x 45 cm, a pair (2)

Provenance:
art market, Rome;
Private European collection;
where aquired by the present owner

The present paintings are registered in the Fototeca Zeri under nos. 21652-21653 (both as Anonimo veronese sec. XV).

We are grateful to Mattia Vinco for suggesting the attribution after examining the present paintings in the original. We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for confirming the attribution on the basis of digital photographs.We are also grateful to Mauro Minardi for his help in cataloguing the present paintings.

The two panels, part of a polyptych, depict Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Mary Magdalene, both turned in three-quarter view. The former can be identified from the palm branch of martyrdom, from which two red shoots grow, and the wheel on which she rests her left hand. The latter can be identified by the jar of ointment on a book.

The Master of Palazzo d’Arco, has been named after one of his most significant works, the Christ before Pilate now in the Museo of Palazzo d’Arco in Mantua and this artist is most likely identifiable as Battista Spagnoli, also known as Battista Mantovano, who became a Carmelite friar at the age of sixteen and eventually prior general of the order. Battista Spagnoli is venerated in the Catholic Church and he was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1885. He is also known for his significant production of poetry written in Latin. Andrea De Marchi has outlined his artistic output supported by documentation. (see A. De Marchi, in Galleria Nazionale, Parma. Catalogo delle opere dall’Antico al Cinquecento, edited by L. Fornari Schianchi, Milan 1997, pp. 97-99, n. 93),

Federico Zeri discussed the artist, analysing two small panels – the Last Supper and the Capture of Christ, in the Altemps Collection, Rome – he identified a nucleus of six panels, amongst which the aforementioned painting of Palazzo d’Arco (see F. Zeri, Studies on Italian paintings, II, in: The journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 1966-67, pp. 48-59); he believed that they could be connected to the same altarpiece and he suggested attributing them to Antonio Della Corna, a Lombard artist active in the decoration of the Sforza Castle in Milan and in the territories of Cremona and Brescia with Vincenzo Foppa.

Alessandro Galli has argued, however that the artist was more influenced by Mantegna’s works in Mantua than by Vincenzo Foppa (see A. Galli, Antonio Della Corna e il maestro di Palazzo d’Arco, in: Arte cristiana, 1995, 769, pp. 278-280), and he identified the artist as the Master of Palazzo d’Arco. A series of previously unattributed paintings was assigned to this master, including the six panels grouped together by Zeri, the two compositions with Saints Anthony and Paul and Saints Bernardino and Jerome, in the Pinacoteca Malaspina, Pavia, and a lunette with a Pietà, now in the Frankfurt Städelsches Kunstinstitut. Andrea De Marchi added to this nucleus of works the detached fresco with the Madonna of Mercy with Saints Albert of Trapani and Angelus of Licata, previously in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Parma and today at the Galleria Nazionale, along with other paintings.

In his essay on the fresco in Parma, De Marchi mentioned two old inscriptions on the reverse of the panel in Frankfurt: ‘Battista Mantovano Carm. /pittore e poeta sacro (?) /1503’ and ‘Baptista Spagnoli Mantuanus /pinxit’. De Marchi suggested that these inscriptions confirm what Ippolito Donesmondi wrote in 1616: that the famous painter Battista Spagnoli, theology professor at the Studio in Bologna, was also an ‘intendentissimo di pittura’ (‘the most expert in painting’) and that ‘veggonsi opere eccellenti in questa professione da lui fatte’ (‘one can see excellent works having been done by him’) (see I. Donesmondi, Dell’historia ecclesiastica di Mantova, II, Mantua 1616, pp. 121-122). As such, the group of paintings catalogued under the name of the Master of Palazzo d’Arco can also plausibly be assigned to the Carmelite friar, confidant and friend of Isabella d’Este as well as the intellectuals living at court of Mantua, including Pietro Bembo, Giovanni Pontano, Pico della Mirandola and Andrea Mantegna.

The stylistic proximity to works of Andrea Mantegna represent a significant charaterisitc of this artist’s style: as he reveals a knowledge of the Ovetari Chapel in Padua and the spatial solutions Mantegna adopted in the San Zeno Altarpiece in Verona. Later, references to Venetian painting, particularly to Giovanni Bellini, appear alongside the models of Andrea’s works in Mantua, as visible in the afore-mentioned Pietà in Frankfurt. Mauro Minardi has suggested that the present paintings can be dated to around 1490 and these works appear to be influenced by the female figures depicted in the canvases of the Triumphs of Caesar that Andrea Mantegna started painting in 1485.