(Perugia circa 1478–1566)
Madonna Lactans with a donor; Saint James the Greater (right); Saint Pantaleon (left); eight scenes from the martyrdom of Saint Pantaleon (predella),
inscribed and dated (central panel): RELI[GI]OSA DIAN[.A] A F[ECIT] FACERE. / 1514,
tempera on panel, gold ground, 142 x 181 cm, in an integral frame

Provenance:
art market, Piedmont, circa 1960;
Private European collection

We are grateful to Alessandro Tomei for suggesting the attribution and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

The present painting, which appears to be in its original frame, represents the Virgin standing, holding the Child between Saint James the Greater (right) and Saint Pantaleon (left); depicted in the predella are episodes from the life of the latter saint. The central group is characterised by an unusual iconography: the Madonna is shown standing above a scene of torture wherein the condemned are depicted in the flames of hell on a hieratically reduced scale. Among them, a bishop distinguished by his mitre, is especially notable. Kneeling to the left of the Madonna is a nun (also reduced in scale): she is almost certainly the donor recorded in the partially legible inscription on the lower edge of the frame: RELI [GI]OSA DIAN[.A] A F[ECIT] FACERE.

The date 1514 is inscribed alongside the patron. It should be noted that Bernardino di Mariotto received a deposit for the execution of a large altarpiece for the church of San Domenico in Sanseverino from the Confraternita del Rosario femminile, thereby documenting the artist’s ties to female religious organisations in the Marche.

Bernardino di Mariotto dello Stagno was active between the last quarter of the fifteenth and through the first half of the sixteenth centuries. He was among the most individual and unique painters of his generation in Perugia, as unlike many of his contemporaries he did not become an imitator of Pietro Perugino (circa 1448–1523). He was a native of Perugia and trained in the conservative workshop of Ludovico d’Angelo Mattioli. Between 1502 and 1521 he was based in San Severino, in the Marche. The present work can be compared to the Pietà in the Pinacoteca Comunale Tacchi-Venturi, San Severino, Marche.

The corpus of works by Bernardino di Mariotto dello Stagno is an example of the final phase of the late gothic style in the Marche, influenced by the local master Lorenzo d’Alessandro, as well as the works of Carlo Crivelli and Luca Signorelli.