Bartolomeo Veneto

(documented from 1502–1531 Turin)
Madonna and Child,
oil on panel, 63 x 51 cm, framed

Provenance:
possibly Luigi Tescari collection, Castelfranco Veneto;
Private collection, Belluno;
Ongania collection, Venice;
Collection Cristoforo Benigno Crespi (1833–1920), Milan;
his sale, Georges Petit, Paris, 4 June 1914, lot 5;
Count Trotti collection, Paris;
Collection Frank Arthur Vanderlip jr (1906–1993), New York;
sale, Christie’s, New York, 19 January 1982, lot 117;
sale, Finarte, Milan, 4 November 1986, lot 110;
sale, Finarte, Milan, 18 October 1994, lot 27

Literature:
possibly A. Crowe/G. B. Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in North Italy…, London 1871, vol. I, p. 292, note 3;
A. Crowe/G. B. Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in North Italy…, ed. by T. Borenius, London 1912, vol. I, pp. 298-299, note 4;
Catalogue des tableaux..chez F. Ongania, Venice 1899, no. 2
A. Venturi, Bartolomeo Veneto, in: L’Arte, II, 1899, p. 432 and p. 434, fig. 3;
A. Venturi, La Galleria Crespi in Milano. Note e raffronti, Milan 1900, p. 86, ill. p. 84;
J. Burckhardt, Der Cicerone, ed. by W. Bode, Leipzig/Berlin 1901, vol. II, p. 732;
P. D’Achiardi, voice Bartolomeo Veneto, in: U. Thieme/F. Becker (ed.), Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, vol. II, Leipzig 1908, p. 578;
A. Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, VII, La pittura del Quattrocento, part IV, Milan 1915, p. 694;
E. Michalski, Zur Problematik des Bartolomeo Veneto, in: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, LXI (1927-1928), p. 281;
G. Fogolari, voice Bartolomeo Veneto, in: Enciclopedia Italiana, vol. VI, Rome 1930, p. 255;
A. Riccoboni (ed.), Pittura veneta. Prima mostra d’arte antica delle raccolte private veneziane, Venice 1947, p. 22;
B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del rinascimento. La scuola veneta, London 1958, vol. I, p. 12;
F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani, Venice 1962, vol. I, p. 19, no. 58 d, vol. II, p. 361, fig. 405;
F. Gibbons, Practices in Giovanni Bellini’s workshop, in: Pantheon, 23, 1965, mentioned p. 147 and p. 153, note 7;
A. Gentili, Giovanni Bellini, la bottega, i quadri di devozione, in: Venezia Cinquecento. Studi di storia dell’arte e della cultura, no. 2, 1991, p. 32;
D. Thiébaut, Ajaccio, musée Fesch. Les Primitifs italiens, Paris 1987, p. 60;
L. Pagnotta, voice Bartolomeo Veneto, in: Saur.Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon aller Zeiten und Völker, vol. VII, 1993, Munich-Leipzig, pp. 297-298;
L. Pagnotta, Bartolomeo Veneto. L’opera completa, Florence 1997, p. 158, no. 3

The present painting is an early work by Bartolomeo Veneto and relates to a series of paintings representing the Madonna and Child that he produced during the first decade of the Cinquecento. The composition may derive from a lost prototype by Giovanni Bellini with whom Bartolomeo Veneto trained; versions of the former’s work were produced by painters of his school.

This composition showing the Madonna holding the Child on her knee, while touching his foot, is repeated in other works by Bartolomeo, including the panel conserved at the Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon, that in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo, another formerly in the Donà delle Rose collection sold at Christie’s New York (30 January 2013, lot 142) and a fourth in the Musée Fesch, Ajaccio (see Pagnotta 1997, pp. 154-157, nos. 1-2 and pp. 160-163, nos. 4-5, in literature); additionally, another version was offered recently at Sotheby’s, New York (26 May 2016, lot 6) in which the pose of the Madonna is orientated to the left, and the Child, with knee bent, is closer to the version in Ajaccio. The painting formerly in the Donà delle Rose collection is signed and dated 1502, and is at present the earliest known work by the artist, while that at Carrara is dated 1505. Scholarship appears to be entirely agreed on the dating of the present painting between these temporal parameters.

In the present painting, a balustrade separates the viewer from the divine vision, this is typical in works by and from the circle of Bellini. In the background, on a significantly reduced scale compared to the foreground protagonists, various incidental scenes can be made out: a man on horseback, a shepherd with his flock and other animals including two deer. These elements reveal that particular interest for Northern art that distinguished the work of Bartolomeo Veneto from the outset. The presence of the two deer, induced Borenius (see literature) to suppose that this work was the same as the one seen by Crowe and Cavalcaselle at the end of the nineteenth century in the Tescari collection in Castelfranco. The present painting is reminiscent of Giovanni Bellini on account of the physical type of the figures, the angular form of the drapery and the background landscape, where on the right there is a city which may represent Bassano del Grappa due to the depiction of the distinctive covered bridge.