Giovanni Francesco Tura The Holy Family in a wooded river landscape with ships and a castle across the river beyond

Property from a Private Collection

Giovanni Francesco Tura
Active in Mantua in the first half of the 16th century
The Holy Family in a wooded river landscape with ships and a castle across the river beyond

oil on panel, unframed
unframed: 49.5 x 38.7 cm.; 19½ x 15¼ in.
framed: 71.5 x 61.1 cm.; 28⅛ x 24 in.

Condition Report:
The panel is uncradled, stable and bears a slight bow. There is evidence of beveling on all four margins on the reverse. The paint surface is stable and is covered in a thin layer of varnish which is clear. There is evidence of stable diagonal craquelure visible in the top right corner and in the flesh tones. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals minor scattered retouchings most noticeable in small areas of the figures, background, drapery, and in four small concentrated areas in the bottom right and lower margins. Overall the painting is in good condition and presents well.

Catalogue Note:
Professor Andrea De Marchi recognised this beautiful and tender depiction of the Holy Family as by the hand of a Mantuan painter, only recently identified as Giovanni Francesco Tura, also known as Tura Mantovano.1 This highly unusual artist developed a fascinating style, encompassing the influences of a wide range of painters. The soft sfumato effects, coupled with the mystical, dream-like landscape, recall the styles of Ferrarese artists such as Garofalo, Mazzolino and Dosso, but the influence of Parmigianino, Lotto and Giulio Romano are also perceptible. Despite all the variety of artistic references, Tura’s overall painting manner remains distinctly Mantuan in style. The artist often employed curious iconography, exemplified in the far background of this painting, where smoke rises from a ship aflame among the vessels in the harbor on the city’s shore. The face of the Virgin is reminiscent of that of Saint Sebastian in Tura’s Saint Eleanor with Saints Sebastian, Dominic, Peter and Jerome, now in the collection of the Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna, Modena.2

The corpus ascribed to Tura was formerly grouped under the name of the Orembelli Master, a moniker derived from a Holy Family with Saints Elizabeth and the Infant John the Baptist in the collection of Alfonso Orembelli, Milan.3 Many of the paintings in this group had previously been thought to belong to the early activity of Correggio and, indeed, the present painting was published as the work of Correggio by Giuseppe Toscano in 1974 (see Literature). Marco Tanzi has been hesitant in directly identifying the Orembelli Master as Giovanni Francesco Tura, suggesting that the group of works given to the former is expansive and may in fact encompass more than one hand.

We are grateful to Professors Andrea De Marchi and Mattia Vinco for suggesting the attribution after first-hand inspection and to Professor David Ekserdjian for endorsing it on the basis of photographs. We are grateful to Professor Marco Tanzi for suggesting this lot is the work of an artist painting in Romagna, close to Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola and Francesco Zaganelli on the basis of photographs.

1 Private oral communication with the department after first-hand inspection, 29 January 2016.

2 M. Tanzi, Tesori ritrovati: Un dipinto inedito di un antico maestro pittore mantovano, Mantua 2000, p. 17, reproduced fig. 5.

3 R. Berzaghi, 'Tre dipinti e un nome per il ‘Maestro Orembelli’', in P. Piva and E. Del Canto (eds), Dal Correggio a Giulio Romano, La committenza di Gregorio Cortese, Mantua 1989, p. 171, reproduced p. 172.

Provenance:
Private collection, Italy, since at least 1963;
Whence anonymously sold ('Property from an Italian Private Collection'), New York, Sotheby's, 26 May 2016, lot 9;
Where acquired by Moretti Fine Art Ltd., London;
From whom acquired by the present owner.