The Virgin and Child with St Martin and St Petronius
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Executed 1590
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 200 x 190 cm h x w x d: Ram 228 x 217 x 11 cm
Inventory numberNM 32
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Martelli 1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Madonnan med barnet och St Martin och St Petronius Title (en): The Virgin and Child with St Martin and St Petronius
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 105: FORMER INV. NOS.: 284 (B. 1830s); KM 1068. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of two pieces of medium- coarse, twill-weave linen fabric sewn together horizontally. The painting is lined with glue and mounted on a non-original strainer. The paint-layer is very abraded and there are numerous old retouches all over the painting. The varnish is yellowed. The painting is in poor condition. Documented restorations: 1921: Cleaned from overpaintings. New “repairs”. Varnish. PROVENANCE: Byström 1852. BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1867, p. 3 (as Moretto, The Virgin and Child with St Petronius and St Martin); Sander 1872–76, IV, p. 112, no. 17 (as Moretto, attributed to, The Virgin and Child with St Petronius and St Martin); NM Cat. 1958, p. 231 (as anonymous, 16th century, The Virgin and Child with St Petronius and St Martin); NM Cat. 1990, p. 417 (as anonymous, 16th century, The Virgin and Child with St Petronius and St Martin). The large dimensions and the subject matter of this canvas clearly indicate its origin as an altarpiece. The painting presents a classical religious scene, with the Madonna and Child seated on a high throne in a raised hierarchical position, flanked by two saints. The scene is set against green drapery with a column on either side. The canvas is dated to the year 1590, which is written in Roman numerals on the base of the throne. When the canvas belonged to the Byström Collection it was referred to simply as a “Madonna and Child with Two Saints”.¹ Later, these last were erroneously identified as St Martin, the 4th-century bishop of Tours, standing to the left in the painting, and St Petronius, the patron saint of the city of Bologna, to the right.² Certain attributes, or the lack thereof, have led to a reidentification of the two saints. The figure to the left is dressed in a green robe and draped in a red mantle, and while contemplating the Virgin and Child he gives a coin to a poor naked man seated at his feet. The iconography of St Martin of Tours does include a scantily clad beggar at the saint’s feet, but in the episode of the cloak, Martin is depicted handing him half of his military cloak, which he has cut in two.³ In the Nationalmuseum canvas, by contrast, the saint is donating a coin to the man resting at his feet, and alms-giving is a characteristic associated with the 12th-century Italian saint Homobonus, a merchant tailor from the city of Cremona who spent his life and fortune helping the needy. St Homobonus is often depicted dressed in green and red, handing a coin to a half-naked beggar on the ground, as in the Nationalmuseum painting.⁴ The saint to the right here, on the other hand, is dressed in a red and gold brocade dalmatic and holds a model of a city in his hands, which he presents to the Virgin. The flag to his right reveals that this is not St Petronius, as believed, but St Vincent, the patron saint of Vicenza.⁵ The city model is of Vicenza and most probably represents the “Jewel of Vicenza” (Gioiello di Vicenza), a silver model of the city created in 1578 to Andrea Palladio’s design and donated to the church of the Madonna of Monte Berico to ward off the plague.⁶ The reidentification of the saints makes possible a more accurate indication of the artist’s cultural sphere and the place of origin of the altarpiece. Given the presence of St Vincent with the model of the city of Vicenza, it is most likely that the canvas originates from that area. The artistic life of late 16th-century Vicenza was dominated by the Maganza family, and especially Alessandro Maganza.⁷ The latter, strongly influenced by the art of Tintoretto and Veronese, was extremely active in the city according to the ancient writers. Carlo Ridolfi wrote in 1648 how in Vicenza there was “No church or oratory that doesn’t have works by Maganza”,⁸ and Luigi Lanzi later noted that “Vicenza is overflowing with his [Alessandro Maganza’s] paintings, in private and in public”.⁹ The Nationalmuseum painting most probably has its origins in the small oratory once in the centre of Vicenza, dedicated by the tailors’ confraternity of the city to their patron Homobonus. ¹⁰ The canvas that once decorated the altar of this oratory, which resembles the Nationalmuseum work, was first recorded by Marco Boschini in 1676.¹¹ Boschini describes the subject matter of the altarpiece as a Madonna and Child with St Vincent and St Homobonus, and indicates further that the author of the canvas is Alessandro Maganza, and that it is one of his “rare” paintings, which must be taken to mean exceptional. The altarpiece was later mentioned by Francesco Vendramini Mosca in 1779, still in the Oratory of St Homobonus in Vicenza.¹² The canvas, which is now considered lost,¹³ possibly left the oratory during the early years of the 19th century, when Vicenza became part of the French Empire and was annexed to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1805, or possibly already in 1797, when the city was first subjugated to the French government and many of its convents and monasteries were abolished, and as a consequence much of Vicenza’s artistic heritage left the city.¹⁴ It is possible that the canvas subsequently arrived on the Roman art market and was purchased for the Byström Collection. se 1 RA, E I a: 280, Finansdep. Konseljakt, ärende nr. II, 1852-05-26, Katalog öfver framlidne Professor J. N. Byströms Tafvel-Samling, no. 284 “Madonnan med barnet, omgifven av 2ne Heliga af Bonifazio, 250 riksdaler banco”. The painting was first attributed to Bonifacio de’ Pitati, called Bonifacio Veronese. 2 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, G: 3, Redogörelse för statsanslaget till Kongl. Museum, 1844–1854; NM Archives, D: 1, Inventarier över Kongl. Museum, 1803–1857. The canvas was attributed here to Alessandro Bonvicino, called il Moretto, and was interpreted as a “Madonna and Child with St Petronius and St Martin”. 3 Kaftal 2003, pp. 691–704. 4 Ibid., pp. 425–426. 5 Ibid., pp. 860–867. 6 Zorzi 1966, pp. 144, 154–156, docs. 1–9, fig. 162. The model was later destroyed by the Napoleonic troops in 1797, and recently a new “Jewel of Vicenza” has been created, based on pictures of the model, like the one in the painting Madonna and Child with St Anastasius and St Vincent by Alessandro Maganza from 1613, in the church of San Vincenzo in Thiene. 7 Binotto 1989, pp. 795–796. 8 Ridolfi 1648, p. 241. 9 Lanzi 1809, p. 233. 10 Giarolli 1987, p. 155. 11 Marchioro (1676) 2000, pp. 143–144, “Chiesa di S. Huomobuono, Scuola de Sarti. La Tavola dell’Altare contiene la B. V. col Bambino sedente con S. Vincenzo Protettore della Città, e S. Huomobuono protettore de sarti: opera delle rare di Alessandro Maganza”. 12 Vendramini Mosca 1779, p. 100, “Oratorio di S. Omobon: Fraglia de’ Sartori. La Tavola dell’Altare, che contiene la B. V. col Bambino sedente, S. Vincenzo, e S. Omobon, è opera delle rare di Alessandro Maganza”. 13 Marchioro (1676) 2000, p. 213, note 77. [End]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword
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