Sold Without Reserve | WORKSHOP OF THE ZAVATTARI FAMILY | SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST; SAINT ANDREW

These two small panels of Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Andrew once formed part of a long predella, first reconstructed in 1988 by Miklós Boskovits, with Christ Blessing at the center and half-length depictions of twelve apostles on either side [1]. The gentle eyes and the small, delicate hands of the two figures here are stylistically consistent with the Lombard style of the Zavattari workshop, active in the second and third quarters of the fifteenth century.  In addition to the present two saints, seven other panels have been identified: the Christ Blessing, formerly in the Guy Grieten collection, Brussels; St. Peter and Two Apostles, in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgaart (inv. no. 3116); Saint James Major, Saint Bartholomew and another Saint, in a private collection, Milan. Boskovits proposed that the predella may have belonged to the same dismantled polyptych as four lateral saints from the workshop: the Saint John the Baptist and Saint Michael, in the Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona (inv. nos. 735 and 736); the Saint George, formerly in the Willczek collection, Kreuzenstein, Vienna; and the Saint Catherine, in a private collection. He also identified a Christ as the Man of Sorrows, in the Walraff-Richartz Museum, Cologne (inv. no. 748) as likely having surmounted the central panel.

1. For the dismembered polyptych see M. Boskovits, in Arte in Lombardia tra Gotico e Rinascimento, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1988, pp. 170-172. The present panels seem to be unknown at the time of this 1988 publication.