Bonifazio de' Pitati called Bonifazio Veronese

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 15 January 1993, lot 10;
There purchased by the present owner.

Boston, Fogg Art Museum, 1938;
San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Venetian Painting, 1938, no. 13.

P. Hendy, Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, vol. XXXI, no. 186, 1933, pp. 59-61;
B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milan 1936, p. 80 (as Bonifazio Veronese);
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance.  Venetian School, New York 1957, vol. I, p. 41 (as Bonifazio Veronese);
B.B. Fredericksen & F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteeth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge 1972, pp. 31, 564 (as Bonifazio Veronese);
A.R. Murphy, European Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue, Boston 1985, p. 23 (as Bonifazio Veronese).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has not been recently restored and the retouches have discolored somewhat. The canvas has an old lining and the surface is stable. If the paint layer were to be cleaned, the discolored retouches could be replaced more accurately. The retouches in the limbs of the dog in the lower center have blanched and are very visible under ultraviolet light and to the naked eye and there is a regular presence of retouches here and there throughout the painting, however given the period and scale of the work they are not numerous. The paint layer is visibly abraded and hopefully proper retouching would attend to this perception.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This is an example of Bonifazio's sacre conversazioni that were so popular in Venice in the 16th century and that were inspired by those of his teacher, Palma Vecchio. Ultimately, however, it is to the examples of Titian, Giorgione and Giovanni Bellini that Bonifazio's works owe the greatest debt and, from these predecessors of his, Bonifazio appropriated the compositional symmetry and quiet, contemplative tone that characterise his mature works. His conversazioni are almost all built along the same compositional lines, with the Holy Family set before a tree or stone temple, flanked by saints and with an extensive Giorgionesque landscape diminishing into the distance on either side. In this way the present lot may be compared with the example in the collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne at Bowood¹ or that in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.²

1.  B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, vol. I, New York 1957, p. 43 (as a late work).
2.  Ibid., fig. 1137.