GREEK MASTER, ACTIVE IN VENICE, SECOND QUARTER OF THE 16TH CENTURY | Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Apollonia

Palazzo Passionei Paciotti, Urbino;

Anonymous sale, Rome, Ansuini Aste, 26 June 2018, lot 82 (as Attributed to Ioannis Permeniatis).

Many elements of this painting – the horizontal format, colourful palette, the choice of subject matter with the Madonna’s high throne covered in rich material, and the evocation of dawn in the background, not to mention the stylised branches of the trees and the figures themselves – point towards the hand of an icon painter, most probably Greek, working in Venice in the first half of the 16th century. Such an artist was undoubtedly influenced by the work of Angelos and Donatos Bizamanos, and Ioannis Permeniatis, who studied and assimilated Italian painting to create a synthesis with Byzantine tradition. We are grateful to Professor Michele Bacci for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.