Master Paintings
Master Paintings
Property from the Martello Collection
Jacopo da Valenza
The Blessing Christ
Auction Closed
May 20, 03:42 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Martello Collection
Jacopo da Valenza
Active in the Veneto 1485 - 1509
The Blessing Christ
oil on panel
panel: 15 ¾ by 19 ⅝ in.; 40 by 49.8 cm.
framed: 22 by 25 ⅞ in.; 55.9 by 65.7 cm.
Berwin collection, Philadelphia;
Louis M. Rabinowitz, New York;
By whom anonymously sold, London, Sotheby’s, 24 June 1970, lot 26 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
Mario Lanfranchi, Rome, by 1976;
Private collection;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 8 July 1987, lot 28 (as Pier Maria Pennachi);
There acquired by the present collector.
L. Venturi, The Rabinowitz Collection, New York 1945, pp. 37-38, reproduced plate XVI (as Pier Maria Pennacchi, and as Salvator Mundi);
L. Venturi, “Tre pitture venete della collezione Rabinowitz,” in Arte Veneta, vol. I 1947, pp. 20-21 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
L. Coletti, “Pittura Veneta del Tre e Quattrocento,” in Arte Veneta, vol. I, 1947, pp. 5-9, reproduced plate 16 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
A. Martini, “Spigolature Venete,” in Arte Veneta, vol. XI, 1957, p. 59 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani, Venice 1960, p. 57, under cat. no. 192, version k (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
V. Sgarbi, “Pier Maria Pennacchi e Lorenzo Lotto," in Prospettiva, July 1977, no. 10, pp. 42-43, reproduced fig. 8 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
V. Sgarbi, “Il fregio di Castelfranco e la cultura bramantesca,” in Giorgione, Atti del Convengo Internazionale di studi, 1979, p. 274;
M. Lucco, “Riflessi lombardi nel Veneto (un abbozzo di ricerca sui precedenti culturali del Lotto),” in Lorenzo Lotto a Treviso. Ricerche e Restauri, exhibition catalogue, 1980, p. 65, no. 67 (Jacopo da Valenza);
S. Guarino, “Lorenzo Lotto e la cerchia di Alvise Vivarini,” in Lorenzo Lotto, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di studi per il V Centenario della nascità, 18-21 september, 1980, 1981, p. 44;
G. Nepi Scirè, “Il pittore trevigiano Pier Maria Pennacchi, “ in Lorenzo Lotto e la cerchia di Alvise Vivarini, in Lorenzo Lotto, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di studi per il V Centenario della nascità, p. 38, reproduced fig. 3 (as Pier Maria Pennacchi);
S. Guarino, "Lorenzo Lotto e la Cerchia di Alvise Vivarini," in Lorenzo Lotto, Atti, Convegno Internazionale di studi per il V centenario della nascita, p. 44, reproduced fig. 2;
F. Trevisani, “Osservazioni sulla mostra Lorenzo Lotto nelle Marche. Il suo tempo. Il suo influsso,” in Arte Veneta, XXXV, 1981, p. 278;
F. Trevisani, Restauri in Polesine. Dipinti: documentazione e conservazione, 1984, p. 70 (as Jacopo da Valenza);
F. Frangi, in The Martello collection: further paintings, drawings, and miniatures, 13-18th century, Florence 1992, pp. 148-151, cat. no. 35, reproduced (as attributed to Pier Maria Pennacchi).
This arresting portrayal of Christ Blessing is one of the many paintings from the Veneto inspired by a now-lost prototype by Giovanni Bellini.1 It was painted by Jacopo da Valenza, of whom very little biographical detail is known. He was active throughout the Veneto from circa 1485-1509 in cities such as Serravalle, Belluno and Feltre. One of the earliest known works concretely attributed to him is a signed, bust-length Madonna and Child dated 1485 and formerly in the collection of Marino Pagani, Belluno.2Although the present panel has been given in the past to Pier Maria Pennacchi, a contemporary artist active in Treviso in the Veneto, Mauro Lucco was among the first art historians, alongside Federico Zeri and Carlo Volpe and later Trevisani, to see the youthful hand of Jacopo da Valenza at work here. Lucco dates this painting to about 1484-1485, placing it very early in the artist’s career, close in execution to Jacopo’s Pieta in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt.3
We are grateful to Mauro Lucco for endorsing the attribution to Jacopo da Valenza and for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.
1. F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i Belliniani, Venice 1962, vol. I, p. 58;
2. M. De Grassi, “Una "Madonna con il Bambino" di Jacopo da Valenza ritrovata,” in Arte veneta, 57.2000 (2003), 2, pp. 62-66.
3. B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School, vol. I, London 1957, plate 356).