Bartolomeo Cincani, called Montagna

Private collection, Europe, from the beginning of the 19th century;

Thence by descent until anonymously sold, ("Property from a Noble European Collection"), London, Christie's, 7 December 2018, lot 167;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Originally this work probably formed part of a larger altarpiece executed by Montagna for a Vicentine church in the 1480s. Although Francis of Assisi was among the most popular and frequently depicted saints in fifteenth-century Italy, he is rendered here with special attention to his particularized physiognomy in a fusion of portraiture and devotional image.