The Pietà with Saints Francis and Nicholas of Tolenti

Details

Marcello Fogolino (Vicenza 1483/88-d. after 1548)
The Pietà with Saints Francis and Nicholas of Tolenti
oil on panel, unframed
31¼ x 45 1/8 in. (79.4 x 114.6 cm.)

Provenance

William Graham (1817-1885), London; (+) Christie's, 2-3 and 8-10 April 1886, lot 441, as 'Marco Basaiti'.
Robert Henry Benson (1850-1929), Buckhurst Park, Sussex and London.
Cathcart collection.
Lady Clark, England; Christie's, 21 December 1921, lot 55 as 'Basaiti' .
with Leger Galleries, London.

Literature

F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani, Venice, 1962, I, p. 295, no. MB. 42, as 'Basaiti' and incorrectly identifying the saint at right as Saint Anthony of Padua.
O. Garnett, 'The Letters and Collection of William Graham: Pre-Raphaelite Patron and Pre-Raphaelite Collector', in The Walpole Society, LXII, 2000, p. 319, no. d151, as 'Girolamo da Treviso the Elder'.

Exhibited

London, Bethnal Green Museum, 1882, on loan.
Caracas, Museo de Bellas Artes, Obras clasicas de la pintura europea, January 1956, no. 4, as 'Girolamo da Treviso'.
Little Rock, Arkansas Arts Center, The Christian Drama, 4 December 1960-29 January 1961, no. 14, as 'Girolamo da Treviso the Elder'.
London, Wildenstein, Art & Commerce: A Relationship Reviewed within the Arts of Renaissance Italy, 12 November 1996-11 February 1997.

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Lot Essay

The present lot was first attributed to Marcello Fogolino by Federico Zeri in 1962. The composition is based on Giovanni Bellini's Donà delle Rose Pietà (Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia), dateable to circa 1505. Fogolino's painting resembles two of his early altarpieces, which, due to their stylistic ties with Giovanni Bellini and Montagna, can be dated to before 1515. The Saint Francis in the present lot can also be found in Fogolino's Saint Francis in his Madonna and Child with Six Saints in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam dated to circa 1513-15 (see L. Puppi, Marcello Fogolino, pittore e incisore, Trent, 1966, pp. 12, 20). The distant landscape and detailed trees in the altarpiece formerly in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin and its predella in the Museo Civico, Vicenza also show a resemblance to the present painting.

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