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Lot Essay
This imposing panel was first connected to Andrea Sabatini, better known as Andrea da Salerno, by Riccardo Naldi and Andrea Zezza in 2000 (op. cit.). In his subsequent 2009 article, Naldi compares the panel with Sabatini’s Adoration of the Magi, painted for the Cathedral of Salerno and now housed in the Capodimonte, Naples (op. cit.). The Salerno altarpiece allows us to imagine the complete ensemble from which the present fragment once belonged. The piece of cloth visible in the lower left corner of the composition clearly belongs to the first of the Magi, who we can picture kneeling in front of the Virgin and Child.
On stylistic grounds, Naldi dates the present painting to 1512, placing it earlier than the Salerno Adoration, which has been variously dated to 1516-17 (F. Abbate, in Andrea di Salerno, Florence, 1986, pp. 146-147 no. 27) and 1520-21 (Leone de Castris, op.cit., p. 220, note 58). As Naldi observes (op. cit., 2009), the present panel also bears the strong influence of Pedro Fernández de Murcia, known as the Pseudo-Bramantino, the highly idiosyncratic painter who executed several altarpieces in Naples around this time: the vivid yellow sky against the rocky landscape acts as a testament to this exchange. On the other hand, the painting seems to pre-date Cesare da Sesto's polyptych for the Abbazia di Cava dei Tirreni of 1514-15 (M. Carminati, Cesare da Sesto, 1477-1523, Milan, 1994, pp. 164-169, no. 8), a work that would later exert a strong influence on Sabatini's evolving style.
Leone de Castris further suggests that the panel might be the "bello quadro grande dila nativita di N.S. Giesu Christo, madona Santissima, San Gioseppe, tre Maggi et altri Personaggi" cited around 1605, while still in the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Abbey of Montecassino, of which all trace was lost in the nineteenth century (Leone de Castris, op. cit., citing an unpublished manuscript by O. Medici, Annali Casinesi, III, ms. 682, f. 568v). That altarpiece was attributed to Andrea Sabatini by the abbot of Montecassino, Giuseppe Quandel (A. Pantoni, L’opera di Andrea Sabatini a Montecassino, Salerno, 1962, pp. 149-150).
On stylistic grounds, Naldi dates the present painting to 1512, placing it earlier than the Salerno Adoration, which has been variously dated to 1516-17 (F. Abbate, in Andrea di Salerno, Florence, 1986, pp. 146-147 no. 27) and 1520-21 (Leone de Castris, op.cit., p. 220, note 58). As Naldi observes (op. cit., 2009), the present panel also bears the strong influence of Pedro Fernández de Murcia, known as the Pseudo-Bramantino, the highly idiosyncratic painter who executed several altarpieces in Naples around this time: the vivid yellow sky against the rocky landscape acts as a testament to this exchange. On the other hand, the painting seems to pre-date Cesare da Sesto's polyptych for the Abbazia di Cava dei Tirreni of 1514-15 (M. Carminati, Cesare da Sesto, 1477-1523, Milan, 1994, pp. 164-169, no. 8), a work that would later exert a strong influence on Sabatini's evolving style.
Leone de Castris further suggests that the panel might be the "bello quadro grande dila nativita di N.S. Giesu Christo, madona Santissima, San Gioseppe, tre Maggi et altri Personaggi" cited around 1605, while still in the chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Abbey of Montecassino, of which all trace was lost in the nineteenth century (Leone de Castris, op. cit., citing an unpublished manuscript by O. Medici, Annali Casinesi, III, ms. 682, f. 568v). That altarpiece was attributed to Andrea Sabatini by the abbot of Montecassino, Giuseppe Quandel (A. Pantoni, L’opera di Andrea Sabatini a Montecassino, Salerno, 1962, pp. 149-150).