Saint Anthony Abbot

The refined, soft brushwork in the painting of the face of Saint Anthony recalls Brescian or Venetian art from the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and therefore Berenson's attribution to a Venetian artist is understandable. The old German attribution on the label on the reverse of the picture to Vincenzo da Pavia, called Aniemolo, who was active in Palermo during the first half of the sixteenth century, cannot be maintained, since the physignomy of his figures is more eccentric. Yet the heavy, almost geometric drapery makes it plausible that the picture did originate in Southern Italy. The artist was possibly trained in Northern Italy and stylistically can be compared with the treatment of The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine in the Museo Regionale, Messina (see T. Pugliatti, Pittura del Cinquecento in Sicilia, Naples, 1993, fig. 275, as 'unknown Tuscan [?] artist').