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Lot Essay
Philip Pouncey first suggested the attribution to Franco in 1969, dating it to to the same period as the Arrest of St. John the Baptist, in the Oratory of San Giovanni Decollato in Rome of around 1541. Indeed, as Merkel (op. cit.) observed, the compositional layout recalls Jacopo del Conte's treatment of the same theme painted around 1538 in the Oratory, a work which was certainly known to Franco. Paul Joannides, noting the Pontormesque quality of the background, dated the painted earlier, to the late 1530s. The influence of Michelangelo's Ancestors of Christ from the Sistine Chapel lunettes is also evident, particularly in the figural types, volumetric treatment of the drapery and the use of bright, cangiante colors. Overall, however, the style and the presence of the spare, unadorned landscape setting suggests this was executed in the years just following Franco's work in the Oratory and just prior to his departure for the Marche in around 1543-4, or perhaps during the first few years of his stay there. Bellosi (op. cit.), also places this painting in the Marchigian period.
Preparatory drawings for the present work include a pen study in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Lauder, loc. cit., II, Part I, p. 532, no. 325DA) and a highly finished modello in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (Lauder, loc. cit., II, Part I, p. 617, no. 438DA).
Painter, printmaker and draughtsman, Battista Franco is first recorded when he secured a commission to paint decorations on the Ponte Sant'Angelo for the triumphal entry of Emperor Charles V into Rome on 5 April 1536. In June of the same year, he collaborated with Giorgio Vasari on the decoration of Palazzo Medici in Florence for the arrival of Margaret of Austria, the future wife of Duke Alessandro de'Medici. Upon the death of Duke Alessandro, Cosimo de' Medici made Franco his court painter.
During 1545-56 Franco travelled to Urbino, where he frescoed the vault of the choir of the Cathedral with the Assumption of the Virgin (now destroyed). The work disappointed Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, because it failed to equal the quality of Franco's preparatory drawings. Thinking Franco's skills were better suited to working on a small scale, the Duke commissioned him to make designs for maiolica produced at Casteldurante from which he became well known as a maiolica designer.
By 1554, Franco was back in Venice where he decorated the stuccowork of the Scala d'Oro (now destroyed) in the Doge's Palace, the ceiling tondi of allegorical subjects and wall panels for the Libreria Marciana, Sala dell'Estate of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and the Sala delle Mariegole in the Procuratie Nuove.
His last work, left unfinished at his death, was the decoration of the vault in the Grimani Chapel in San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, for the patriarch Giovanni Grimani.
We are grateful to Dr. Anne Varick Lauder for confirming the attribution to Battista Franco and for her assistance in cataloguing this work.
Preparatory drawings for the present work include a pen study in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Lauder, loc. cit., II, Part I, p. 532, no. 325DA) and a highly finished modello in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (Lauder, loc. cit., II, Part I, p. 617, no. 438DA).
Painter, printmaker and draughtsman, Battista Franco is first recorded when he secured a commission to paint decorations on the Ponte Sant'Angelo for the triumphal entry of Emperor Charles V into Rome on 5 April 1536. In June of the same year, he collaborated with Giorgio Vasari on the decoration of Palazzo Medici in Florence for the arrival of Margaret of Austria, the future wife of Duke Alessandro de'Medici. Upon the death of Duke Alessandro, Cosimo de' Medici made Franco his court painter.
During 1545-56 Franco travelled to Urbino, where he frescoed the vault of the choir of the Cathedral with the Assumption of the Virgin (now destroyed). The work disappointed Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, because it failed to equal the quality of Franco's preparatory drawings. Thinking Franco's skills were better suited to working on a small scale, the Duke commissioned him to make designs for maiolica produced at Casteldurante from which he became well known as a maiolica designer.
By 1554, Franco was back in Venice where he decorated the stuccowork of the Scala d'Oro (now destroyed) in the Doge's Palace, the ceiling tondi of allegorical subjects and wall panels for the Libreria Marciana, Sala dell'Estate of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and the Sala delle Mariegole in the Procuratie Nuove.
His last work, left unfinished at his death, was the decoration of the vault in the Grimani Chapel in San Francesco della Vigna, Venice, for the patriarch Giovanni Grimani.
We are grateful to Dr. Anne Varick Lauder for confirming the attribution to Battista Franco and for her assistance in cataloguing this work.