Saints James the Greater, Nicholas and Lawrence

The attribution of this painting to Jacopo Bassano and his son is confirmed by an inscription on its pendant depicting Three male martyr saints, including Saint Stephen, which reads: S(e)r Domenegha (sic) e [Se]r Zoanne Hiero.masari / De La giesia fec. Far q.te do palle / Jac[obus a] po(n)te et eiu(s) (sic) filiu(s) P / M[D]LXXVIIIVII / juni (fig. 1; formerly in the Nelson Shanks collection, sold Sotheby's, New York, 27 January 2022, lot 128). The inscription also provides an exact date for the two paintings (7 June 1578) and, since Francesco Bassano had already left his father's workshop by this date, it can be deduced that Leandro is the son to whom the inscription refers. In his 1995 monograph on Jacopo Bassano, Alessandro Ballarin refers to the pair of paintings as palette (small altarpieces) as they are too small to be considered full-scale altarpieces but too large, and with too great a degree of finish, to have been intended as bozzetti (sketches; loc. cit.). These paintings give valuable insight into the collaborative nature of Jacopo's working practice, as well as providing visual evidence of Jacopo's mature style and Leandro's development within his father's workshop. Another example of a collaboration between father and son is the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints Agatha and Apollonia, painted for the Chiesa di San Giuseppe in 1580 and now in the Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa (fig. 2).