Benedetto Bonfigli Active in Perugia circa 1445 - 1496

Painted for the church of San Domenico, Perugia, 1467/8;
With Galleria Sestieri, Rome, 1947;
With Galleria Sacerdoti, Milano, 1948;
Marcos collection, Manila, Phillipines;
By whom sold, New York, Christie's, January 11, 1991, lot 3.

This painting is one of two surviving predella panels by Bonfigli for one of his most important altarpieces; however the exact configuration of that altarpiece has been somewhat debated.  This panel along with another panel representing a Miracle of Saint Peter was first published by Todini in 1989 (see Literature).  Todini related the two predelle to an altarpiece complex that had been much discussed in previous studies on Bonfigli, namely the polyptych that was painted for the chapel of San Vincenzo in the Church of San Domenico, Perugia.  As early as 1866, Crowe and Cavacasalle had attempted to reconstruct the altarpiece from various parts that had all recently been moved from the Church of San Domenico to the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in 1863 (see Crowe and Cavacaselle, New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, vol. 3, 1866, pp. 146-147).  They hypothesized that the central panel of the complex was a Madonna and Child with Musical Angels (inv. 144) two panels of the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate (invs. 146; 143) and two large panels that were from either side of the central panel representing Saints Catherine of Alexandria, and Peter, and Saints Paul and Peter Martyr (invs. 145; 142) (for images of all, please see F. Santi, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, vol. II, Rome1985 pp. 51-52, cat no. 33, reproduced figs. 33 a-e; or  Mancini Literature, pp. 120-125) .   The polyptych was then connected with a document of May 1467 which commissioned Bonfigli and his younger contemporary Bartolomeo Caporali to paint an altarpiece for the merchant Lancillotto di Ludovico; the altapiece was to be undertaken by the two artists in a collaborative effort (“condotta in compagnia”).  Most subsequent scholarship accepted these hypotheses, and for the most part merely speculated on which artist painted what parts. Indeed, when Todini published this panel, he felt that the design of the composition had been Bonfigli’s responsibility, while the execution was left to Caporali (see Literature).

However, in his catalogue raisonné of the artist, Mancini rejects much of these earlier ideas, and convincingly argues that the present panel and its mate were entirely by Bonfigli himself (see Literature pp. 120-127), and not on stylistic grounds alone.  He believes that the lateral panels of the standing saints must relate to the two predella panels (as both Saint Peter and Saint Peter Martyr are represented in the larger panels and the smaller ones).  However, he is uncomfortable with the size relationship between the central Madonna and the lateral panels of the standing saints.  Furthermore, he noted that in the central Madonna, the figures were standing in a rocky and grassy landscape, while the saints were positioned on a marble floor, an inconsistency which is hard to explain.  His suggestion is that the various panels come from two different polyptychs entirely, one in the chapel of San Vincenzo and the other one for an adjoining chapel dedicated to Saint Peter Martyr (both being members of the Dominican order).  That chapel would naturally have had a representation of the Saint himself.  Furthermore, he suggests that the Guidoni family, who owned the chapel, would have asked that the artist include a depiction of Saint Peter with his keys, as the family’s arms depict two keys. The large standing saints and this predella and the other one, therefore, belong to this altarpiece, still apparently missing its central part.  Mancini dates them all to circa 1467/68.