Paris Bordone

Sir George Warrender, 4th Bt., by 1831;
His sale, London, Christie's, 3 June 1837, lot 19 (bought in);
By descent to Sir Victor Alexander George Anthony Warrender, 8th Bt, 1st Baron Bruntisfield (1899-1993);
His sale, London, Christie's, 26 November 1943, lot 2, where bought by Wengraf;
Acquired by Sir Thomas Barlow G.B.E. in 1946;
Thence by descent.

London, British Institution, 1831, no. 152;
Birmingham, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Italian Art from the 13th Century to the 17th Century, 1955, no. 19;
Manchester, City of Manchester Art Galleries, Art Treasures Centenary Exhibition, 1957, no. 56 (lent by Sir Thomas Barlow);
London, Royal Academy, 1960, no. 80;
London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition. Italain Art and Britain, 1969, no. 32.

C. Phillips, "Paris Bordone", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XXVIII, 1915, pp. 94-98, reproduced;
A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana, La Pittura del Cinquecento, Paris Bordon, vol. IX, P. III, Milan 1928, p. 1032;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p. 431;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, London 1957, vol I, p. 46;
M. Woodall, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Italian Art from the 13th Century to the 17th Century, exhibition catalogue, Birmingham 1955, p. 13, no. 19;
E.K. Waterhouse, "The Italian Exhibtion at Birmingham", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVII, 1955, pp. 292-95;
K. Garlick, "Italian Art in Birmingham", in The Connoisseur, vol. CXXXVI, 1955, pp. 35-39, reproduced fig. 10;
D. Mahon, O. Millar et al., Italian Art and Britain. Royal Academy, exhibition catalogue, London 1960, p. 42, no. 80;
G. Canova, Paris Bordon, Venice 1964, p. 6, 81, reproduced fig. 5;
G. Fossaluzza, "Qualche Recupero al Catalogo Ritrattistico del Bordon", in Paris Bordon e il Suo Tempo, Treviso 1985, p. 191, and p. 201, not 45.

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The original support appears stable; the painting has been lined and stretched onto a stretcher with two cross members, marked by F Leedman, liners. All the keys are present and the overall tension is good. The paint layers appear in relatively good condition, the adhesion between the paint and the ground layers and the support appears good and there are no obvious recent damages or loss. There are scattered losses throughout the background, most noticeably in the centre of the composition. The area of the sky also appears re-glazed with less prominent losses repainted in the lower left and right corners. There is an area of over-paint located below the book on the right side of the composition. The figure of Our Lady had suffered some losses to her robes; these have been re-painted, as has the sleeve of the orange robe of the kneeling donor on the left. St Anthony's robe has also been re-enforced. There are a series of horizontal over-paint running through the boy's hair and St Anthony's robe. The most noticeable is the retouching present in the head of St Anthony where the re-painted loss runs across the forehead and though the eye. The figure of Christ has minor over-paint present, these small losses are not significantly placed and do not affect the drawing of the figure. The painting has been partially cleaned. The area of the sky and the lighter tones of the central figures appear to have a much thinner application of varnish. These areas have been preferentially cleaned, leaving a significantly thicker, degraded natural resin varnish across the dark robes, the background and the foliage in the upper left and right corners.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This is a rare early work (indeed Claude Philips described it as the earliest)¹ by the Venetian master Paris Bordone. Dated by Giordana Mariana Canova to the early 1520s it is governed by the gentle lyricism and intimacy of Giorgione's great religious landscapes of the preceding decades that were to have such an influence on the young Trevisan painter. Bordone has created "un mondo intensamente lirico, immerse in un'aria di silente e pur patetico raccoglimento".²  Such Sacre Converazioni, in which the holy family and attendant saints are seen in an Arcadian landscape, were popularised in Venice from the end of the 15^th century by Giorgione, Titian and Giovanni Bellini; Bordone drew on the examples of his elders throughout the 1520s and into the 1530s, producing a number of similar works of broadly the same dimensions and of a similar compositional type. Most notable amongst these in relation to the present work is the Madonna and child with Saint Jerome, Saint Anthony Abbot and a donor in the Glasgow Art Gallery which is signed in precisely the same manner, drawing attention to the artist's place of birth; in this latter St Anthony, for whom the same model must surely have been used, appears in a remarkably similar pose, albeit a little more upright. The Madonna is set directly in front of some dense bush, while beyond St. Anthony and the donor lies a hilly, remarkably Titian-esque, landscape crowned with a small group of ecclesiastical buildings. Regarding the form of the signature, all the known works signed in this way are universally considered to date from the 1520s. Other examples are the Virgin and child with Saints Christopher and George in the Tadini Gallery at Lovere on the Lago Iseo and the Madonna and child with Saints Jerome and Anthony of Padua in the Giovanelli Palace in Venice.

There are many aspects to this youthful work already typical of Bordone himself; amongst these the rich, vibrant red and numerous folds of the Madonna's drapery and the smooth, rounded hands.  Clearly though, Bordone, only recently arrived in Venice from his native Treviso, is still, as Vasari put it, determined in all ways to follow the manner of Giorgione and his master Titian. While comparisons have been made between the Madonna here and the shepherdess in Titian's Three Ages of Man, and between the infant Christ with the infant Paris in Giorgione's Finding of Paris, it is above all in the intimate beauty and quiet grandeur that permeates the whole scene where Giorgione's influence most resonantly sounds.

1.  Phillips, op. cit., p. 94.
2.  Canova, op. cit., p. 6.