Jacopo Negretti, called Palma il Vecchio

Probably acquired by Archibald Campbell Douglas Dick (d.1927), Pitkerro House, Dundee, in the early 20th Century;
Thence by descent.

 

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a poplar panel, with an old joint near the top and a narrow recent added strip along the base edge. There has been old worm damage and the back has been covered with canvas in the fairly distant past. An old crack runs in from the upper left edge fairly briefly. The paint seems to have suffered from flaking and wear over centuries. Some of the lighter areas in the Child's forehead and chest show the original quality of the painting, as do the lovely madder sleeves of the Virgin and the intact areas in S Catherine's face. A certain amount of recent retouching in the shoulder of the Child and His face is very visible under ultra violet light and indeed to the naked eye, while old wear and retouching date far back. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"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."

Hitherto unrecorded and unpublished, this is an early work by Palma, most likely dating from around 1512-1515. In design and handling it can be directly compared to the slightly larger panel today in the Pinacoteca dei Concordi in Rovigo, which is generally assigned an early date of around 1512.¹ In both works Palma places the figures in a landscape setting, close to the picture plane, with the Christ Child standing upon his Mother's lap, his right hand raised in benediction. The poses and attitudes of Saints Catherine in the present panel and Saint Helena in the Rovigo panel are also very similar indeed. The motif of Christ standing in His Mother's lap was used again by Palma in a Sacra Conversazione of perhaps a year or two later now in the Narodni Galerie in Prague. Another comparable panel, that depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, also dated to 1513, is in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo.² 

Palma Vecchio was the most important of a group of painters of Bergamasque origin who worked in Venice in the 16th century, and his work now is of the greatest rarity. He is recorded in Venice by March 1510, and would spend the remainder of his career in the city. It is thought that he was apprenticed to his fellow Bergamo artist Andrea Previtali, who had studied under Giovanni Bellini, and certainly elements such as the Christ Child in the present work look back directly to the works of the latter Master. Palma's own rich and distinctive colouring owed much more, however, to the example of his great contemporaries in Venice Titian and Giorgione. No doubt influenced by the example of their arcadian works, Palma successfully specialised in a sophisticated and hugely influential form of the sacra conversazione which depicted the Madonna and saints in a rural setting and which would remain in the repertory of Venetian painting for a generation to come. 

We are grateful to Prof. Peter Humfrey for endorsing the attribution to Palma Vecchio following first-hand inspection of the original.







1. Panel, 78.5 by 109 cm., reproduced in J. Rylands, Palma il Vecchio, Milan 1988, p. 196, cat. no. 5, reproduced in colour.
2. Idem, pp. 199-200, cat. nos. 10 and 13.