Giovanni Francesco Maineri

Possibly Eleonora of Aragon (1450-1493), wife of Ercole I d'Este and 1st Duchess of Ferrara, by 1493 (according to Manca, under Literature);
Monte di Pietà, Rome;
Acquired from there by Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), London, in 1862-63;
Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. (1817-1901), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, by 1868;
By descent to his son, Sir Frederick Cook, 2nd Bt. (1844-1920), Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey;
By descent to his son, Sir Herbert Cook, 3rd Bt. (1868-1939);
His Estate sale, London, Sotheby's, June 25, 1958, lot 20 (as by Francesco Morone);
Private collection.

London, British Institution, Catalogue of Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish...Masters, June 1863, no. 55 (as Cima da Conegliano);
Leeds, Museum of Ornamental Art, National Exhibition of Works of Art, May 1868, no. 49 (as Bernardo Zenale).

J.C. Robinson, Memoranda on Fifty Pictures, Selected from a Collection of Works of the Ancient Masters, London 1868, pp. 17-19, no. 16 (as attributed to Bernardo Zenale);
T. Borenius, A catalogue of the paintings at Doughty House...in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, I, London, 1913, p. 143, no. 120, reproduced on plate facing p. 143 (as school of Ercole de' Roberti);
Abridged Catalogue of the pictures at Doughty House...in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, London 1932, p. 50, no. 120 (as school of Ercole de' Roberti);
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p. 378 (as Francesco Morone);
B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del rinascimento, Milan 1936, p. 325 (as Morone);
C. Del Bravo, "Francesco Morone", in Paragone, vol. XIII, no. 151, July 1962, p. 23 (as not by Morone);
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London, 1968, vol. I, p. 282 (as Morone);
R. Brezoni, Dizionario di artisti veneti, Florence, 1972, p. 216 (as Morone);
S. Zamboni, Pittori di Ercole I d'Este: Giovanni Francesco Maineri, Lazzaro Grimaldi, Domenico Panetti, Michele Coltellini, Milan 1975, pp. 15-16 and 58, no. 37, reproduced plate 4 (as Maineri);
S. Zamboni, "Una traccia di Gian Francesco Maineri a Mantova," in Cultura figurativa ferrarese tra XV e XVI secolo: in memoria di Giacomo Bargellesi, Cittadella 1981, p. 161;
U. Bauer-Eberhardt, "Giovanni Francesco Maineri als Miniator", in Pantheon, vol. XLIX, 1991, pp. 93-94 and 96, footnote 56, reproduced p. 88, fig. 1;
J. Manca, The Art of Ercole de' Roberti, Cambridge 1992, pp. 144 and 178 (with incorrect sales catalogue reference);
M. Molteni, Ercole de' Roberti, Milan 1995, p. 155.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This little panel is on poplar with wide bevelling and several early seals and an engraved monogram on the back. There is no sign of past movement, with a little minor extinct old worm damage. Narrow strips are attached to protect the rebate on all four edges. The minute detail of the brushwork is beautifully intact almost throughout, from the far distant landscape with the crosses on the hill, the rich madder drapery of the angel to the little veins in Christ’s feet and the angel’s sandals. A few little comparatively recent retouchings are slightly blanched on the side of the tomb, with one or two others: just behind Christ’s shoulder, in the shadows of His leg (with possibly a little thinness in other shadows down His side), on His other shoulder and with one other older retouching under the angel’s arm. However essentially the painting is remarkably intact and pure. 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."

This beautiful little panel is typical of the highly refined and intimate devotional paintings favoured at the court of Ercole I d'Este (1431-1505) and his consort Eleonora of Aragon (1450-1493) in Ferrara. Maineri is first documented there in 1489, where he was probably a pupil of Ercole de' Roberti, and seems to have spent most of his working career there and at the nearby court of Mantua. We know that he worked for Eleonora of Aragon, for he received payment from her for a now lost 'quadretto dorato' on the 16 August 1493. These connections are important, for the design of this panel is evidently indebted to the one extant painting that can be securely identified as having belonged to Eleonora herself. This is the right-hand panel of a diptych by Ercole de' Roberti himself today in the National Gallery in London.¹  The diptych can be plausibly identified with one of the two anconette recorded in the guardaroba or closet in Eleonora's posthumous inventory of 1493.²  There can be little doubt that the present Christ, with his distinctive long pale arms, perched upon the edge of his tomb, is kin to that in the London painting, as one would expect from a supposed pupil of Ercole.³  If we accept this premise, then this, of course, raises the possibility that this panel may even have formed one wing of the second anconetta recorded in the 1493 inventory.⁴  Alternatively, as Manca has observed, this panel may be the 'quadreto depincto cum uno cristo et un angelo cum uno vedro in torno cornisato et dorato' recorded in the same inventory.⁵  Certainly such refined work on an intimate scale such as this would have suited Maineri, who described himself as 'inminiator' (miniaturist) in a letter of 1506 to Isabella d'Este. That such a picture as the present panel or the diptych in London would have accorded perfectly with the taste of Eleonora d'Aragon is further supported by her particular devotion to the contemporary cult of Corpus Domini. A prominent participant in the procession held on the annual feast day of the cult, she was buried in the monastery of the Corpo del Cristo, today Corpus Domini.⁶

This panel can boast a particularly distinguished history. Its first recorded owner, Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), was one of the most distinguished British collectors of his day. Robinson bought the panel at the Monte di Pietà (pawnshop) in Rome between 1860 and 1862, when as Superintendant of the newly-formed South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria & Albert Museum) he was buying for the institution. By 1868 he had sold his early Italian pictures to Sir Francis Cook (1817-1901), one of the richest men in England and a passionate collector of Renaissance art. His collection of paintings, housed at Doughty House in Richmond (fig. 1) was formed with Robinson's advice, and included such masterpieces as Velázquez's Old woman cooking eggs (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland), Van Eyck's Three Marys at the Sepulchre (Rotterdam, Boymans Museum), and Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi's Adoration of the Magi (Washington, National Gallery of Art). 

 

1. Inv. n. 1411; 17.8 by 13.5 cm. See M. Molteni, Ercole de' Roberti, Milan 1995, p. 155, cat. no. 29, reproduced.
2. 'Una anchoneta che se assera modo de libro coperto de veluto morello cum broche et azulli de arzento dorati: a un lato il presepio da laltro un christo nel sepolchro'. (An anchoneta which closes like a book covered in red velvet with a clasp and silver gilt with a Nativity on one side and a Christ in the tomb on the other side). An anchoneta was a small folding altarpiece (literally 'folding like a book'). Traces of the original red velvet covering still survive. The inventory contains a quantity of devotional sculptures and paintings expressive of Eleonora's piety.
3. Such an assertion is further supported by the fact that, following Ercole's death in 1496, Maineri was called for to complete one of his altarpieces in the church of Santo Spirito. Maineri made use of Ercole's designs on other occasions, for example in his Madonna now in Chicago.
4. See J. Manca, The Art of Ercole de' Roberti, Cambridge 1992, pp. 144 and 178.
5. A. Franceschini, Artisti a Ferrara in età umanistica e rinascimentale: testimonianze archivistiche, II, part 2, Dal 1493 al 1516, Ferrara 1997, p. 36, doc. 17.
6. Manca, op. cit., 1992, pp. 64 and 69-70.