BARTOLOMEO DI GIOVANNI | PIETÀ WITH SAINT NICODEMUS, THE VIRGIN MARY AND SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST

Borromeo collection, Milan;

Museo Borromeo, Palazzo di Milano (opened to the public in the last quarter of the 19^th century).

The attribution of this small panel to Bartolomeo di Giovanni has been endorsed by Nicoletta Pons, who dates it to circa 1488-1490.¹ This panel was once the predella of an altarpiece and is similar to two other predella panels that Bartolomeo di Giovanni painted of the Pietà. One panel is in the Galleria delgli Uffizi, but was originally part of an altarpiece by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Chiesa di San Marco, and the other is in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.²

The earliest work by Bartolomeo di Giovanni from circa 1475-80 is the predella to another altarpiece by Ghirlandaio in the Cattedrale di San Martino, Lucca.³ The frequent collaborations between the two artists suggest that he trained in Ghirlandaio's workshop. He also is thought to have worked with Botticelli on the spalliere depicting Nastagio degli Onesti’s Banquet in the Wood from circa 1483 in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.⁴ Bartolomeo mostly specialized in small-scale paintings, but he produced a few large independent works, such as The Lamentation in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto⁵ and a tondo of the Madonna and Infant Saint John the Baptist adoring the Christ Child that sold at Sotheby's in 2013.⁶ 

We are grateful to Mauro Natale for providing information on the Borromeo collection and inventory.

1. Nicoletta Pons wrote a letter of expertise from 25 June 2010. This document is available upon request.

2. See N. Pons, Bartolomeo di Giovanni, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2004, pp. 14-15, reproduced fig. 6, and p. 77, reproduced fig. 3c; and p. 47, fig. 39 reproduced.

3. Oil on panel, 24 × 224 cm. See http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/entry/work/14957/

4. Oil on panel, 82.3 by 139 cm., inv. no. P002838. See https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/scenes-from-the-story-of-nastagio-degli-onesti/6620fb36-c65d-497b-8283-92cef5bc08de

5. Oil on canvas, 163.8 by 191.7 cm., inv. no. 70/10. See https://ago.ca/collection/object/70/10

6. Tempera on panel, diameter: 71.8 cm. See anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 31 January 2013, lot 132.