PROSPERO FONTANA | ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS; ADORATION OF THE MAGI

The Dukes of Serra di Cassano, Bologna, by the 18th century;

Thence by descent in the family until about 2003;

Anonymous sale, Venice, Semenzato, 12 July 2003, lot 550;

There acquired by the present owner. 

V. Fortunati, in Splendori riscoperti a Budrio, exhibition catalogue, Bologna 2006, pp. 90, 92;

To be included in the forthcoming monograph on Prospero Fontana by Professoressa Vera Fortunati, scheduled to be published Summer 2021.  

These refined and vibrant copper panels are important recent additions to the corpus of the Bolognese artist Prospero Fontana, the father of Lavinia Fontana. They are datable to the middle of his career, circa 1560-1570, after he worked with Primaticcio in Fontainebleau and before he settled back in Bologna. During this decade, we find a full expression of North Italian Mannerism, one that he was first exposed to as a young artist while assisting Giorgio Vasari in Rome and Florence and one that he would turn away from after returning to Bologna in the 1570s.   

Both panels are to be included in the forthcoming monograph on Prospero Fontana currently in preparation by Professoressa Vera Fortunati, who dates the works to the seventh decade of the 16th century.