Circle of Jacopo Carucci, called Pontormo

With Marcello Guidi, Florence;
From whom acquired by Michael and Doris Zagayski, May 1959;
By whom sold to benefit the Weitzmann Institute of Science, New York, Sotheby's, 19 May 1995, lot 1;
Where acquired by the present collector.

This predella panel likely illustrates the martyrdom of Saint Acatius (or Achatius), a subject only rarely depicted in art. The elegant composition features the Emperor Hadrian condemning the saint to death at right, while his ten thousand followers (represented by four haloed figures), are being driven to Mount Ararat, where, in an evocation of the death of Christ, they are crucified.

Though previously connected with three predella panels executed by Bacchiacca (all Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi) for Giovanni Antonio Sogliani's 1521 Storia dei martiri (Florence, Church of San Lorenzo), this work was more likely produced in the years immediately following that commission. Heavily influenced by Jacopo Pontormo, this generation of Florentine painters, sometimes referred to as the "eccentrici fiorentini," or "Florentine eccentrics," were proponents of what the art historian Giorgio Vasari termed "la bella maneria," a turn toward pictorial artifice that heralded Mannerism.