安東尼奧·巴迪爾

François Molinari, Cremona and Milan;
His sale, Milan, Sambon, 30 November 1885, lot 166 (as Alessandro Bonvicino, called Moretto).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The condition of this work is particularly good for a painting of this scale and period. It has been well restored and can be hung in its current state. Under ultraviolet light, one can see numerous retouches in the sky and in the lighter colors of the cherubs. The heavier pigment of the striped blue and green colors in the center left are very well preserved. The armor and much of the darker colors of the lower half of the picture are very healthy. Some canvas texture in the face of Saint George has been reduced with retouching. An original canvas join runs vertically about 12 inches from the right edge, and this has received restorations as well.
"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."

Antonio Badile’s stirring image of Saint George and the Dragon was almost certainly intended for public display and may have served as one half of a pair of organ shutters.  The composition has a distinct bias to the left-hand side, in the position of the putti and the direction of the saint’s gaze and gesture, lending itself well to accompaniment by a second painting in the opposite bearing. Until a relining during conservation in 2004, Badile’s signature and date remained visible on the reverse of the canvas (fig. 1). Written in Latin, the inscription translates as “This work Antonio Baylus painted and brought to the light on the last day of March 1548.”

Badile came from a family of Veronese painters and engravers, spanning back generations to his great-grandfather, the painter Giovanni Badile (1379-before 1451).  The artist is perhaps best known, however, as teacher and master to the young Paolo Veronese, who began working for him in the early 1540s.  According to census documents, preserved today in Verona’s Archivio di Stato, one Paulus was listed as a garzone in Badile’s household in 1541, “Paulus eius discipulus seu Garsonus 14”.¹ By 1548, at the time the Saint George was painted, Veronese was still working in Verona and the possibility of his having assisted his master in this largescale commission cannot be excluded.  The sky in the distance at left, streaked with horizontal cloud forms, is certainly reminiscent of Veronese’s early works, such as his Raising of Jarus’ Daughter of 1546 in the Louvre, Paris and his Punishment of the Eunuchs in the Museo del Castelvecchio,  Verona.²

Echoes of Badile’s Saint George and the Dragon can be found in Veronese’s study of the same subject, acquired by Count Brühl in 1769 and now in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. no. 7741; fig. 2).³  The facial features and curling hair of the figure, his contrapposto pose leaning to the left, the broken lance and the position of the dragon with its “s” form tail at right, all recall the present composition.  Similarly, Veronese’s Study of a Suit of Armor in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin (inv. no. 5120; fig. 3) bears a striking resemblance to that depicted by Badile, though the pauldrons at the shoulder have a more exaggerated and fanciful winged form in the painted version.  The sketches are thought to date to later than Badile’s Saint George, to the late 1550s or early 1560s.⁴

1. J. Turner (ed.), “Veronese, Paolo,” in The Dictionary of Art, London and New York 1996, vol. 32, p. 347.
2. T. Pignatti and F. Pedrocco, Veronese, Catalogo Completo, Florence 1991, p. 22, cat. no. 1 and p. 24, cat. no. 3, reproduced.
3. R. Cocke, Veronese’s Drawings, A Catalogue Raisonné, London 1984, p. 123, cat. no. 49, reproduced p. 127, fig. 49
4. Ibid., p. 131, cat. no. 51, reproduced p. 130, fig. 51.