Lot 1019 | Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

MANTEGNA, ANDREA
1431 Isola di Carturo - 1506 Mantua


Workshop
Title: Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist.
Technique: Tempera and oil on wood.
Mounting: Parquetted.
Measurement: 36 x 52cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Verso:
On the board collector and restorer labels.

Literature:
U. B. Schmitt, Francesco Bonsignori, Munich 1961, p.130 (as Francesco Bonsignori);
F. Heinemann: Giovanni Bellini e i Belliani, Band I. Venice 1963, no. V.163, p. 242, ill. 700 (as Lauro Padovano);
E. Zafran: European Art in the High Museum. Atlanta 1984, p. 40 with ill. (as ascribed to Francesco Bonsignori);
F. Zeri, F. Rossi, Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti Bergamo. La raccolta Morelli nell'Accademia Carrara, Milan 1986, p. 133-135 (as Francesco Bonsignori);
G. Valagussa, Accademia Carrara Bergamo - dipinti italiani del Trecento e del Quattrocento. Catalogo completo, Milan 2018, p. 266-268 (as Lauro Padovano?).

Provenance:
Probably Gonzaga collection, Mantua (15th-16th cent.);
Vieweg collection, Braunschweig;
Auction Lepke, Berlin, 18.03.1930, lot 23, ill. Tafel 46, as Paduaner Meister ca. 1500;
Art dealer E.&A. Silbermann Galleries, New York;
High Museum of Art, Atlanta;
Auction Christie's, New York, 26.01.2005, lot 277;
Collection Prof. Dr. Thomas Olbricht, Essen.

This painting, together with a panel depicting "St. John the Evangelist resurrects Drusiana" (Bergamo, Pinacoteca dell'Accademia Carrara, Inv. 58MR00100), is part of a predella with scenes from the life of St. John the Evangelist. Both the main painting and the place for which the work was intended are unknown. The fact that on the back of the painting in Bergamo there is the coat of arms of the Gonzaga family suggests that both come from a Mantuan church or from the collection of this family.
The painting depicting the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist was attributed alternately to Francesco Bonsignori and a Veronese painter of the late 15th century. Since 1989 it has been suspected that it could be the lesser known painter Lauro Padovano, which will be hypothetically repeated in the catalog of paintings of the Accademia Carrara in 2018.
Mattia Vinco pleads for an attribution to the young Giovan Francesco Caroto, who is said to have been in the workshop of Andrea Mantegna in Mantua at the time of the painting's creation (with this attribution, this painting by Vinco will be published in a monographic book on the Verona School of Painting). Like Caroto, Bonsignori had worked at the Mantuan court alongside Mantegna (and also under his influence).
Therefore, the current attribution of the present painting to Mantegna's workshop can be considered the most accurate.

We are grateful to Mattia Vinco, Verona, for his help in cataloguing the present painting.