Giovanni di PIETRO (1470-1480 circa ? Spoleto, 1528) known a - Lot 40

Giovanni di PIETRO (1470-1480 circa ? Spoleto, 1528) known as LO SPAGNA, attributed to Christ carrying his cross Parquet panel. H_51.5 cm W_33.5 cm (old restorations) Provenance : Possibly with Schmit, 22 rue de Charonne, Paris, (Illustration May 10, 1941) -Former Antonini collection -Acquired by descent by the current owner. The painting was reproduced in L'Illustration in 1941 (Artloss Register no. S00266895). Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna ("the Spaniard"), is one of the most singular and of the Italian Renaissance. His nickname, which to posterity, recalls his Iberian origins, some of which remain the exact city of his birth, and it was in Italy that his entire career and his career and renown. He settled in Umbria, the region in the heart of the peninsula that has been the "land of painters", whose towns (Perugia, Spoleto, Todi (Perugia, Spoleto, Todi, Assisi, Trevi) are all milestones in a life devoted entirely dedicated to art and the service of religious patrons. It was in Perugia, an exceptionally lively artistic hotbed at the end of the 15th century, that Lo Spagna entered the studio of Pietro Perugino, one of the most celebrated most celebrated painters of his time and undisputed master of the Umbrian Umbrian school. Perugino's fame spread far beyond Umbria ( he was called to Rome to help decorate the Sistine Chapel). Sistine Chapel), headed a very active workshop that trained many of the great names of the Renaissance, including Raphael. It was in this exceptional intellectual and technical crucible that Lo Spagna forged his pictorial style, assimilating Perugino's principles with remarkable skill: rigorous composition, soothing symmetry of figurative groups, gentle, melancholy faces melancholy faces, subtly modeled drapery with regular folds, and a luminous luminous chromatic range. Lo Spagna was not content to simply be a hand in the studio: he quickly quickly became one of Perugino's closest collaborators, participating in several of his before setting up his own workshop. He settled permanently in Spoleto, where he became the official painter, and took on numerous commissions religious institutions in the region. Absolute fidelity to Perugino's aesthetic ideals is one of the most fascinating fascinating characteristics of Lo Spagna, and one of the keys to our painting's of our painting. The stylistic proximity between master and his pupil is such that many of Lo Spagna's works have long circulated attributed to Perugino himself, even in the most learned collections and and catalogs. Our Christ Carrying the Cross, for example to a corpus of several Christs with great similarities to our painting with our painting, and whose attributions are clearly disputed. Our quality of execution, our painting was, in the opinion of Adopho Venturi and Robert Longhi Robert Longhi "one of the finest works by this great Italian artist, whose whose coloring is inimitable". It is still difficult to differentiate between certain works by Spagna and Perugino, such is the exceptional level of mastery and mastery and perfect integration of the master's style. This complexity the difficulty of attributing works to certain Italian masters, but above all, the high quality of the works that raise these questions. The restoration of of our painting will perhaps enable us to make a definitive to one or other of these great Renaissance masters. The subject of Christ carrying his cross occupied an important place in Christian devotion of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, particularly in central Italy central Italy, which was deeply influenced by Franciscan spirituality. This iconography, which invites the faithful to meditate on the Passion and to feel compassion towards the suffering Christ, was particularly prized for private private devotional works. The panel's reduced format is precisely characteristic of these works intended for intimate use, placed in an oratory in an oratory, private chapel or patrician residence, before which the before which the faithful would kneel in prayer.