(Vicenza circa 1460–1535/7 Venice)
A delegation of Monks,
oil on canvas, 82 x 61.5 cm, framed

Literature:
B. M. Savy, Giovanni Buonconsiglio: qualche considerazione e un’aggiunta al catalogo, in: Prospettiva. Rivista di storia dell’arte antica e moderna, Nr. 98–99, April–July 2000, pp. 160–171, fig. 3

This manner of constructing space in the present composition has its origin in the Milanese figurative culture. The model for the use of foreshortening that is detectable in the present painting is also Milanese, as it contains subtle echoes of the Weighing of the Gold in the tondo of Argus executed by Bramantino and of the Layard Adoration of the Magi by the same artist. This use of foreshortening derives from the Milanese milieu of the 1490s and still influenced artists trained in the 16th century. This is also the case of the young Romanino, a painter who, during this period, was set to become one of the great interpreters of Giorgione and Titian on the Italian mainland.

The painting under consideration is distinctive. First and foremost is the inclusion of a fictitious structure framing the throne, imitating a Renaissance drawing inside a Venetian late-Gothic room, reproduced with great precision in the faithful depiction of the leaded glass roundel windows, as if the scene took place at the Ca’ d’Oro or at the Doge’s Palace. This rare, extremely precise reconstruction of a Venetian late Gothic space can be compared to the Chatsworth drawing no. 742 depicting the Martyrdom of a Saint, which was attributed to Romanino at the 1965 exhibition and was actually executed by the young Giorgione. A further fascinating element is the sudden appearance of Benedictine monks during a feast at court: they appear as a dark mass, the impact of which is intensified by a perspective from below. This chromatic dissonance lends a mysterious, uncanny edge to the party and is echoed by the sphinx at the throne facing the three monks. It cannot be stated with certainty what story this scene intends to represent: three monks, probably Benedictines, the oldest of whom, at the centre of the group, seems to be their leader, are received by a ruler at his court, holding a sceptre in one hand, making a welcoming gesture with the other. The destination of the painting cannot be easily determined either, if we take into account the size of the canvas: the painting is small, but the nature of the composition is monumental and would be appropriate for the size of a wall fresco.

Marescalco was born in Vicenza and became apprentice to Bartolomeo Montagna after 1490. The generational gap was palpable from the outset, as was also his unquestionable originality. On the one hand, as a young painter he intensified the exchange with the Milanese milieu of Bramante and Bramantino, on the other, he opened up to the influence of Venice at the end of the 15th century, appropriating the artistic language of Giovanni Bellini in an original way. The masterpiece of his first period, in the mid-1490s, is the Mourning over the dead body of Christ at the Museum in Vicenza. In the following period he was active in Montagnana, at the construction site of the cathedral, and in Venice, where he painted two altar pieces, one depicting Saint Sebastian for the church of San Giacomo dell’Orio, the other representing the Redeemer for the church of San Secondo in Isola, now preserved at the Chiesa dello Spirito Santo at the Zattere, Venice. His early interest in Giorgione’s altar piece of Castelfranco is combined with a conception of space that is clearly of Lombard origin, rather than Venetian.. For this reason, it was inevitable that he should pursue a similar path to that of Boccaccio Boccaccino, who was in Venice, with an active interest in Bellini and Giorgione from 1500 onwards, but already had experience of Lombard and Emilian milieus under his belt, and that of the young Lorenzo Lotto, in whose development the encounter with Bramante’s cultural influence plays a major role.

As a result of the emergence of Venetian classicism from 1507 onwards, Marescalco ran into difficulty, as appears clearly in the two altar pieces he painted for the cathedral in Montagnana, in 1507 and 1511 respectively, whilst the one depicting Saint Catherine of Alexandria, executed for the same church and signed with the year 1513 (although the signature has been thought by many to have been painted over, and the date was formerly deciphered as 1514), displays, yet again, a spatial arrangement that is clearly of Lombard origin, to the extent that it seems plausible that Romanino’s arrival in Padua in 1513 and the beginning of his work at the altar piece for the choir of the abbey of Santa Giustina (currently preserved at the Museo Civico in Padua) the following year may have caught his attention.
The small painting under consideration can probably be attributed to this stage in the painter’s development.

We are grateful to Professor Alessandro Ballarin for cataloguing this lot.

Prof. Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo has confirmed the attribution to Giovanni Buonconsiglio, il Marescalco after examining the painting in the original.