(Città delle Pieve circa 1448–1523 Fontignano)
Saint Sebastian,
bears an inscription in gold: PETRVS · PERVSINVS · PINXIT,
oil on panel, 51.2 x 37.3 cm, unframed

Provenance (according to a label on the reverse):
Possibly collection of Louis-Francois-Armand de Vignerot du Plessis (1696–1788), 3rd Duc de Richelieu and Marshal of France, Château de Richelieu, Indre-et-Loire;
and possibly by descent, until 1792;
Private collection, France;
art market, France;
where acquired by the present owner

This work is painted, with an exceptional mastery of execution and technique, in oil on a thin poplar panel. The colour appears to be applied with great pictorial freedom which accentuates the plasticity of form and the vitality of the image.

The composition, with the half-figure of a man, facing upwards to the left, against a dark background, relates to the Saint Sebastian by Perugino conserved in Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (inv. no. ГЭ-281). When compared to the present painting, the Hermitage version appears more archaic in the linear rendering of the outlines and less free in the definition of the modelling. It is of relatively more rigid proportions and overall, still fully 15th century in taste, in keeping with the works of Perugino from around 1490. In comparison, the ‘di sotto in su’ foreshortening of the Saint’s head, a typical example of bravura in Italian Renaissance painting, appears in this version to be decidedly more realistic and more advanced and ‘modern’ from an artistic point of view.

The moulding of the figure is of the highest quality and shows a fullness of form which cannot be defined as anything other than ‘classical’ in the 16th century sense, in complete accord with the manner of Perugino around 1500, at the time of his maturity when his style reached an absolute fullness of expression, and provided the basic elements for the formation of the artistic innovation of Raphael.

There are clear similarities in the conception and pictorial execution of the present work with other works by Perugino, such as the fresco with the Crucifixion and Saints of the Sala Capitolare of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence, completed in 1496, or the main panel with the Ascension of Christ from Saint Peter Polyptych in the Musèe des Beaux-Arts, Lyon. These works mark Perugino’s evolution towards a breadth of form and intense naturalism destined to become formative models for the transition of Italian painting to the full Renaissance. This can also be seen in the Certosa Altarpiece in the National Gallery, London and the frescoes in the Collegio del Cambio, as well as Madonna in Glory with Saints in the Pinacoteca di Bologna (inv. no. 579).

In the present Saint Sebastian, the stylistic proximity to these afore mentioned works is accompanied by an accentuated sense of volume, an ability to define the modelling of form through the fusion of chiaroscuro with colour, and an almost Neo-Attic sculptural regularity of execution. These reveal a strong similarity with Raphael’s pictorial language in the early years of the 16th century, during the period that Perugino’s influence on the young artist was at its height .

Possible Provenance (according to a label on the reverse):

On the back of the present panel, a handwritten label in French – describes this work as the ‘tableau de Saint-Sebastien... de très gran prix’ bequeathed in 1632 by Duke Henri II de Montmorency to Cardinal Richelieu – stating that the painting was ‘trouvè a Richelieu, apres la Revolution’, i.e. from the Château de Richelieu, which was sacked and stripped of all its furnishings after 1792, and then demolished from 1805. To the right there is also an inscription, easier to interpret under UV light: ‘M… R….e.B.....65/O.’, which may refer to the collection of ‘Marèchal Richelieu’ the 3rd Duke of Richelieu, Marshal of France in 1748. Fragments of a French newspaper attached to the edges of the panel refers to the second year of the Revolution (1793-1794).

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:

This work is painted on a panel, 6-7 mm thick, prepared on the back with a light brown paint. The paint layer on the verso – presumably applied to protect the panel and reduce the movement of the panel – could be original, since it includes calcium, sulphur, iron and some lead, that is calcium sulphate (gesso), a few iron oxides (ochre, earths) and lead white.

The painting is well conserved overall, with a few small defects due to the movement of the wood panel and some small integrations shown under UV Fluorescence. A closer look allows us to see also the micro-losses (micro-lacunas) and some abrasions in brown/dark areas, such as the hair, coherently with the age of the work.

The panel consists of a single plank of poplar, whose rings can be easily seen by raking light and also in diffused light, because the paint layers seem to be applied directly onto the wood. In fact, the wood fibres can be seen directly inside the craquelure in observations made with a digital microscope, and the preparatory layer with its cushioning function appears to be completely absent. Interestingly, the wood support was partially left visible in the irises of the saint, perhaps taking advantage of its brown colour.

The absence of a ground – such as the very typical white gesso ground of Italian medieval and renaissance practice – is extremely rare and, therefore, significant. It infers a type of abbreviated technique and can be classified as highly experimental. The way the painter opted to depict the hair, strand by strand is also experimental: the painter incised them, sgraffiti, a method usually not practiced at the time (nor typically later). The incisions can be seen better in IRR images.
No change, or underdrawing, was detected, despite the excellent IR transparency of the pictorial layers of the figure, but there must have been a careful underdrawing, perhaps made with a metal-gall ink or a light medium such as white chalk.

The apparent lack of a painted ground justifies the very scarce presence of calcium detected by XRF spectroscopy: the weak signals of this element in the spectra (almost without strontium) are probably due to calcium carbonate (in the form of calcite) present in the painting layers, perhaps deliberately added by the painter as a filler in the pigment mixture, as found also in painting of the first decades of 16th century.

Regarding the pigments, reflectance spectroscopy (vis-RS) and XRF analyses detected lead white, vermillion, ochre and earths rich in manganese, a copper-based pigment and gold: pigments common to many centuries and surely coherent with the first half of 16th century, as microscopic investigation states, with typical mixtures and grinding. A red lake was used in the lips and in the blood near the arrow, as well as inside the eyes and in the brown arrow itself, where it is mixed with earths, vermillion and lead white.
The small blue particles added to the flesh tones, seen in microscope images, are not azurite, due to the absence of copper in the body: they could be natural ultramarine blue. A little copper (from verdigris?) was measured in the background, containing black pigment. Vermillion, very finely grinded, was found in dark brown.
Gold is used in the halo and inscription, painted on the arrow. The inscription, made with shell gold over the arrow is coherent with the painting, like the golden halo, and no reinforcement seems to have occurred.
The absence of zinc, an element found in many paintings by Perugino after circa 1510, due to an impurity of a zinc-rich earth the Umbrian painter used, is an interesting datum, together with the painting technique.