(documented 1493–1517 Asti)
Annunciation,
oil on panel, 30 x 70 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Emilio Gussalli, Soncino, Milan;
Private European collection

Literature:
F. Malaguzzi Valeri, La Corte di Lodovico il Moro. La vita privata e l’arte a Milano nella seconda metà del Quattrocento, Milan 1913, ill. p. 129 (as Cremonese School);
A. Puerari, Boccaccino, Milan 1957, pp. 63-68, fig. no. 30, pl. I (as Boccaccio Boccaccino);
G. Romano, in: Restauri in Piemonte 1968/1971, Soprintendenza alle Gallerie e alle Opere d’Arte del Piemonte, Turin 1997, p. 45, mentioned under no. 8 (as Gandolfino da Roreto); 
G. Romano, Una Pala del Cinquecento per Asti, in: Archivi e cultura in asti, Asti 1971, mentioned p. 61, note 12 (as Gandolfino da Roreto);
M. Tanzi, Per gli esordi cremonesi dello Pseudo Bramantino, in: Bollettino d’Arte, 26, 1984, mentioned p. 29, note 43;
W. Angelelli/A. G. De Marchi, in: S. Romano (ed.), Pittura dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento nelle fotografie di Girolamo Bombelli, Milan 1991, p. 44, no. 62, ill. (as anonymous artist from Liguria, first half of the 16th Century);
S. Baiocco, in: G. Romano (ed.), Gandolfino da Roreto e il Rinascimento nel Piemonte Meridionale, Turin 1998, p. 308, no. 40, ill. (as Gandolfino da Roreto)

The present panel, originally part of a predella, was hitherto thought to be a work by Boccaccio Boccaccino until Giovanni Romano attributed it to Gandolfino da Roreto (see literature).
The present work dates to the second decade of the sixteenth century, and is typical of Gandolfino’s mature period. It exhibits the influence of contemporary Cremonese painting, most notably the works of Boccaccino, and also shows an erudite awareness of the artistic trends then developing in Liguria.

The present Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin is depicted in a lively narrative fashion and set within a typical Renaissance interior. The room’s tiled floor is represented with new perspectival innovations, as are the wooden bench set with pillows, a cassone beside the Virgin and a four-poster bed standing on the far right. On the left, beyond the door, a landscape with a tree is visible.

The painting’s quality is exhibited by several refined details, present also in other works by Gandolfino, such as the polyptych in the Collegiata di San Secondo in Asti. Mary’s face, with her eyes half closed, is comparable to that of the Madonna in his Nativity in the Seminario of Asti, and her representation in the artist’s Pala Solaro in the cathedral.

The son of Giovanni da Roreto, Gandolfino was born in Asti, Piedmont, and trained in his father’s studio. He appears to have been active in his native city, as well as in Alessandria and Monferrato. His first documented work is the Assumption of the Virgin now in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin, signed and dated 1493. At the end of the fifteenth century his style grew closer to that of Lombard Renaissance painting and later, as in the present panel, to the works of the Cremonese school.