(Bologna active 1389–1448 Venice)
Pietà, oil on panel, 76 x 39.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Mauro Minardi for suggesting the attribution and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

Zanino di Pietro, also called Giovanni di Francia, was a painter of French origin who worked in Venice, the cosmopolitan centre in which Italian artistic tradition met with Northern European influence.

The present work depicts an unusual composition for the subject of the Imago Pietatis as during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the figure of Christ was usually described in half-bust length in Italian painting. In this work, however, the figure of Christ, supported by the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist, is shown in an upright position and in full length. This iconography refers to the German pictorial language of the Schmerzensmann, in which the upright figure of Christ is often associated with the instruments of the Passion.

As Panofsky demonstrated in his essay on the Imago Pietatis, the popularity of this subject was due to the promotion of the cult of the veneration of the Wounds of Christ, and the introduction, by Pope Innocent VI, of the Feast of the Five Wounds into the liturgical calendar in 1362 (see E. Panofksy, ‘Imago Pietatis’. Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzensmanns’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix’, in: Festschrift für Max Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstag, Leipzig 1927). In the present panel these qualities are highlighted by the use of the raised pastiglia in the depiction of the crown of thorns and of Christ’s wounds.

The present work was made at the dawn of humanism in the genre of devotional painting and is representative of the significant evolution in the iconography of the Imago Pietatis. The human aspect of this theme is central to the manner in which the painting was intended to be perceived. The two figures support the lifeless body of Christ equally, they are depicted frontally, with arresting theatricality, the Virgin appealing with pathos to the viewer, Saint John looking away in anguish. The three figures are all of the same height and fill the entire image, generating an enclosed setting which emphasises their communion and intimate pathos. Mary and John stand behind Christ presenting him, as it were, to the faithful. The head of the Mother of Christ is shown leaning slightly outwards towards the corner, almost as if sharing in the suffering inflicted by the crown of thorns. The detailed depiction of Christ’s knee, lost in the folds of the Madonna’s mantle as she braces herself to support the weight of his limbs, heightens the impression of desperation in the scene.