Volume 78, Number 8 A Madonna and Child from Pintoricchio's Sienese Period

326

The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art (ISSN 0009-8841, USPS 075-960), Volume 78, Number 8, December 1991. Published monthly, except March, April, May, and August, by The Cleveland Mu seum of Art, 11150 East Boulevard, Cleve land, Ohio 44106-1797. Subscriptions: $25.00 per year. Single copies: $2.50.

Copyright 1991 by The Cleveland Mu seum of Art. Postmaster send address

changes to CMA Bulletin, 11150 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-1 797. Second-class postage paid at Cleveland, Ohio. Editor, Jo Zuppan. Production Man ager, Susan D. Patterson. Photographer, Howard T. Agriesti. Designer, Thomas H. Barnard III.

The Umbrian master II Pintoricchio (Bernardino di Betto di Biagio, 1454-1513) enjoyed the most enthusiastic appreciation since his own lifetime, when Mrs. Dudley P. Allen (the wife of a founding Trustee of the Art Museum and later Mrs. Francis Prentiss) purchased this Madonna and Child in 1915 (Cover, Figure 1 ) and brought it to

Cleveland. For Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Pintoricchio was the quintessential representative both of the splendid decoration of late quattrocento palaces, like the Borgia apartments in the Vatican, and of the intimate, lyrical piety associ ated with his native Umbria especially as expressed in his small paintings of the Madonna. The clarity that balanced the rich com plexity of Pintoricchio's ceiling designs led J. P. Morgan and others to have imitations produced in the public rooms of their mansions. Perhaps the most ambitious purchase was the Metropolitan

Museum's acquisition of a ceiling from the palace of Pandolfo Petrucci, called II Magnifico, in Siena from the Anglo-Florentine Herbert P. Horne in 1914.2 The demand for Madonnas created a de cidedly inclusive trend among connoisseurs and stimulated dealers to restore hopeless wrecks for an uncritical market. Both the Fogg and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum3 possess examples in which much of the original paint, and most of the original surface, has been lost. Paintings now attributed to followers fetched prices that would be the equivalent of millions of dollars today.4 Bernard Berenson's critique of the Madonna now in Cleveland for the dealer, F. Kleinberger, is typical of the taste of the time:

I have seldom seen in recent years a picture that has charmed me so much as your Madonna in a Landscape by Pintoricchio. It is so gentle in feeling, so dainty in touch, so gay and so childlike in its gaiety. The detail could scarcely be lovelier: the little lordly home on the lake, the Magi dashing through a natural opening of the cliff, St. George fighting the dragon below, all bathed in the shimmer of gold and ultramarine.5

Although the enthusiasm for Pintoricchio did not survive World War I, Cleveland's Madonna and Child remains a most important monument of this episode in the history of taste in the city as well as one of the more successful purchases in the United States, not only in the correctness of attribution and its quality but, ironically, in comparative state of preservation as well.

Figure 1. Madonna and Child. Tempera and oil on panel, 45.5 x 34 cm. Bernar dino de Betto di Biagio, called II Pintoric- ... . . chio, Perugia, ca. 1454-Siena, 1513. Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection, 1944. CMA 44.89

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328 Painted in Siena on the eve of the High Renaissance, this auto graph Madonna and Child has unfortunately received little attention since coming to the Museum as part of the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss bequest in 1944 because its condition precluded exhibition. It has been hardly discussed outside the Museum catalogue of Euro pean paintings.6 The painting, however, once freed of the somewhat opaque varnish covering it since its restoration in 1962 (Cover, Fig ure 1) reveals itself as one of Pintoricchio's finest efforts in an inti mate genre at which he excelled.

Francesco Maturanzio, the Perugian chronicler, wrote in 1492 that Pintoricchio was the second greatest painter after Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (ca. 1445-1523).7 According to Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Pin toricchio worked as Perugino's assistant in the Sistine Chapel in 1481-1482.8 His first important independent commission was the Bufalini Chapel in Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, perhaps ex ecuted early in the 1480s. He decorated parts of the Belvedere for Pope Innocent VIII in 1487. Around 1490 he was working for the Della Rovere in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. Between 1492 and 1497 he was employed by Pope Alexander VI to decorate his apart ments in the Vatican Palace and in Castel Sant'Angelo. By this time Pintoricchio had a large workshop, and during the 1490s he also executed commissions in Umbria. After completing the Baglioni Chapel in Spello in 1501, he was called to Siena in 1502 by Cardi nal Francesco Piccolomini Todeschini, Archbishop of Siena, who

would reign as Pope Pius III for ten days in 1503 before his untimely death. Here, Pintoricchio executed his masterpiece, the decoration of the Piccolomini Library adjacent to the Cathedral of Siena. His work consists of a grotesque ceiling and a cycle of frescoes depicting the life of the archbishop's ancestor, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who reigned as Pope Pius II between 1458 and 1464. In 1508-1510 Pope Julius II called Pintoricchio to Rome to decorate the ceiling of the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo as part of a team consisting of Don ato Bramante, Andrea Sansovino, and Guillaume de Marcillat. This fusion of architecture, sculpture, fresco, and stained glass was Julius' initial commission in a series of projects culminating in the greatest achievements of the Italian Renaissance: Michelangelo's decoration of the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Stanze. Clearly, Pintoricchio had a secure position with the most important patrons of his age.

Two years after beginning his work on the Piccolomini Library, Pintoricchio decided to make Siena his home. He acquired land in 1504 and secured an agreement with the city freeing him from taxes in 1506.9 Although Siena remained his primary residence until his

death there in 1513, he also continued to work in Umbria, Tuscany, and Rome. Since he was so mobile, it is not surprising to find almost contemporary works in localities separated by a journey of as much as a day or more.

By 1470, when Pintoricchio was nearing the end of his appren ticeship, Umbrian painting had undergone a much less radical break

with tradition than that which had taken place in Florence in the 1420s. The medieval workshop practice of deploying a repertory of visual motifs in traditionally prescribed combinations appropriate to the intended function of the finished work continued to guide the procedures of both minor and major artists well into the sixteenth century. Above all Perugino-who was considered the greatest painter of his generation even outside Umbria and who operated a large and influential studio, both in Perugia and in Florence-devel

oped and promoted his own style through the use of stock motifs and figures, which were circulated among his many pupils and assistants through model books and loose drawings. This strong local tradition attained much sophistication through a limited assimilation of the Florentine study of antique examples and natural models as well as through an absorption of Netherlandish painting technique, but it still depended on the consistent transmission of formal language

within the school. Thus, the literal recurrence of certain forms has a special significance to the connoisseur of Umbrian painting, since this establishes a line of tradition. The specific treatment of these forms, whether an expression of ability or personal reinterpretation, then becomes significant as a means of identifying individual hands. The observation of these characteristics can at times assume an al most Morellian specificity,10 but their interpretation is both less absolute and more complex, since it must account for traditional workshop training, subconscious habit, and thoroughly conscious intent. In this way the repeated motif (for example, the gesture of an arm and hand) is significant, both in the context of an artistic tradi tion and in the practice of an individual artist working within it.1

The historian of Italian Renaissance art must constantly relate col lective and individual identities to each other. At times even major artists like Perugino, Pintoricchio, Sandro Botticelli, and Filippino Lippi were intent on producing stylistically homogeneous work; at other times they asserted individual traits to the point of quirkiness. The factor of consistency within the workshop and within cooperat ing separate workshops further complicates the problem.

329

330 Figure 2. Detail, left background of Madonna and Child (CMA 44.89).

Function also affects the stylistic identity of a work of art. It origi nates with spiritual, social, and economic factors that determine the

way in which members of a particular society use works of art and cause artists or craftsmen to produce them. This in turn determines the way in which artists respond to the demands imposed on them by their clients, how they go about their work, and how they define

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and achieve success. An awareness of such factors enables the con

noisseur to understand the material better, but it also leads beyond the determination of authorship and date to a reflection on the event

leading to the creation of a specific work. Each event has both a cause and an effect. Certain historical and ambient factors determine

what is created, while the creation in turn (together with its recep

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the determination of authorship and date to a reflection on the event

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tion) governs the future actions of the artist himself and of those who work with or around him. This becomes especially explicit in the history of Pintoricchio's Cleveland Madonna.

In the Cleveland painting the Madonna and Christ Child occupy the immediate foreground as a monumental pyramidal mass, seated on a roughly indicated support.'2 In the dark areas on either side of her blue robe, freely painted vegetation marks a vague, even am biguous transition to the background landscape-a valley with a town and a river, bathed in the shadows immediately preceding dusk.'3 A craggy precipice at the left, crowned by a church with a squat campanile and a side building, indicates the forward extremity of the landscape, which proceeds into the distance on the right side of the panel, with receding groupings of rocky outcroppings, trees, and a winding road. Here the recession is arranged in the medieval system in which more distant objects are shown above those closer to the viewer. This archaizing feature is less pronounced in the townscape behind the precipice on the left (Figure 2). Here a river, navigated by two elaborate vessels, one with sails furled and the other propelled by banks of oarsmen, reflects the classical edifices of an idealized town. The buildings are grouped around a church of central plan constructed on a hexagonal base of steps. Behind it a lower structure leads back to a naved church with a semicircular choir. Both of these churches sport red banners on the crosses at their pinnacles. A third, plainer church-designated by the cross atop its facade-faces the rotunda on the right. A gilt line over a small dark area probably indicates a third boat, manned by a tiny figure clad in red. In this case either the boat would be moored at a quai between the two buildings or a canal would extend back be tween them. The highlights on the boats and on the architectural details are mostly executed in gold, as are the edges of the distant trees, although in many places this has been worn away.

Pintoricchio populated this landscape with an unusually full selec tion of the stock figures that recur in the backgrounds of many of his compositions, whether in small-scale panels and illuminations or in large-scale altarpieces or frescoes. Near the top of the crag at the left, a procession of figures, both on horse and on foot, pass through a fanciful gap. A solitary figure clad in red (perhaps a hermit or a traveler) stands at the bottom. In the background to the right of the

Virgin, St. George slays the dragon, while the woman he has rescued prays at the top of an eminence (Figure 3). Behind them, a boar hunting party chase their prey into the distance. Across the Virgin's black bodice appears a barely discernible, minuscule gilt inscription. It almost certainly reads: "Ave Maria gratia plena."14

331

332 Figure 4. The Madonna at Nones. Oil on , . panel, 55.3 x 40 cm. Raffaello Sanzio, .v; Urbino, 1483-Rome, 1520. The Norton ,

';i Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena.

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The specific subject of the painting has been designated "the Ma donna at Nones" by Anne van Buren.15 In a very similar Madonna by Raphael, now in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (Figure 4), the text of Nones can be read in the Virgin's book. In the Cleveland

Madonna the text is not shown, but the similarity of the action and the time indicated by the evening light make it clear that the subject is the same.

Pintoricchio has concentrated an extraordinary amount of detail onto a small panel, most likely at his patron's request. Of his surviv

ing Madonnas, only the small panel in the collection of the Sarah

Campbell Blaffer Foundation, which shows the Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the back

ground, is more charged16 (Figure 5). In the Cleveland painting, the artist has succeeded in maintaining a coherent composition by mak

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Figure 5. The Madonna and Child with . i John the Baptist and the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. Tempera on panel, 29.2 x 21.6 cm, dated 1492. Pintoricchio. Sarah . Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, '

ing the central figures dominate not only the foreground in the picto rial space, but also more than five-sixths of the painted surface. He has also combined two heterogeneous styles: the monumental sim plicity of the larger Madonnas on panel developed by his master Perugino and the finely rendered detail of miniature painting, a genre which he practiced in its own right."7

The Blaffer Madonna, executed on a smaller scale than the Cleve land painting,18 shows Pintoricchio working exclusively in the

miniaturist's style. When Pintoricchio painted Madonnas in works of different scales for different functions, he adjusted the forms accord ingly, so that the overall effect was intimate or monumental, as the situation required. Since he used the same vocabulary of human forms, these different modes flow into each other with no distinction.

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forms, these different modes flow into each other with no distinction.

333

334 The physiognomy of the Virgin in the Blaffer Madonna (dated 1492), in the altarpiece for Santa Maria dei Fossi (documented 1495) (Figure

B t^^^ 6), and in the small Madonna and Child in the Huntington Library (which literally repeats the figures used in the Fossi altarpiece on a

A^^^^^^^S^_^^~ ~much smaller scale, although larger than the Blaffer) is in each case treated in a manner appropriate to the scale and mood of the work.19

The forms and their rendering become simpler as the magnitude grows larger, culminating in the monumentality of the Fossi Ma

;: .. donna. Nonetheless the physiognomy remains the same, both in de

tail and in spirit throughout these three works.

,id. i>~ ~ ODESThe Cleveland Madonna (which consistently presents Pintoric chio's repertory of motifs and forms, and is in treatment sufficiently similar, so that there is no doubt about the attribution) nonetheless

*shows differences in the basic rendering of kindred forms. The fully p rounded modeling and the plastic solidity of the forms in the Cleve

'J^^^Bj '~ Z * E land Madonna set it apart from these works of the early to mid

E 1490s. A comparison of the legs of the Christ Child in the Cleveland

*?S ^jllt' panel with those in the Fossi altarpiece and the Huntington Ma

"CF i f"W ,^ ?t j donna makes this clear. The limbs and their attitude are virtually identical in the three paintings, but the rendering of the forms, even their basic conception, is markedly rounder and denser in the Cleve land Madonna. For the head of the Christ Child, on the other hand, Pintoricchio has used a totally different motif in the Cleveland paint ing, one derived from a model intended to show a mastery of model ing and perspective in a way alien to the more archaic heads in the

Figure 6. Fossi Altarpiece. Tempera and other works. The head of the Madonna, while clearly derived from oil on panel, 512 x

314cm. Pintoricchio. the same model, has been modified to stress the structure and mod The National Gallery of Umbrian Art, Perugia, Italy. eling of the skull. These differences mark a significant change in Pin

toricchio's purposes and mode of seeing-an indication of a chrono logical distance between the Cleveland painting and the others.

In his letter to Kleinberger, Berenson dated the painting to the very end of Pintoricchio's career:

The style of this picture is so close to the "Christ Carrying the cross" of the Milanese Borromeo Collection dated 1513 that one cannot hesitate an instant to date it as of the same year. Now that was the last year of Pintoricchio's life, and as it happens your picture is un finished. The Madonna's mantle instead of having the conventional blue has a beautiful brownish tone as of a delicate Byzantine or

Bagdad ivory. This, however, which a miracle has spared from the spoiling hand of the restorer, is only the underpainting. The point I am coming to is that in view of what I have just been saying it is more than probable that Pintoricchio was at work on your Madonna when death took the brush out of his hand. It adds a touch of pathos to a work of art that bears it well.

In fact the painting is not unfinished, and the brown pigment over the cloak was not preparation, but an area left bare by the removal of the expensive azurite pigment (see the following article by Kenneth Be).20 The style of the Madonna in any case has little in common with the Borromeo Calvary, which, as a miniature, consis tently shows the characteristics of that mode of painting. The figures in the Calvary, moreover, are more squat in their proportions, flatter in their modeling, and have a different spatial relation to each other

and to the void around them. The forms of the landscape extend from the bottom upward in such a way as to give the figures an indeterminate presence in space and to suggest a quality of weight lessness. The landscape dominates the figures in the Calvary, while the more solid forms of the Cleveland Madonna and Child clearly prevail over their setting. The Madonna is as different from the illu mination of 1513 as it is from the Blaffer Madonna of 1492.

Where, then, in the period between Pintoricchio's late thirties and his death at the age of fifty-nine, does the Cleveland Madonna and Child most logically fit? Paintings Curator Henry S. Francis in the catalogue of the Prentiss Collection had dated the painting around 1500, which is close to the dating proposed here. In the Museum's paintings catalogue the picture was dated ca. 1496 on the basis of its similarity in "color, feeling, and type" to the Fossi altarpiece of 1494, especially to the predella and to the Annunciation in the third tier of the side panels.2' While the formal vocabulary and even the handling of the landscapes show many points in common, the altar piece retains the decorative linearism of Pintoricchio's earlier work

-a feature that is greatly subdued in the Cleveland painting. In the main panel of the altarpiece the body of the Christ Child and the physiognomy of the Virgin are certainly of the same type and are derived from the same original drawings, but their modeling is much flatter, and they lack the organic structural coherence of the Ma donna. It is therefore apparent that the altarpiece contains formal elements that had undergone further development before the artist reapplied them in the Cleveland work, which must be somewhat later than the Fossi altarpiece. The Eroli Chapel in the Spoleto

Duomo of 1497 also stands closer to the Fossi altarpiece in style and further emphasizes the distinctness of the Cleveland Madonna.22

The essential characteristics of the Cleveland Madonna show a significant community only with the works of Pintoricchio's Sienese period, which began in late 1502, when he received the commission for the Piccolomini Library. During this period his art underwent a transformation due to the challenge of that monumental decorative project, the immense prestige he acquired through it, and his col laboration with the young Raphael. Its position in this phase of

335

336 Pintoricchio's work is supported not only by correspondences with the Piccolomini frescoes, but with a group of paintings executed by Pintoricchio himself during his years in Siena, as well as by local artists working in his circle, including Raphael.

The full plastic modeling of the Infant's form is directly related to the treatment of some of the putti that flank the Piccolomini coats of arms in the library. In spite of the diversity in the actual handling of the figures in the frescoes, due to Pintoricchio's reliance on assis tants, there is a common endeavor to render the articulation and

modeling of the limbs in as lifelike a way as possible. Pintoricchio and his workshop carried the roundness and plasticity of the forms to an extent that is uncharacteristic of them at any other time in the master's career. One might literally compare the putto to the left of Enea Piccolomini as Ambassador to Scotland with the Infant in the Prentiss Madonna, but the most Raphaelesque of these figures, those to the right of the same scene, show the same artistic purpose more completely and subtly realized (Figure 7).23

In the scene itself there is a thoroughgoing affinity between the landscapes, including the inconsistency in the perspective of the left and right sides of the space, as observed above in the Cleveland Ma donna. The Scottish landscape on the left side (Figure 8), with the vertical thrust of the crag in the middle ground, the castle behind it, the coastal town farther in the distance, and the water following all these elements back into the distance, is more consistently con structed according to linear perspective than the right half, which,

Figure 7. Putti to the right of Enea Piccolomini as Ambassador to Scotland. .. Fresco. Pintoricchio. Siena, Piccolominii

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like the Madonna, is made up of the archaic positioning of plants, trees, hillocks, and roads. Through this symbolic representation of

recession, distant objects are intellectually known to be more distant

rather than so perceived by the eye. Since Pintoricchio used the

same repertory of motifs in landscapes throughout his career, it is unsafe to associate specific works on any correspondence of details. The actual treatment of these motifs, which both works share abun

dantly, is very similar in spirit. The spatial function of the similarly formed crags in the left middle ground of each landscape, the types and handling of the vessels at varying distance, and the treatment of the surface of the water and its reflections are closely related. A

comparison with similar, but differently treated elements in the Glo rification of San Bernardino in the Bufalini Chapel in Santa Maria in

Aracoeli, which Pintoricchio executed in the 1480s, or with the Cal

vary of 1513 makes clear the kinship between the Madonna and the Siena fresco.

337

338 Figure 9. The Presentation of Eleonore of P u Portugal to Frederick 111. Fresco. Pintoric- Il chio. Siena, Piccolomini Library. T

Konrad Oberhuber, in his treatment of the Piccolomini frescoes as documents of the contact between Pintoricchio and Raphael, has pointed out the evolution of Pintoricchio's style just less than half way through the project.24 The figures lost the seeming isolation and frontality of compositions like The Presentation of Eleonore of Portu gal to Frederick 111 (Figure 9) and were now deployed across the pic ture plane with a more animated pattern of gesture and a general

movement from left to right. The change can be seen clearly by a comparison of the Presentation with a similar ceremonial scene, Enea Piccolomrini Receives the Cardinal's Hat (Figure 10). The sym metry, equilibrium, and frontality of both the figures and the compo sition in the earlier scene is replaced by an organization based on restless movement flickering from left to right across the picture plane. The figures tend to be either somewhat off-balance or marked by asymmetrical, linear, and energetic silhouettes. The movement is cadenced in a more stable pattern with a distinct vertical thrust at the extreme right edge of the field. In the scene of Enea's elevation

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Figure 10. Enea Piccolomini Receives the Cardinal's Hat. Fresco. Pintoricchio. Siena, Piccolomini Library.

this effect is reinforced by the conflict between the symmetry of the space and the altar at its center, and the organization of the figures at

right angles to its axis, i.e., parallel to the picture plane. Curiously, this new manner of conceiving space brought with it a more unified

landscape composition. In the background of The Presentation of Eleonore of Portugal to Frederick Ill the space expands into the dis tance in a smooth progression from left to right. The eye passes over four distinct planes, each behind and smaller than the one preceding it. The inconsistency, or even opposition, between the two sides of the landscape has been subsumed into the movement-based struc

ture of the entire composition.

The same contrast can be observed in a comparison between the Cleveland Madonna and Pintoricchio's tondo of the Holy Family with John the Baptist in the National Gallery in Siena.25 The Sienese

origin of this work is certain, since it was removed from the former

Monastery of Campansi there. In this instance Pintoricchio has cre ated a most interesting, if awkward and unbalanced, composition, in

which his urge to enliven the picture plane was amply satisfied.

this effect is reinforced by the conflict between the symmetry of the space and the altar at its center, and the organization of the figures at right angles to its axis, i.e., parallel to the picture plane. Curiously, this new manner of conceiving space brought with it a more unified landscape composition. In the background of The Presentation of Eleonore of Portugal to Frederick 111 the space expands into the dis tance in a smooth progression from left to right. The eye passes over four distinct planes, each behind and smaller than the one preceding it. The inconsistency, or even opposition, between the two sides of the landscape has been subsumed into the movement-based struc ture of the entire composition.

The same contrast can be observed in a comparison between the Cleveland Madonna and Pintoricchio's tondo of the Holy Family with John the Baptist in the National Gallery in Siena.25 The Sienese origin of this work is certain, since it was removed from the former

Monastery of Campansi there. In this instance Pintoricchio has cre ated a most interesting, if awkward and unbalanced, composition, in which his urge to enliven the picture plane was amply satisfied.

339

340 .:... , . Mary and Joseph lean to the left, while the Christ Child and John the

t^^ . Es ,^K j Baptist walk to the right, inclining their heads backward toward the .:, '-. ...:^.,~^ . ,; .:.._ adults. This tension, adapted to a medium-sized tondo, is the equiva

lent of the more elaborate effects in the later part of the Piccolomini "..'".:;."" .Library. The landscape, moreover, shows the same coherent spatial

sweep, but with no attention to formal balance. Pintoricchio chose to unify the difficult circular field with movement and a plethora of lively detail. He suppressed symmetry both in the individual figures

and in the composition as a whole. The Cleveland Madonna shows a

quite different conception of the figures and the space they inhabit. The vertical thrust of the cliff at the left and the landscape and trees at the right provide a certain balance to the pictorial space, and the

figures are projected forward toward the viewer, so that the forms are perceived in an essentially frontal manner. The Madonna, there fore, belongs to Pintoricchio's earlier phase of work in the library, since it reflects his earlier feeling of space. Oberhuber dates Pinto ricchio's change in style to 1503/04, when he was forty-nine (ac cording to the date of birth given by Vasari).26

While the parallels and divergences with the Siena tondo confirm the association of the Cleveland Madonna with Pintoricchio's work in the Piccolomini Library, this painting also has one especially curi

ous feature in common with the Cleveland panel. Both paintings, in their foreground vegetation, show quite free painterly work in an oleaginous pigment. This technique seems highly unusual for a painter of Pintoricchio's generation, and his conservative adherence to archaic techniques and tight description of form (Figure 11 ).27

Figure 11. Detail of Madonna and Child Pintoricchio's work on the Piccolomini Library, as we now know, (CMA 44.89). extended as late as 1508, when the scaffolding for the final fresco, The Coronation of Pope Pius III, was removed.28 Because Pintoric chio was involved in other projects during this period, and it is un likely that this last fresco was part of the original contract, we do not know how much, if any, time passed between the completion of the work within the library and this final decoration. Meanwhile, Pin toricchio worked in the nearby Chapel of St. John in the Cathedral of Siena, in Spello, and on panels like those in Cleveland and Siena. As always, Pintoricchio relied heavily on his assistants. His presence also exercised a profound influence on local artists. The almost de formed proportions and the eccentric swinging movements of his figures in the Siena tondo adumbrate Baldassare Peruzzi's early man ner. Other painters in Siena who were close to Pintoricchio have not been identified.

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Figure 12. The Mystic Marriage of St. .

n Catherine. Sienese Follower of Pintoric- i chio. Tempera and oil on panel, . nmu Diam. 62.2 cm. The Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Mrs. F.F. Prentis Bequest, 44.51.

Oberlin and formerly also owned by Mrs. Prentiss (Figure 12), for example, was once considered an autograph work of Pintoricchio by Berenson. It is now attributed to one of these anonymous Sienese followers. This artist adhered closely to the master's anatomical vo cabulary, but shows a different sense of foreshortening of the limbs and their articulation in space, as well as a method of modeling in short brushstrokes, a technique traditional in tempera painting,

which imparts a hard surface to the flesh, reminiscent of gesso covered wooden sculpture. The figures are conceived in geometrical relationship to the picture plane and its circular delimitation. The round, swinging silhouette of the Madonna's robe is set off against the angular disposition of St. Catherine and the Child-a blunt but reasonably effective solution of the compositional problems posed by the tondo composition. Most remarkable is the artist's fascination with antiquity. A triumphal arch, the Torre delle Milizie at Rome, and the Ponte Elio, which also appears in the Codex Escurialensis29 and in Marcantonio Raimondi's Massacre of the Innocents after Raphael, are all shown freely interpreted in the background.3 Some of the architecture and one of the vessels show affinities with the types included by Pintoricchio in the Cleveland Madonna, but are rendered in a more literal, detailed manner. In this the artist shows

341

342 Figure 13. La Madonna del Feltro. Fresco. , - - Pintoricchio. San Martino in Colle.

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his individuality. The most significant link among them is the phys iognomy of the Madonna, which is literally identical in every par ticular except in the harder modeling of the Oberlin painting. The

physiognomy also appears in the Madonna and Child now in Hono lulu, which-both in the figures and in the landscape-is virtually a

replica of the Cleveland painting.31 The type, which can be linked with Raphael's work of this period, provides another confirmation of the Sienese origin of the Cleveland Madonna and a clue about the nature of the interaction between the two artists during the decora tion of the Piccolomini Library.

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...ndvdult. .. otsinfcntln mngte s. h hs iognoy ofthe;Mdonn,:"!-- ....ich islteal.ietia.n.vrypr

tiulrexep n hehrdr oeln"o teObrlnpantn. h physiognomy also appears in the Madonna and~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cid-'" nowin Hno lulu, which both in the figures and in the landscape:-.. ;: is:virtaly

replica of the Cleveland painting.3l The type, which can be linked~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.;.' ?; ''Z. with Raphael's work of this period, provides another confirmation of~~~~~~~~~~~~~;~- -~.'.'.';''-t'"~.:~;':;...-':~.::

the~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ?':iee... origin .'of' :'.he Clvln Mdnaan'-le buh nature of the interaction between the two artists during the decora-~~~~~~,~,~'./-.~,'.' ~:'. ~'..~;i tion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~, of'te P-co:.. Lirr. . ......

The close interrelationship between Pintoricchio and Raphael, amply discussed by Oberhuber from the point of view of the younger artist's influence on the project, further supports this chronology. However, before exploring this aspect of the problem, we must con sider another work by Pintoricchio, one closely related to the Cleve land Madonna, that casts light on its connections with earlier paint ings like the Fossi altarpiece. This is the fragmentary fresco called the

Madonna del Feltro in a roadside sanctuary in the village of San Martino in Colle, a tiny community made wealthy by the local felt

industry. While not entirely a new discovery, this work recently re ceived much attention after its controversial restoration (Figure 13).32

The connection between the paintings is clear. The figure of the Madonna is essentially the same, both in the figure's attitude and in the type of clothing and the fall of the drapery. They differ only in details such as the loop of the Virgin's garment behind her proper left forearm in the Cleveland painting. Since any work a secco and

much of the fresco layer in the Madonna del Feltro have been lost, a comparison of such details is useless. The related physiognomies of the two Madonnas, however, are instructive. While they are clearly of the same type, that of the fresco is broader, rounder, and more typical of Pintoricchio's usual practice. In the Cleveland Madonna Pintoricchio, following Raphael's stimulus, attempted to give the Virgin's face a subtler and more refined modeling than was his wont. The Siena tondo reflects this as well. The broad face of San Martino in Colle appears in Pintoricchio's major panel work of the mid 1490s, the Fossi altarpiece (Figure 6) and in his small variant of it now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The poor condition of the Gardner Madonna precludes extensive visual analysis, but the extensive gilt ornament (mostly restoration in its present state) and the close correspondence of detail indicate the direct relationship between the two works, both in spirit and in date. On the other hand, the simpler, more plastic and monumental forms, and specifi cally the round, Peruginesque head of the Infant in the Madonna del Feltro place it more in the ambiance of the Cleveland painting. In order to explain this connection, we must posit Pintoricchio himself at work in the environs of Perugia while his primary commitment in the Piccolomini Chapel was already underway. Pintoricchio's fresco in San Martino in Colle consisted of only a single large lunette in an

open-air shrine that he could have completed during a relatively brief visit.

343

344 Figure 14. Madonna and Child Enthroned between John the Baptist and St. Sebastian. Tempera and oil on panel, 178 x 164 cm, F signed and dated 1493. Pietro Vannucci, e called II Perugino, Citta della Pieve, ca. 1445-Perugia, 1523. Florence, Uffizi Gallery.

Raphael's collaboration with his former mentor in Perugino's workshop, discussed by Vasari, has been confirmed and clarified by August Schmarsow's basic study of his drawings for the Piccolomini Library.33 Oberhuber has analyzed the congruences and divergences of their personal artistic paths during this period. Further consider ation of Raphael's development during the years between 1503 and 1505 indicates a period of close contact with Pintoricchio as well as the point at which Raphael's work turned in another direction.

Oberhuber showed the way in which the changes in each artist's development affected the Piccolomini Library. Likewise, a work like the Prentiss Madonna could not have been created after this diver gence. Pintoricchio, after the change, showed a brief reaction to Raphael's ideas and then returned to his former ways. Raphael con versely went to Florence and assimilated Leonardesque ideas which appear nowhere in Pintoricchio's work.34

Raphael's departure for Florence in 1504 marks an absolute termi nus ante quem for the Cleveland Madonna, which has a true kinship with Raphael's earliest surviving efforts in that genre. The individual works in the series are intimately tied together, and each shows an illuminating relationship with the Cleveland Madonna.

Both were using a literal vocabulary of physical parts, gestures, and formulae that they had learned in Perugino's workshop. The up

ward gazing, foreshortened head of Pintoricchio's Christ Child in the Cleveland painting first began to appear in Perugino's paintings of

"ss^" -; '

'

1 * . ; - .... .., *t .It !?

Figure 15. Madonna and Child. Fresco. Attributed to Andrea d'Assisi, called

L'lngegno, active 1480-1521. San Martino in Campo.

the early to mid-1 490s; for example, the Madonna and Child En throned between John the Baptist and St. Sebastian in the Uffizi, dated 1493 (Figure 14), and the Madonna and Child Enthroned be tween SS. Jerome and Augustine in Sant'Agostino in Cremona, dated 1494. This became one of the stock images for which Perugino has so often been accused of repetitiousness. It recurs in the Madonna with Saints Adoring the Christ Child in Alte Pinkothek in Munich and another in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.35 One sees it often even without a body, as in the cherub below God the Father's right arm in a lunette now in Lyon36 or in the more famous version of the same image in the Cambio at Perugia.37 The Uffizi panel could be said to show the motif in its essential form, since there it performs three significant functions. It creates an effective contrapposto in the figure of the Infant, rendering the figure livelier and more plastic,

while displaying Perugino's mastery of foreshortening and anatomy. It echoes the attitude of St. Sebastian's foreshortened head, itself a

motif found very early in his career,38 and it communicates the poi gnant gaze of Christ to his forerunner, John the Baptist. In the Cremona painting, it accomplishes only the first function.

This formulaic method, repugnant to later taste, was one of Perugino's essential tools in maintaining stylistic consistency in his large workshop, which employed many assistants of varying skills and personalities. Pintoricchio, Raphael, and the shadowy Andrea D'Assisi (known as L'lngegno)-to name the three directly relevant to the painting under discussion-adapted these formulae to suit their own creative needs. L'lngegno39 adapted the motif in a strongly

modeled, anatomically coherent design that is repeated in two literal replicas, the first two of which were executed apparently from the same cartoon: the Madonna and Child in San Martino in Campo (Figure 15), and the Madonna della Scala in the Palazzo dei Con servatori in Rome.40 Raphael repeated the motif more than once in the Christ Child of his early Madonnas, each time reinterpreting its

meaning and refining his anatomical rendering. Pintoricchio, on the other hand, had little use for it except as a mechanically repeated crowd-filling device in massed scenes like those in the Piccolomini Library, because he was not skilled at or even interested in plastic modeling and scientific anatomy. Parts of the library and especially the Cleveland Madonna are the only works in which he entered the spirit of Perugino and Raphael sufficiently to achieve a realization of the motif-not as contrapposto, but at least as convincing figural representation both in anatomy and modeling.

345

346 The particular physiognomy of the Madonna is similarly based on a stock type, but one more closely associated with Pintoricchio him self. The high forehead, broad cheeks, long nose, semi-closed eyes, and small mouth and chin are ultimately derived from a type of fe male face that was so widely disseminated in Umbrian painting as to make it virtually a regional trademark. Each painter, however, gave it his own cast and repeated a certain number of variants. The

Peruginesque version of the type that appears in the Cleveland Ma donna can be seen in the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints in the Pinacoteca Vaticana41 and in the Pierpont Morgan Madonna

mentioned above, which is dated by Pietro Scarpellini to around 1500. It does not, however, preponderate in Perugino's work.

His followers showed more interest in the formula. The artist iden tified by Ferino Pagden as L'lngegno employed his monumental, slightly more frontal, conception of it in the works already men tioned, notably in combination with the same attitude of the hands in prayer used in the Cleveland and San Martino in Colle Madonnas by Pintoricchio. The connection of these with Perugino and Pinto ricchio is made all the more striking when compared to the

Cleveland Madonna. Whether executed in the late 1480s or contem poraneously with the Cleveland Madonna, the Madonuccia of San

Martino in Campo and the Madonna della Scala on the Capitoline have a close fundamental relationship with the Madonnas in Cleve land and San Martino in Colle. The figures of the Virgin are the same

basic type-in pose (i.e., the hands joined in prayer), in physiog nomy, and in the basic arrangement of the drapery. Consequently, the four paintings unmistakably represent the same element of the

Umbrian tradition. The variations of detail fall within a narrow range. From the two pairs attributed to L'lngegno and Pintoricchio respectively, one cannot fail to notice that the faces of the Madonnas in Rome and in San Martino in Colle belong to the round type of the Fossi altarpiece, while the Madonnas in Cleveland and San Martino in Campo show the same elongation of contour, protrusion of the

cheekbone, and pointed chin. This slight variation of a single type is significant structurally, since the caesura of eye-socket and cheek bone divide the face into two segments above and below the eyes. This is the result of a conscious striving for a more refined elegance of design. All four paintings share the same rounded, plastic forms the essential characteristic that sets the Cleveland Madonna apart from Pintoricchio's general tendencies.42 Ferino Pagden stresses this treatment of form as a fundamental characteristic of the artist she identifies as L'lngegno. If her dating of the San Martino in Campo frescoes to 1485 is correct, they would document the orgins of the

Figure 16. The Virgin Seated, Three Quarter Length, Adoring the Child lying in

Collection, Fondation Custodia, eParis. .

well have * been'executed'as'part of thepreparation of t'h

' ' '" ? ... . ......

facial type that Pintoricchio and Raphael reinterpreted twenty years later. On the other hand, if Vasari's account of L'lngegno's contact

with Pintoricchio and Raphael in Perugino' s studio is accurate, the frescoes must be later, and the association would explain the kinship of the physiognomy.

A drawing in the Frits Lugt Collection in Paris (Figure 1 6)i could well have been executed as part of the preparation of the Madonuccia or one of the related images.44 The loosely overlapping metalpoint contour lines and the rough parallel hatching indicate the formation of an image, rather than a copy after or a derivation from a finished painting. The technique, which recalls the rough, plastic strokes of a sinopia,45 does not resemble any of the drawings se curely attributed to Perugino or any of those tentatively attributed to Pintoricchio. Most significantly, Byam Shaw in his discussion of the drawing in the Lugt catalogue stresses the "extremely Raphaelesque" character of the head of the Virgin in this drawing and compares it with that of The Madonna at Nones (Figure 14), which is intimately related to the Cleveland painting.

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347

348 Figure 17. The Madonna and Child be- .

. tween SS. Jerome and Francis. Oil on

The Madonna's physiognomy as it appears in the Cleveland paint ing was more common in Pintoricchio's work than in Perugino's. It is

a variant of a type extending back to earlier phases of his career, most notably the Kress Collection Madonna in Denver of 1485, the San Severino Madonna of around 1489,46 and the Fossi altarpiece.

Other small Madonnas with similar physiognomies have been com

pared with the Fossi Madonna and accordingly are dated either

shortly before or shortly after it; for example, the Madonnas in the National Gallery in London,47 the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cam

bridge,48 the Huntington Library in San Marino,49 the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and the Fogg Art Museum in Cam

bridge, Massachusetts. What distinguishes the Cleveland Madonna from these earlier works is the soft modeling of the features. In the Fossi altarpiece the handling is harder, more linear, and decorative in keeping with the treatment of the work as a whole, while in the

Cleveland Madonna there is less emphasis on the lines of the eyes, eyebrow, and nose, giving the face a gentler more human quality.

This facial type constitutes only one of the significant features link

ing the Cleveland painting to the earliest Madonnas of Raphael. The Madonna and Child between 55. Jerome and Francis (Figure 17) and

the Connestabile Madonna contain the identical type seen at exactly the same angle. In the Solly Madonna (Figure 18), the Norton Simon

Madonna (Figure 14), and the Diotalevi Madonna (Figure 19), Raphael has modified the type slightly by showing it in a more fron tal attitude. The readily apparent kinship between the faces persists

. as_- _ 'i

Th Maon _ phsonm asi per nteCeeadpit in a oecmo nPnoici's okthni ergn's

ti

a ain fatp xedn akt ale hsso i aer

tal attitude. The readily apparent kinship between the faces persists

Figure 18. The Madonna Reading and Child (Solly Madonna). Oil on panel, 52 x 38 cm. Raffaello Sanzio. Berlin, Staatliche

Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemaldegalerie.

Figure 19. The Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John (Diotalevi Madonna).

Oil on panel, 69 x 50 cm. Raffaello Sanzio. Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemaldegalerie.

349

350 Figure 20. The Madonna and Child. Pen -- . ;' .' *?

'" and brown ink over stylus traces, 11.4 x ^ ,. .... ... .. 13 cm. Raffaello Sanzio. Ashmolean _,-

' - ' .:' :

Museum, Oxford (Parker II 508a, recto;' Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, no. 64).

.* i .,

?

even after Raphael went to Florence and began to depart from the Umbrian tradition, when he executed the Madonna Terranuova and

? B<4WfaL5 0 ~?r

the Madonna del Cardellino50 The earliest of these, the Solly and the Norton Simon Madonnas,

however, provide the most significant links with Pintoricchio. Not

only are the type, proportions, modeling, and attitude of the Virgin's face essentially the same, but the three renderings of the Christ Child

emerge from te se bc . In all three the Child is seated

on the Virgin's lap with the body facing to the right. Although the Child's head is turned to the left in the Solly Madonna, the position, form, and modeling of the shoulders, arms, and upper torso literally

match those in the two paintings now in the United States. The posi

~'!-.t ' 7

... . ? . . . .

tion of the legs varies somewhat more between the three works, but

they are variants of the same idea The Childs right leg is modeled

in the same way in all three with close attention to anatomical

form, and' moeln oth'od. "...eo l l

even after Raphael went to Florence and began to depart from the Umbrian tradition, when h e executed the Madonna Terranuova and

the M adon na del Card ellino.th The earliest of these, the Soily and the Norton Si mon Madonnas,

emerge from the same basic concept. In all three the Child is seated

in the same way in all three, with close attention to anatomical

Figure 21. Christ Child. Pen and brown - ..' . . . ? *' :-: ..

ink over stylus traces, 11.4 x 13 cm. ' . .

structure and tactile modeling of the flesh. The Infant in the Norton Simon panel moreover, shows a close relation to the Cleveland Pin toricchio not only in the body, but in the attitude and expression of the head Facial features and expression are essentially the same down to the luminosity of the curly blond hair. Raphael differs only by surpassing Pintoricchio in the expressivity, liveliness and unified modeling of the child's face (Figures 20-21).51 This kinship is suffi cient to suggest a common origin in the same series of drawings (Fig ure 20). Considering that the plastic treatment of the Christ Child is so unusual in Pintoricchio, it is reasonable to conjecture that Raphael's influence may have taken a tangible form such as draw ings related to the Cleveland Madonna.52 Raphael's numerous draw ings of the Christ Child and of putti from this period are not only lit erally similar to the figure in the Cleveland Madonna, but the careful

,:,..p;-:',:.::. .. : .. ? ,;~ ? .' ,~ ..:. ~:c~"'"":'.' '~.~"'.~.....',,~:.:' :. ~.' .:~""~"~.'">.".~'~,.'~ .'.'. ~.,. ' .' .:~. *~" , '.. ,'. i~v" ' .'

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................. . "':*? '"".. :",..:.' :'' ??,'.'?

,t".'.e .................d~ ..........le.. modeling .... . .te f . .....h:e. Infant.......N

Simon panel;,.~;'~':,Z,-~.~,. ' moreover, shows a'close-,elation totheClevelandPin'': .no.t . . .,.. o l i,:n the ..o, , but i.n ,the attitude a..n..d, ex:. . o

the hea. Fa'- f.',. and ep.i ar:'e ? t same down

to'the*luminosity ofthe-curly blond:hair. Raphael differs only bysurpassing .t,. in the;e'.ressi..:vity, liveliness, ad u moeln of the ,l face ..:e 22 . .51 This k..i is ..,i ":'i "'" ': s :"".v: .. . ..

so unusual' i "...,, ,. is ,sa.'ce

structure and tactile modeling of the flesh. TheInfant in the Norton Simon panel, moreover, shows a close relationto the Cleveland Pin

th e head. Facial features and express ion are essentially the same down to the l uminosity of the curly blond hair. Rapha el differs only

erally similar to the figure in the Cleveland Madonna, but the careful

351

352

Figure 22. Detail of Sacra Conversazione. Pen and brown ink. Raffaello Sanzio.

Louvre, RF 1395 (Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, no. 77).

t r * ^.

t 1. -'

articulation of their contour lines and their meticulous, fully plastic hatching show that he was deeply involved in the artistic problems setting the Madonna apart from Pintoricchio's other work. Note above all the related drawings for reading Madonnas in the Louvre (Figures 22-23).53 The head of the Christ Child is literally that in the

Cleveland painting, but in reverse. In this way Raphael followed the contrapposto of the Perugino Madonna in the Uffizi mentioned above (Figure 14). The face of the Madonna is not only from the same stock as the paintings discussed above but is especially close to that of the Cleveland Madonna.

The Cleveland and Pasadena Madonnas should therefore be con sidered variants of the same composition. While Pintoricchio's Vir gin has retained the traditional attitude of prayer, thereby preserving a more contemplative mood, Raphael has given his composition greater unity and logic by linking the figures through their common grasp of the book. Anne van Buren in her discussion of the Norton Simon Madonna observed that Raphael acquired the iconography of the Madonna with the reading infant from Pintoricchio, referring to the Madonna of the Writing Christ Child in the Louvre.54 Van Buren

Figure 23. Children Jousting. Black chalk and charcoal, 52.5 x 122 cm. Raffaello Sanzio. Musee Conde, Chantilly, FR. R.

(49) 42 bis (Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, no. 82).

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1.1??.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i

Fiue24 ed faGil etlontoe blc hlk 58x 91c . afel

Sazo.Biis ueu ,Iv.n.1859 156 (nb Mtc, n behbr no. 69) .

also pointed out the pedigree of Raphael's Christ Child in the works of Leonardo and Lorenzo di Credi. This cannot exclude Umbrian tradition, as shown by several studies of the Christ Child and putti by Raphael from around 1500, and in fact the Florentine element in these early works is relatively superficial in comparison to the work he produced after he took up residence in Florence.55 Nonetheless, the Florentine connection makes Pintoricchio's debt to Raphael clear: in the Cleveland Madonna he directly assimilated the plastic form that Raphael had developed from Florentine models into the repertory of motifs he himself had acquired from Perugino.

In conclusion, we can date the Cleveland Madonna and Child to the same time Raphael executed the Norton Simon Madonna, that is between late 1502 and early 1504, when Raphael was furnishing Pintoricchio with drawings for the Piccolomini Library and for other projects as well (Figure 24), including the Madonna itself. This con tact not only provided him with fresh basic material, but briefly in spired him to depart from his flat, hieratic rendering and to imitate the plasticity of the young Raphael. The Cleveland Madonna con versely shows Pintoricchio's characteristic female physiognomy that Raphael adopted in his earliest Madonnas. It is therefore an illustra tion of the mutual influence between the two artists.

The Cleveland Madonna documents just that point and is therefore of particular historical importance, as well as of extraordinary quality elicited by the relatively conservative Pintoricchio's contact with the young genius from Urbino. The physiognomy of the Virgin is the most telling detail. The subtle deviation from Pintoricchio's usual type, which appeared in the Fossi altarpiece, was Raphael's work.

He adopted Pintoricchio's morphology and modified its proportions and modeling to show the effect of the living skin that encases the skull. Raphael's modification is both more lifelike and a more re fined idealization of the human female face. The change in Pinto ricchio's style in the Cleveland Madonna was surely striking to those

who knew his earlier work. While the basic character of his work remains clearly identifiable, Pintoricchio restrained his delight in ornament in favor of simplified forms that effect an almost monu mental presence in the foreground of the panel. It is not surprising that he had earlier used a virtually identical figural design in a truly

monumental fashion in the fresco at San Martino in Colle. Through Raphael's inspiration Pintoricchio was able to produce a personal response to the spare, meditative paintings that characterized Perugino's work in the 1490s.

353

354 Pintoricchio's effectiveness as a collaborator was repeatedly docu mented during his career, beginning with the Sistine Chapel in the early 1480s and culminating in the Piccolomini Library between 1502 and 1508. Although never recognized by later critics as the

most advanced artist at any stage of his career, during his lifetime he staunchly held a position in the front ranks. He retained a position among the wealthiest and most prestigious patrons for his "moder nity," as well as the unmistakable personal character of his variant of Umbrian tradition, with its lyricism, miniaturist's precision, and or nament all'antica. This quality was above all apparent close to the end of his career in his contribution to the choir of Santa Maria del Popolo, the pilot project for Julius Il's incomparably ambitious artis tic program. When Raphael and Michelangelo assumed the next phase in the papal apartments and the Sistine Chapel, Pintoricchio's legacy was by no means brushed aside, since his decorative vocabu lary provided quite literally the model for Raphael's ornamental scheme in the Stanza della Segnatura and for Michelangelo's early designs for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.56

Michael J. Miller Assistant Curator, Prints and Drawings

Photograph credits: Figures 6, 13, 15, by author; Figure 16, Fondation Custodia [Coll. F. Lugt], Institut Neerlandais, Paris; Figures 17, 18, 19, by Jorg P. Anders, ? Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemaldegalerie; Figures 20, 21, ? Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Fig ure 22, Documentation photographique de la Reunion des Musees Nationaux; Figure 23, LAUROS-GIRAUDON, Paris; Figure 24, ? British Museum.

1. CMA 44.89 Madonna and Child, tem

pera and oil on panel, 45.5 x 34 cm. Bernardino di Betto di Biagio, called II

Pintoricchio, Perugia, ca. 1454-Siena, 1513. Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Col lection, 1944. Provenance: (F. Kleinberger

Galleries, Paris, New York, 1913-1915); Mrs. Dudley P. Allen (later Mrs. Francis F.

Prentiss), Cleveland, 1915. Published: G. E. Edgell, "The Loan

Exhibition of Italian Paintings in the Fogg Museum, Cambridge," Art and Archeol ogy 11 (1915): 18, 20, fig. 8; Bernard Berenson, Madonna and Child by Bernar dino Biagio, called II Pintoricchio (Paris, New York, n.d.), illus.; Collection of Me dieval and Renaissance Paintings (Cam bridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, 1919), p. 166 (as "unfinished Madonna and Child

by Pintoricchio, owned by Mrs. Frederick [sic] Allen of Cleveland"); Raimond van

Marie, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 18 vols. (The Hague, 1923-1938), 16: 284-285 (as from the last

years of Pintoricchio's activity); Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renais sance, A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places

(Oxford, 1932), p. 459; Henry S. Francis, "Paintings in the Prentiss Bequest," CMA Bulletin 31 (1944): 87 (ca. 1500); Cata

logue of the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection (Cleveland, 1944), no. II, pl. I; Rene Gimpel, Journal d'un collectionneur marchand de tableaux (Paris, 1963), p. 236; Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance; A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, ... Central and North Italian Schools, 3

vols. (London, 1968), 1:344 (as Pintoric chio); European Paintings before 1500, The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, pt. 1 (Cleveland, 1974), pp. 118 ff., no. 42, figs. 42, 42a.

Exhibited: Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum, 1915: Loan Exhibition of Italian

Paintings, no cat.

2. Italian Paintings: Sienese and Central Italian Schools (New York: Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 1980), pp. 67 ff.

3. Berenson's letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner of November 17, 1901, is a vivid document of the Pintoricchio mania of the period:

I enclose a photograph of a small panel picture, only 12 in. high and 10 1/4 wide. It is of an original by Pintoricchio. I dare say you will fall in love with it at first sight even from the photograph...

The original is more than a painting. It is an objet d'art, a jewel. It is Pintoric chio's smallest, and I do not hesitate to say most exquisite Madonna. The flesh is golden ruddy. The golden brocade of the curtain harmonizes with the golden buff of the Child's shirt. The cherry red of the

Madonna's dress and of the cushion of the Child goes beautifully with the pinkish color of the parapet, while the blue of the Virgin's mantle strikes the chord toned off into the greenish blue of the landscape and sky. On the horizon there is a flush of pale pink.

A careful comparison of this little pic ture with Pintoricchio's other works must convince one that Pintoricchio painted it about 1500, his heroic moment-the very

moment when Raphael was under him and learning all he could from him. I enclose the facsimile of a drawing by Raphael which is but a free copy of this

Madonna. The only great differences are that the Child is dressed and the Madonna is seen full face. I enclose also a photo

graph of the Berlin Raphael, the Virgin of which also more or less freely from this little Pintoricchio. The famous Conne stabile Raphael at St. Petersburg, the no less famous Ansidei, for which the Na tional Gallery paid such an extravagant

price, and the Raphael that Pierpont Mor gan has just bought for an even more extravagant price, are all more or less derived from this Pintoricchio. Not only then has it all the value of a masterpiece on its own account, but it has the extraor dinary interest of being the exact connect ing link between Raphael and his precur

355

356 sors. Then you must remember that Raphael is not at all so rare as Pintoric chio. In my day several genuine Raphaels have been on the market but not one authentic Pintoricchio. Indeed the only desirable one in private hands belongs to a Spanish grandee and is not so fine as this. Add to all this that since the "discov ery" of the Borgia Apartments Pintoricchio is all the rage. This picture therefore is really a pearl of great price-and it be longs to me. I bought it for little of an ignorant and capricious dealer, and had no immediate intention of selling it. It is the kind of picture which nearly doubles in value from one year to another. So I could afford to keep it, and profit by wait ing....

I may add that you will never want to put it into your gallery, but keep it, as I have, by your bedside (BB to ISB, Novem ber 17, 1901, The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887-1924, ed. and annotated by Rollin

Van N. Hadley [Boston, 1987], pp. 275 f.). It is mentioned in Mrs. Gardner's let ters to Berenson of January 7 and Febru

ary 27, 1902. In the latter she announces: "The dear little Pintoricchio has come and is sitting on a chair looking happy and

well" (Hadley, p. 283). While Berenson said of Mrs. Gardner's

Madonna, "I have seldom loved a picture more, and I am convinced that you will like it no less than I do" (Hadley, p. 284), his published critical judgment (Bernard Berenson, The Italian Painters of the Re naissance [London, 1959], pp. 117-119) differed greatly. 4. For the fine tondo by a Sienese fol

lower, which was also in Mrs. Prentiss' collection and went to the Allen Memo rial Art Museum, which she founded in her first husband's memory at Oberlin

College, Oberlin, Ohio, see Figure 12.

5. When the letter was published by the dealer in 1913, no date was given.

6. Recently Filippo Todini has used it as the basis for the attribution to Pintoricchio of a recently restored fresco at San Martino in Colle, a village outside Perugia. Todini, Giornale dell'Arte, Octo ber 1989, pp. 1 f.

7. Francesco Maturanzio, Cronaca di Perugia, fol. 19. ter. [Biblioteca di Perugia, no. 389], cited by Battista Vermiglioli, Memorie di Bernardino Pinturicchio (Perugia, 1837), pp. 28 f.:

Maestro Pietro da Castello della Pieve membro perusino il quale Maestro Pietro era uomo singulare di quella arte in quel tempo per tutto l'universo mondo. Eravi ancora un' altro Maestro nominato da molte el Penturicchio et da molte appellate Sordicchio perch era sordo et piccolo de poco aspetto et apparenzia et como quello Maestro Pietro era primo de quella arte cosi costui era secondo et anco lui per secondo maestro non avea paro nelo Mondo sicch6 anchora de quella arte erano nella citta nostra homine dignissime et virtuose commo nele altre facolta, et virtute.

Cf. Konrad Oberhuber, "Raphael and Pintoricchio," Raphael before Rome, National Gallery of Art Studies in the

History of Art, vol. 17, ed. James Beck

(Washington, DC, 1986), pp. 155, 170, n. 5.

8. Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' piu eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols. (Florence, 1906), 3:497. 9. U. Gnoli, Pittori e miniatori nell' Umbria (Spoleto, 1923), p. 287, lists the relevant documents.

10. The critic Giovanni Morelli developed a method of attributing works of art based on the comparison of minute details like an ear or an eye, which would not be

subject to the conscious formative inten tions of the artist and would therefore remain consistent from work to work. See

Giovanni Morelli, Kunstkritische Studien uber Italienische Malerei, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1890-1893). 11. The comparison below between the

Madonna del Feltro by Pintoricchio at San Martino in Colle and the Madonnas attrib uted to L'lngegno is a characteristic ex ample of the problem and the method. 12. A patch of red with traces of a decora tive pattern was discovered in the lower right corner of the painting, when it was stripped of its earlier underpainting. Pin toricchio presumably had planned origi nally to separate the Madonna and Child from the background by means of a para pet covered with an ornamental tapestry (as in the Madonna and Child in the Na tional Gallery, London-see below note 47) and later changed his mind. 13. The surface wear and "sinking" of the colors in this area may exaggerate this effect to some degree. 14. M. Dominique Cordellier, Curator in the Department of Graphic Arts at the Louvre, during a visit to the Museum in 1988, was the first to notice the inscrip tion.

15. Anne H. van Buren, "The Canonical Office in Renaissance Painting: Raphael's Madonna at Nones," Art Bulletin 97

(1975): 41-52.

16. Terisio Pignatti, Five Centuries of Italian Painting, 1300-1800, from the

Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation (Houston, 1985), pp. 64-66, illus. 65.

17. This combined skill at miniature, panel, and fresco painting was a typical feature of the Perugino studio. 18. It measures 29.2 x 21.6 cm, in con trast to 46.7 x 35 cm in the case of the

Cleveland panel. 19. Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, no. 274, Francesco Santi, Cataloghi dei Musei e Gallerie d'ltalia, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, vol. 2 (Rome, 1969), pp. 91 94, no. 77; Henry S. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino California, 47.5 x 37.5 cm, inv. no. 26.103.

20. The blue pigment that remains is azurite. No trace of ultramarine has been found. Either it was never used, or it was so completely removed that it is undetect able today. See Kenneth Be's following article about the conservation treatment. 21. European Paintings before 1500, p. 120; the details of the Fossi Altarpiece are reproduced in Enzio Carli, II Duomo di Siena (Siena, 1979), pls. 90-93. 22. Carli, 1979, pl. 105. 23. Ibid., pls. 204, 205. 24. Oberhuber, 1986, pp. 155-172, esp. 164 ff. 25. Inv. no. 495; Enzo Carli, Guida della Pinacoteca di Siena (Milan, n.d.), pp. 101 103, illus. 26. Vasari, Vite, 3: 503 ff. 27. We found this so unusual that, in

examining the Madonna, we explored the possibility of these passages being a later addition. Under close scrutiny, however, no evidence was found to justify this conclusion. 28. James Beck, "A New Date for Pinturicchio's Piccolomini Library," Paragone 36 (1985): 140-143; this event occurred on October 18, 1503, over a year after Pintoricchio and the then Cardi nal Francesco had signed the contract for the library. Francesco died only ten days after his coronation.

357

358 29. A late fifteenth-century sketchbook of antique sculpture and architecture by an artist in the circle of the Florentine painter, Domenico Ghirlandaio. See Hermann Egger, Christian HOlsen, and Adolf Michaelis, Codex Escurialensis, ein Skizzenbuch aus der Werkstatt Domenico Ghirlandaios (Vienna, 1905/06). 30. Codex Escurialensis, fol. 27 v; John Shearman, "Raphael, Rome and the Codex Escurialensis," Master Drawings 15 (1977): 107-146. Wendy Steadman Sheard, Antiquity in the Renaissance, exh. cat. (Northampton, MA: Smith College

Museum of Art, 1978). 31. Honolulu Academy of Art, inv. no. 2988.1; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Italian

School, Italian Paintings XV-XVI Century (London, 1968), p. 102, no. K 542, fig. 246; European Paintings before 1500, p. 120, fig. 42b. The present argument necessarily contradicts the common dat ing of the painting to 1490 or shortly thereafter. Cf. Shapley. 32. Domenico Antonio Valentino and Aldo Cicinelli, Maesta e recuperi d'arte in Umbria (Todi, 1985), pp. 15-18, fig. 16 (as by a follower of Pintoricchio). 33. August Schmarsow, Raphael und Pintoricchio in Siena: Eine kritische Studie

(Stuttgart, 1882). Cf. Oberhuber, 1886, p. 171, n. 19.

34. This was not the last time their paths crossed. Pintoricchio's decorations for the choir in S. Maria del Popolo became

Raphael's model for his decorative plan in Stanza della Segnatura.

35. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, no. 1453; Pietro Scarpellini, Perugino (Milan, 1984), p. 86, no. 51, figs. 83-84, 86; Scarpellini, p. 88, no. 61, figs. 91-92; Alte Pinakothek, Munich. no. 526, Scarpellini, p. 104, no. 117, fig. 200; Scarpellini, p. 104, no. 118, fig. 201.

36. Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia; Scarpellini, p. 107, no. 127, fig. 211.

37. Scarpellini, p. 98, no. 97, fig. 173. 38. E.g., the fresco of St. Sebastian with SS. Roch and Peter in the Church of St.

Mary at Cerqueto; Scarpellini, p. 76, no. 28, fig. 38, dated 1478. 39. Sylvia Ferino Pagden, "Gli affreschi della 'Madonuccia' in San Martino in

Campo e I'enigma di Andrea d'Assisi detto L'lngegno" Esercizi 4 (1981): 68-85; Filippo Todini, La Pittura Umbra, 2 vols. (Milan 1989), pp. 91 f. The distinction between L'lngegno and Pintoricchio himself is thin. In spite of the agreement of Ferino Pagden, Scarpellini, and Todini, some of the work recently attributed to him may in fact be the work of Pinto ricchio or other artists. Relevant to the present case are the Madonnas in Denver (Todini, no. 1187-see below note 46) and Assisi (Todini, no. 1188; Filippo Todini and Bruno Zanardi, La Pinacoteca Comunale di Assisi [Florence, 1980], pp. 87-91, no. 47).

40. Ferino Pagden, p. 72, fig. 4; Enzo Carli, II Pintoricchio (Milan, 1960), p. 33 (as by Pastura), pi. 56. For a summary of the various attributions of this famous

painting to L'lngegno, Pintoricchio, and Pastura, see Ferino Pagden, p. 83, n. 5. 41. Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana, no. 224; Scarpellini, p. 90, no. 65, figs. 102-103. 42. Ferino Pagden denies Fischel's dating of the work to the early 1500s and places it shortly after the construction of the chapel in 1485. See Ferino Pagden, p. 72, for the document. Fischel followed the traditional attribution of the San Martino in Campo decorations to Tiberio d'Assisi,

whose activity is not documented before 1500. Oskar Fischel, "Die Zeichnungen der Umbrer," Jahrbuch der PreuBischen Kunstsammlungen 38 (1917): 28.

43. James Byam Shaw, The Italian Draw ings of the Frits Lugt Collection, 3 vols. (Paris, 1983), I: 98 f., no. 91, pi. 107. Byam Shaw, following K. T. Parker (Cata logue of the Famous Collection of Old

Master Drawings formed by the Late Harry Oppenheimer, Esq., sale cat.: Christie's, London, July 10-14, 1936), refers to a more finished drawing in the Palazzo Rosso at Genoa (inv. no. 1217, silverpoint on mauve-gray ground, height ened with white body-color, 180 x 100 mm) as the immediate modello for the fresco on the Campidoglio. The Lugt drawing is more closely related in style to the frescoes attributed to L'lngegno than to the other versions of the motif adduced by Francis Russell in oral communication to Byam Shaw, both of which date from the second decade of the sixteenth cen tury. Russell attributes the Campidoglio fresco to Antonio da Viterbo the Younger, called Pastura (active 1478-1509), possi bly in collaboration with Pintoricchio. 44. See Ferino Pagden (p. 83, n. 5) for the opposite view. 45. During the course of the fifteenth century artists, above all in Florence, developed an elaborate system of prepar ing finished paintings through a series of

drawings. Before this painters made pre paratory drawings directly on the final support. In the case of frescoes a red pig

ment was applied with a brush to the plaster. This kind of drawing was called a sinopia.

46. Inv. no. E-IT-18-XV-936; Shapley, 1968, p. 101, K1375, fig. 245; Carli, 1960, pi. 66. 47. Martin Davies, National Gallery, London, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd ed. (London, 1961); Carli, 1960, pi. 19. 48. J. W. Goodison and G. H. Robertson, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Cata logue of Paintings, vol. 2, Italian Schools (Cambridge, 1967), p. 133, no. 119, pi. 58; Carli, 1960, p. 57, pi. 99. 49. Carli, 1960, p. 57, pi. 101 (detail).

50. Madonna Terranuova, Berlin Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemaldegalerie, Konrad Oberhuber, Raffaello (Milan, 1982), no. 36; Madonna del Cardellino, Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Oberhuber, 1982, no. 46

51. The similarity is even more literal between the Cleveland painting and Raphael's preparatory drawing for the Norton Simon Madonna in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Parker II 508a, recto and verso); Eckhardt Knab, Erwin Mitsch, and Konrad Oberhuber, Raphael Die Zeichnungen (Stuttgart, 1983), nos. 64, 65.

52. Konrad Oberhuber (personal commu nication) agrees that Raphael furnished drawings for the painting. 53. Louvre, inv. nos. RF 1395 and RF 1607; Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, nos. 77, 78. Cf. the studies of putti on the verso of the latter and the putti in the cartoon at

Chantilly, inv. no. FR. R. (49) 42 bis; Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, nos. 82. 54. Van Buren. This may well be an auto graph work rather than a workshop prod uct, as she believed, and also a good deal earlier than the period under discussion here. Although the British Museum head of the Madonna (inv. no. 1895-9-15-611; Figure 24) actually appears to be closer to the Norton Simon Madonna than to the

Solly Madonna, as van Buren maintains, her juxtaposition of six of Raphael's heads is most illuminating in the context of the

Cleveland Madonna. The Cleveland painting represents specifically the same subject as the Norton Simon, as indicated by the Child's uplifted gaze. 55. Knab, Mitsch, and Oberhuber, nos. 7, 8, 11,18, 20, 26, 54.

56. British Museum, inv. no. 1859-6-25 567r; Johannes Wilde, Michelangelo and His Studio: Italian Drawings in the De partment of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London, 1953; rpt. 1975), 7r; Charles DeTolnay, Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo, vol. 1 (Novara, 1975), 1 19r; and The Detroit Institute of Art, inv. no. 27.2r (Corpus 120r).

359