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Lot Essay
Perugino was a key artist in Renaissance Italy. Influenced by Piero della Francesca and Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom he trained, he developed a style that combined particularly elegant draughtsmanship, a measured handling of space and an eloquent understanding of colour. His fame grew quickly in Umbria and Tuscany, such that he was called to Rome for two major projects: first, in 1479, to decorate the Cappella della Concezione in the old St. Peter’s (now lost); and shortly after to work on the Sistine Chapel, together with Luca Signorelli, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. The success of these frescoes elevated Perugino’s status immeasurably: he became arguably the most important artist of the late-fifteenth century. A period of intense activity followed, with commissions focused on Umbria and Tuscany, a level of demand met by a thriving workshop that would become one of the most successful and prestigious of the time. Over the course of these years, Perugino’s style evolved to reflect a greater sense of grandeur and an ever-more idealised form of female beauty, for which he received high praise from his contemporaries. Patrons and acquaintances frequently exalted his talent and standing: Agostino Chigi, in a letter to his father on 7 November 1500, famously described Perugino as: ‘il meglio maestro d’Italia’ (‘the best artist in Italy’), while Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, ranked him alongside Leonardo, immortalising them both as: ‘divine painters: ‘Due giovin par d’etade e par d’amori / Leonardo da Vinci e ‘l Perusino, / Pier della Pieve, che son divin pictori.’ (G. Santi, Cronaca rimata, 1485). Centuries later, Ruskin recognised Perugino’s key place in Renaissance art history, describing him as: ‘exquisite in sentiment and the conditions of taste which it forms’ (The Works of John Ruskin, E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, eds., London, 1906, p. 489).
This panel dates to the final years of his career when Perugino worked almost exclusively in Umbria. His most talented pupils had by then begun to work independently, and by 1513 his workshop was no longer active, with Perugino taking on individual commissions. Often he turned back to iconographic schemes he used in the past, concerned little with moving with changing tastes. He worked on the monumental Sant’ Agostino polyptych in Perugia; it was such an undertaking that the work was left unfinished at the time of his death, despite being commissioned in 1502. Works of Perugino’s late maturity are to be found in the smaller centres of Umbria, such as his birthplace Città della Pieve, Spello and Trevi, a coda to a career lived in the full glow of Renaissance Italy. The lively colouring and Raphaelesque sentiment of these late works can be seen in the Madonna and Child with Saints Herculanus and Constantius, c. 1515 (Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria) and the Madonna and Child in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. The habit in these works of looking back to reprise elements from past pictures can be seen here too: the pose of the Child is taken from that in his Adoration of the Magi (Città della Pieve, Oratorio dei Bianchi); the inclined head of the Madonna is strikingly similar to the head of the standing mourner upper left in his Lamentation (c. 1495, Florence, Galleria Palatina), while the face of the kneeling Nicodemus, in the same picture, is close to that of Saint Joseph here.
This panel dates to the final years of his career when Perugino worked almost exclusively in Umbria. His most talented pupils had by then begun to work independently, and by 1513 his workshop was no longer active, with Perugino taking on individual commissions. Often he turned back to iconographic schemes he used in the past, concerned little with moving with changing tastes. He worked on the monumental Sant’ Agostino polyptych in Perugia; it was such an undertaking that the work was left unfinished at the time of his death, despite being commissioned in 1502. Works of Perugino’s late maturity are to be found in the smaller centres of Umbria, such as his birthplace Città della Pieve, Spello and Trevi, a coda to a career lived in the full glow of Renaissance Italy. The lively colouring and Raphaelesque sentiment of these late works can be seen in the Madonna and Child with Saints Herculanus and Constantius, c. 1515 (Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria) and the Madonna and Child in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. The habit in these works of looking back to reprise elements from past pictures can be seen here too: the pose of the Child is taken from that in his Adoration of the Magi (Città della Pieve, Oratorio dei Bianchi); the inclined head of the Madonna is strikingly similar to the head of the standing mourner upper left in his Lamentation (c. 1495, Florence, Galleria Palatina), while the face of the kneeling Nicodemus, in the same picture, is close to that of Saint Joseph here.