Two Reading Saints (from the Montefiore dell’Aso predella)
Carlo Crivelli (Venice c.1430 – Ascoli Piceno 1495) and Workshop
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1471 - 1473
Materials
Tempera and oil on panel (poplar)
Measurements
317 x 235 mm (12 1/2 x 9 1/4 in)
Place of origin
Marches
Order this imageCollection
Upton House, Warwickshire
NT 446807
Summary
Tempera with oil painting and gilding on poplar panel, Two Reading Saints by Carlo Crivelli (Venice c.1430 – Ascoli Piceno 1495) and Workshop, circa 1471-1473. The two half-length figures are framed together. The young man on the left, almost facing the spectator, wearing an olive-green robe with blue and white (originally pink before heavy light exposure) cloak, is reading from a scroll; the elderly man on the right, reading a book, wears a white robe and green cloak and faces slightly to the left; gold backgrounds (re-gilt). The young man has been tentatively identified as Saint Luke. The identity of the old man, previously catalogued as Saint John the Evangelist, has been contested. The rectangular panels with painted surfaces forming arched tops have gesso and priming in spandrels and additions or joins 2 inches (51 mm) from bottom.
Full description
Carlo Crivelli arrived in the Marche region from Zara, in Dalmatia, between 1467 and early 1468. He took his first commissions in the region in Fermo and its vicinity. While no surviving documents directly date this altar, it was likely created between 1471-3, roughly contemporary with Crivelli’s 1472 work for the Dominicans of Fermo and his 1473 polyptych for the cathedral of Ascoli Piceno. This altar is relatively subdued compared to his other altars in Fermo and Ascoli, potentially reflecting the more restrained Franciscan ideals at Montefiore dell’Aso. Both figures wear modest clothing and their dedication to study would have provided a model of apostolic poverty and scholarship to the friars at San Francesco. The gold ground is largely untooled, apart from the punchwork of the saints’ halos or stippling that delineates the Magdalene’s vase and Louis of Toulouse’s crosier while Crivelli’s other contemporary altars are incised with rich brocade patterns. The muted colour palate and lack of encrusted gems on the panel surface of this altar can also be contrasted with the brightness of the Ascoli altar. The younger saint reading a scroll with tresses of blond hair falling about his shoulders has been identified as Saint John the Evangelist by Ronald Lightbown, supported by the analogous appearance of Saint John in Crivelli’s The Crucifixion (c.1488) in Pinacoteca di Brera. More recently, Daphne De Luca argued that one of the portraits from this predella at the Detroit Institute of Arts (inv. No. 28.7) was Saint John the Evangelist instead, with Upton House’s younger figure being identified instead as Saint Luke. Identifying the elder reader has been difficult because Crivelli used similar figures to represent different saints throughout his career, such as in the comparable portrait identified as Saint Benedict held in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (c.1488, Gemäldegalerie: 870138). From the reoccurrence of character types, Amanda Hilliam suggests that Crivelli’s workshop kept a model-book of portraits to provide prototypes to be adapted for different commissions. The polyptych was dismembered into separate panels to fund renovations to the Church of San Francesco in the 1850s. Eight of the original eleven panels from the predella are currently housed in collections in Detroit, Williamstown, New York, Honolulu, and at Upton House, Warwickshire. As Crivelli’s intact predellas are often from single pieces of wood, the Upton House portraits were likely located separately on the predella originally and later joined together when framed to form a singular panel, possibly on entering the Bearsted collection: their horizontal grains are not continuous. Fillets were added at the bottom of each panel in 1999. The combined polyptych has been estimated to measure approximately 425 x 360 cm. Workshop participation on these portraits was deemed likely after an inspection of the under-drawing: Crivelli probably exercised a high level of quality control, however, taking charge of significant areas such as faces and retouching his assistants’ work.
Provenance
Commissioned by the Frati Conventuali for their church of San Francesco at Montefiore dell’Aso, near Fermo in the Marches, where the altarpiece remained until the early nineteenth century when it was dismantled; with the Roman dealer Cav. P. Vallati in 1858; with Martin Davies, from whom bought by Lieutenant Colonel G Cornwall Legh of High Legh Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire, c.1860; with Knoedler & Co. in 1922, from whom bought by the 2nd Viscount Bearsted in July 1922 for £1,000; given with Upton House to the National Trust by Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted (1882 – 1948), in 1948, shortly before his death.
Credit line
Upton House, The Bearsted Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Carlo Crivelli (Venice c.1430 – Ascoli Piceno 1495) and Workshop, artist previously catalogued as attributed to Carlo Crivelli (Venice 1430/35 - Ascoli Piceno before 1495), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Andrea Mantegna (Padua c.1431 – Mantua 1506), artist previously catalogued as attributed to Vittore Crivelli (c.1444 - c.1501), artist
Exhibition history
Carlo Crivelli. Shadows in the Sky, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, 2022
References
Carter 1890 G. Carter, Catalogue of Paintings at High Legh, 1890, nos. 66&67 McNeil Rushforth 1900 G. McNeil Rushforth, Crivelli, London, 1900, pp.47-48, 96 Venturi 1907 L. Venturi, Le Origine della Pittura Veneziana, Venice, 1907, pp.197-8 Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1912: J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in North Italy, London, 1912, , vol.I, p.90 (note 2) Marle 1929 - 36 R. van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1929; 1936, R. van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1936, vol. XVIII, p.13 Zampetti 1952 Pietro Zampetti, Carlo Crivelli nelle Marche, Urbino 1952 Bovero 1961 A. Bovero, Tutta la Pittura del Crivelli, Milan 1961, p.63 Zampetti 1961 Pietro Zampetti, Carlo Crivelli e i Crivelleschi, Venice 1961 (2 eds.), pp.74, 82 Shapley, 1968: Fern Rusk Shapley, Complete Catalogue of the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Paintings XV-XVI Century, London 1968, p.36 Gore 1964: F. St John Gore, Upton House, The Bearsted Collection: Pictures National Trust, 1964, pp.70-71, no.223 Zampetti 1986 Pietro Zampetti, Carlo Crivelli, Florence 1986, pp.116 and 265-70 Bovero 1975 A. Bovero, L’Opera Completa di Carlo Crivelli, Milan 1975, pp.87-88 Sutton 1979 Denys Sutton, ‘Robert Langton Douglas: XVII: ‘Dramatic Days’’, Apollo, vol.109 (June 1979), pp.474-5 [192-3] Monteroni 2000 Angela Monteroni, ‘Carlo Crivelli e il suo Seguito’, in Valter Curzi, ed., Pittura Veneta nelle Marche, Milan, 2000, pp.121-22 Dunkerton & White 2000 Jill Dunkerton and Raymond White, The Discovery and Identification of an Original Varnish on a Panel by Carlo Crivelli, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol.21, 2000, pp.70-76, p.76, n.7 Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings, National Gallery, David Bomford, ed., exh. cat. 2002, pp.100-101, repd. p.99 Lightbown 2004: Ronald Lightbown, Carlo Crivelli, New Haven & London, 2004, p.202, repd. Davies 1961 Martin Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, National Gallery, London, 1961, p. 154 Hilliam and Watkins 2022: Amanda Hilliam and Jonathan Watkins (eds.), Carlo Crivelli: Shadows on the Sky (exh. cat.), Cornerhouse Publications, Manchester, Ikon Gallery 23 February – 29 May 2022, pp.18-23
