Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Jerome and a Devout Woman

Attributed to Negretti Jacopo called Jacopo Palma the Elder

(Serina c. 1480 - Venice 1528)

The painting addresses the theme of the so-called Sacra Conversazione (Sacred Conversation), a subject that enjoyed great success in the Veneto area in the first decades of the 16th century. The panel is traditionally ascribed to Negretti as part of his early output; however, it has been suggested that this attribution should be rejected and that the as-yet unidentified figure of the so-called Master of the Madonna of Chantilly be credited with it, along with other stylistically similar works.

Object details

Commentary

The painting is mentioned in the Fideicommissary Inventory of 1833, where it is ascribed to Palma the Elder. Morelli (1876) considered it to be one of his early paintings while Venturi (1893) considered it to be one of the Veneto painter’s less successful efforts. Although considering it still stemming from ‘tradizioni paesane’ [country/provincial traditions], Longhi (1928) noted echoes of Titian in the work, especially in the background figures, placing its execution towards the end of the first decade of the 16th century, a date generally accepted by later critics. In view of the painting’s high quality, Longhi rejected the hypothesis put forward by Cavalcaselle (1864), who believed it to be the work of Cariani, and he ruled out the attribution to an anonymous figure close to Palma the Elder and active in Venice in the same years. In line with this reading, Della Pergola (1655) reiterated the authorship of the painting that had been called into question by Gombosi (1932), who assigned it to Francesco di Simone, emphasising its affinities with the Sacred Conversation at the Musée Condé in Chantilly. Indeed, with this work, the Borghese panel shares the compositional cut and the arrangement of the figures in space, in particular that of the donor placed in foreshortening ‘in the wings’, figures that led Della Pergola to consider both paintings as ex-votos produced at approximately the same time. Mariacher (1968) excluded the work from the catalogue of the Master of Serina, ascribing its execution to his workshop, while Rylands (1988) included it in a group of paintings imputable to a minor artist of Palma’s circle called the Master of the Madonna of Chantilly. The scholar also reported Garas’ (1985) assertion that the panel had been in the Borghese collection since the 17th century, without, however, offering precise documentary evidence other than the attribution of the painting to Il Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis).

Ballarin (1965) emphasised that the panel’s layout was derived from Giovanni Bellini’s altarpiece in San Francesco della Vigna, on account of the presence of the two saints generally identified as St. Francis and St. Jerome, on either side of the Madonna and Child, with the donor in the foreground. Allusions to Titian and Lorenzo Lotto (see Savy 2013), coupled with the Bellini source, are indicative of Palma the Elder’s style in the second decade of the 16th century, the period to which this Sacred Conversation is also dated.

Elisa Martini