Master of the Stockholm Pietà (active Lombardy 16th Century)


The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist oil on panel93.5 x 64.3cm (36 13/16 x 25 5/16in).
|ProvenancePossibly the Collection of Giovanni Battista Visconti (1722-1784), MilanWith A. Morandotti, Rome, circa 1945Collection of Fondazione Boris Christoff, ItalyLiteratureF. Zeri, 'The Master of the Stockholm Pietà', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 92, no. 565, April, 1950, pp.108, 110-111, ill. fig. 21M. Bona Castellotti, Collezionisti a Milano nel '700. Giovanni Battista Visconti, Gian Matteo Pertusati, Giuseppe Pozzobonelli, Florence, 1991, p.52, note 42 (as possibly the work by 'Sordo')Federico Zeri was the first to construct a corpus of work by the Master of the Stockholm Pietà, identifying a group of paintings, which in general had previously been given to Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma or his circle. Naming them after the work that he considered the most important – the Pietà in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm - Zeri assembled a group of paintings with a highly individual and distinctive style. Clearly influenced by the youthful work of Sodoma, the artist appears to have eschewed the more conventional, classicizing forms of the Italian Renaissance; indeed the present work was previously given to both Sodoma and Rosso Fiorentino1. The figure types in the present Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, and other works given to the Master, also find inspiration in Leonardo's Milanese models. This Lombard influence, combined with the presence of works by the Master in prominent collections from Milan, such as those of Manfredo Settala and Giovan Battista Visconti, as may be the case with this work, strongly suggest that the artist was active there2. Notes1. F. Zeri, "The Master of the Stockholm Pietà", in Burlington Magazine, 92, no. 565, April 1950, p. 111.2. F. Frangi, in Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Dipinti dalla metà del Cinquecento alla metà del Seicento, Milan 2006, pp. 238-241, n. 298-299.