Gigetta Dalli Regoli, an important name among the international experts in Renaissance art, points out a novelty for Lorenzo di Credi: a round of Portinari's commissions re-emerged after decades of losing track of it.
- Among the works that historical-artistic research has linked to the name of Lorenzo di Credi (autographs, works from schools and workshops, attributions), many are lost or not identified: therefore, when someone comes to light, it is appropriate to bring it to the attention of critics. This is the case with the round piece with an Adoration of the Child mentioned in the History of Crowe-Cavalcaselle when he was in the Barker1 collection in London, but whose traces seemed to have been lost after the sale of the collection itself (1874). Today, after careful restoration, it has been brought to my attention by the antiquarian Robert Simon of New York, to whom I owe a series of good photographic reproductions and a card that punctually documents the events of the work.
The table measures just over 90 centimetres in diameter, and this data is already positive, since the rounds belonging to Lorenzo di Credi's early work are of similar dimensions; but in any case the reference to the painter is quite easy, since the composition, which is very simple, corresponds to a scheme that the artist elaborated several times towards the end of the 1970s and during the following decade, taking it up again later: the characters, placed outdoors, are the Madonna (a mother-child in her youth) kneeling and praying, and the newborn son lying in the foreground, leaning against a swollen sack or a bundle of ears of corn, a finger that touches the mouth; In most cases, the Child is bent with solicitude on a small St. John, also praying, in the background is a lake landscape, where rocks, hills, trees, and, in the most distant planes, variously articulated architectures, with some traits that evoke transalpine types.
The most representative of the formula described here are the Berlin, Karlsruhe and Venice roundels and the one already in the Casati collection, the most qualitative and perhaps the oldest, to which I have devoted particular attention in the past; all of them can be traced back to the decade 1475-1485 (and the date 1485-1490 is also suitable for the round we are talking about), but the formula will still be valid for some solutions belonging to the late activity, where, moreover, a more mature typology is adopted for the Virgin.
In the Adorations and the Youth Madonnas there is often a small backdrop, that is, a screen that serves as a backdrop for the figure of the Virgin, but this is not the case in the round today in New York, where it was necessary to leave room for a specific component of which I will say in a moment. In the case in question, the experimental scheme is clearly articulated: on the left, a grassy ridge surrounded at the base by an uphill road (see the former Casati roundabout), on which a flock and a shepherd appear alluding to the Good News; in the center, the vision sinks towards the water surface following slight undulations of the ground covered with disciplined vegetation; then, on the right, another spur of rock signals, for the observer, the conclusion of the 'reading path'.
The architectural elements inserted in the background (a small church, two small houses leaning against two towers) seem to belong to a barely sketched layout, as does the turf, which is devoid of detail when compared with the dense wafts of herbs and flowers that appear in other works by the artist, such as the round Querini Stampalia (Venice) or the Adoration of the Magi of the Uffizi made for Jacopo Bongianni4. Moreover, the New York round table does not show the characteristics of some of Credi's pupils, such as the presumed Cianfanini or Giovannantonio Sogliani, and does not reveal explicit traces of collaboration: I believe that it was largely set up and painted by Lorenzo, who is responsible for both the basic drawing and the execution of the characters; perhaps the need to deliver the painting urgently forced the master to shorten the execution time, leaving defined in approximate form the plane of laying and the background, but perhaps there is another explanation, which I will come to the conclusion.
The master's particular skill is manifested in the wide plan, in the harmonious connection between the parts, and in the measured colouring of the figures in the foreground, the two Children and the Virgin: above all, the modelling and the material density of the drapery that characterises the blue mantle of the Virgin testify to the direct intervention of Credi, whom we often see confronted with the enamelled splendour of Della Robbia's majolicas.
To be continued.