Jacopo Negreti, Palma il Giovane (Venezia, 1544... Lot n° 7

The Birth of the Virgin Oil on canvas 315,9 x 194 cm Beautiful and important old wooden frame richly carved and gilded Provenance: Budapest, Mihalyffy collection Budapest, Hartmann collection Switzerland, private collection Christie's sale, London, 7 July 2009, p. 48-49, n°18. Bibliography: Bernard Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School, London, 1957, I, p. 171 (as "late and partly autograph work by Tintoretto") Palma il Giovane has itself dealt with this subject on two other occasions, always for large palaces. Our composition is close to that of the Church of San Trovaso in Venice (dated c. 1600-1603 c.), in particular, for the construction of the scene on two planes, one raised above the other, the general intimate "interior" effect given by the addition of curtains and the small escape on the left, over a blue sky and the stand of a tree. The warm orange colours, the opposing movements that signal the agitation caused by the birth, Joachim's recollection, his arms folded over his chest, give this scene, which unfolds in height, a beautiful dynamic on this subject. A little earlier in the artist's chronology, he executed another palace with the Birth of the Virgin for a church next to Padua, in Trebaseleghe, which Stefania Mason Rinaldi dates to around 1598-1591 . The composition was probably inspired by an altar painting by Tintoretto in the Sant' Atanasio chapel in San Zaccaria (around 1563). Stefania Mason Rinaldi has confirmed the attribution of this painting to Palma il Giovane from a photograph. Note: 1-Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane. L'opera completa, Milan, 1984, p. 133, no. 483, fig. 304 (380 x 165 cm.) and p. 114, no. 305, unreproduced (350 x 140 cm.)