Attributed to Francesco BISSOLO (Treviso c. 1470/75... Lot 21

Attributed to Francesco BISSOLO (Treviso c. 1470/75 - Venice 1554) The Virgin and Child between St. Jerome and a holy martyr Panel. Height. 62,5 Width. 105 cm. (ancient restorations). Provenance: - probably acquired by Joseph Bieswal (1862-1929), owner of Côte d'Or chocolates, Brussels. The Virgin and Child between St. Jerome and a holy martyr. Panel attributed to Bissolo. Probably originally from Treviso and then active for a while in Padua, Francesco Bissolo is documented for the first time in 1492 with Giovanni Bellini, whose help he was, working in the Doge's Palace in Venice. In the first two decades of the sixteenth century, Bissolo was mainly influenced by this great Venetian master, from whom he took up the compositional models: wide format, presentation of holy figures accosting the Virgin and Child magnified by a cloth of honour, all depicted halfway across a distant landscape. The attitudes of the Virgin and the Child are also taken from Bellini's catalogue, including Bellini's Madonna and Child in Venice (Galleria dell'Accademia, inv. 881), signed around 1500-1504, and the one in Milan (Pinacoteca Brera, inv. 193), dated 1510. Our still unpublished painting, Holy Conversation, undoubtedly intended for an oratory, is to be placed among Bissolo's many works. A similar model can be found in the panel of the Virgin and Child between Saints Michael and Veronica and two donors kept in London (National Gallery inv. 3083), in particular Saint Veronica, which may have been used to represent the holy martyrdom of our painting. Bissolo generally imprints his personal note by delicately but firmly modelling his ample characters, while conferring them gentleness, tenderness and dignity. We find here these somewhat diminished and more rigid features, which no doubt justify the participation of an assistant and an execution around 1500-1510.