The Master of the Twelve Apostles

The Holy Family

Auction Closed

May 20, 03:42 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 40,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property of a Private Collector

The Master of the Twelve Apostles

active in Ferrara circa 1520 - 1542

The Holy Family

oil on panel, with an arched top

panel without painted additions: 17 ¾ by 11 ½ in.; 45.1 by 29.2 cm.

panel with painted additions: 18 ½ by 12 ¼ in.; 47 by 31.1 cm.

framed: 23 ¼ by 16 ¾ in.; 59.1 by 42.4 cm.

With Walpole Gallery, London, by 1991 (as Girolamo da Carpi);
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 29 January 1998, lot 101 (as Girolamo Sellari, called Girolamo da Carpi);
Private collection, Denmark, by 1991;
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 29 January 2014, lot 115 (as Battista Dossi);
There acquired by the present collector.

F. Moro, "Appunti Ferraresi: una traccia per gli esordi estensi di Niccolò Pisano. Altri tasselli per il Garofalo," in Paragone, XLIII, no. 505-507, March-May 1992, p. 18, note 23;
A. Bliznukov, "Sulle tracce di un pittore ferrarese della prima metà del Cinquecento: Il Maestro dei dodici Apostoli, e Tegesto delle opere," in Il Maestro dei dodici Apostoli, exhibition catalogue, Ferrara 2003, p. 24;
A. Pattanaro, "Un maestro alla ricerca di un nome, Perlustrando le fonti e la critica," in Brera mai vista: Il Maestro dei dodici Apostoli. Un pittore nella Ferrara di Alfonso I e di Ercole II d'Este, Milan 2005, pp. 30, 41, reproduced fig. 19 (as datable to circa 1530-1535).

This panel depicting the Holy Family was painted during the first half of the 1530s by the Master of the Twelve Apostles, an anonymous artist active in Ferrara and Rovigo during the second quarter of the 16th century. Savonuzzi was the first to identify the hand of this artist, whom he named after a group of twelve panels depicting half-length apostles in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara.¹ The works of this master impart the influence of other leading Ferrarese artists, including Garofalo and Mazzolino, as well as Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi, among others. Though of a slightly earlier date, the present panel can be compared in format and composition to the master's Christ with the Samaritan Woman formerly in the Cini collection,² as well as to his Noli me tangere in the Glasgow Museums.³We are grateful to Professoressa Alessandra Pattanaro for her assistance in the cataloguing of the present lot

1. C. Savonuzzi, "Il maestro dei Dodici Apostoli," in La critica d'arte, vol. VIII, 6, fasc. XXXII, March 1950, pp. 477-80.

2. Pattanaro 2005, p. 30, reproduced fig. 20.

3. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/noli-me-tangere-85173