POLIDORO DA LANCIANO Lot n° 51

(Lanciano, 1515 - Venice, 1565) Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist Oil on panel, cm 53.5X48.5 Provenance: Florence, private collection There is no record of young Polidoro de Renzi's artistic education; the only certain evidence is from 1536, when his name is recorded in the Fraglia dei Pittori Veneziani. In the lagoon city he certainly frequented the workshop of Titian Vecellio, as attested by his Sacre Conversazioni, but his presence in the atelier of the Cadore painter is not historically confirmed, where his art also appears to have been influenced by Paris Bordon and Bonifacio de Pitati. In the 1540s he fired his only documented work, the altarpiece depicting The Descent of the Holy Spirit, destined for the high altar of the church of the same name on the Zattere (Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia), but other large-format works, where clear tintoretto suggestions are evident, are located in this decade. In 1552 he made the lost gonfalon for the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro, and in 1559 he received the commission for the organ doors of the Church of San Giovanni in Bragora, while his style manifested clear suggestions of Veronese classicism, from which he drew iconographic modules and a renewed chromatic modernity. The panel under consideration can be placed in the youthful period, when Vecellio's influences are preponderant and the production is directed toward creating devotional paintings and Sacred Conversations with a full narrative character, following proven iconographic formulas of great success. Reference bibliography: E. Martini, Pittura veneta e altra italiana dal XV al XIX Secolo, Rimini 1992, pp. 86-87, no. 32 V. Mancini, Polidoro da Lanciano, Lanciano 2001, ad vocem.