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PAOLO ZANCHI (active in Bergamo and Venice in the last quart…
See original version (Italian)
Lot no. 13
Description
PAOLO ZANCHI
(active in Bergamo and Venice in the last quarter of the 16th century)
Portrait of a shipowner
Signed Paulus Zanchius Venetus F. on the left
Oil on canvas, 124X86 cm
Provenance:
Milan, private collection
The painting presented here is a significant discovery that sheds new light on the little-known family of painters active in Bergamo from the first half of the 16th century, whose progenitor was Filippo Zanchi, recorded in 1793 by Francesco Maria Tassi (cf. F.M. Tassi, Vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti bergamaschi, Bergamo 1793, p. 140). We also know from the biographer that Filippo had a son by the name of Francesco 'who was also a good painter' (cf. Tassi, p. 146), but a notary's deed by Giuseppe Crema in 1569 confirms that the 'quondam' Filippo Zanchi, in addition to Francesco, was the father of Paolo, also an artist, and that until this discovery, no work of his was known to us (E. Fornoni, Ms. Biblioteca Civica, VIII, p. 191). The canvas in question depicts a life-size man with a book in his right hand, while his left grips the belt of the grey juxtaposition closed at the front by a long row of small buttons, from which the purple sleeves of his shirt, thickly pleated and ending in thin white puffs, emerge. The face of the effigy stands out by virtue of a white collar and is accurately depicted by a rich, mellow material that renders precise details, such as the blue colour of the eyes. On the other hand, the pictorial treatment of the setting is looser, reflecting an evident Venetian influence due to the window from which a vessel can be glimpsed, suggesting that the man may be a capitàn da Mar, a ship-owner or a merchant. The illustrative layout, however, is quite similar to that of the Portrait of a Man in the Morgan Library, which, previously published by Bernard Berenson as a work by Jacopo Tintoretto, is now traced back to the workshop of his son Domenico (see Morgan Library, inv. AZ072; B. Berenson, Italian Renaissance Paintings. List of principal artists and their works with an index of places. The Venetian School, 2 vols., II, London-Florence 1958, plate 1313).
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