Putnam Foundation Collection > Italian

Anonymous
Active first quarter 17th century
Still Life, ca. 1500 - 10
Oil on canvas, 25-7/8 x 19 in.

The selection of subjects for this painting and the way they are depicted indicate that the artist may be commenting on the brevity of life. The straw on the wine bottle is broken and uncoiled. The flowers are wilted. The butterflies, like the flowers, are also short-lived.

Confirming this interpretation are the mutually destructive relationships implied: the locust and moth, as well as the butterfly, feed on the flowers, and the lizard would likely consume the locust.

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
1467 - 1516
Portrait of a Youth Holding an Arrow
ca. 1500 - 10
Oil on panel, 19 5/8 x 14 in.

Born in Milan to a noble family, Boltraffio entered the school of Leonardo da Vinci in 1491, and remained with him until around 1498 or 1499.

This painting, once erroneously attributed to Leonardo, reveals an aristocratic refinement that derives as much from Boltraffio's own artistic gifts as from Leonardo's influences. The sitter is thought to be Girolamo Casio, a well-known Bolognese poet who was a close friend of the artist. Casio is shown wearing a narrow headband, called a fillet, that is intertwined with laurel leaves and holding an arrow - both symbols of Apollo, the patron of poetry.

Niccolò di Buonaccorso
unkown - 1388
Madonna of Humility with St. Catherine and St. Christopher,
The Annunciation, and the Crucifixion
ca. 1370 - 1375
Tempera on panel
25-7/8 x 21-1/2 in.

This work, though smaller than Niccolò di Buonaccorso's Madonna and Child, displays the artist's sophisticated and delicate technique: in the complex modeling of the draperies, in the refined depiction of textile patterns and textures, and in the detailed rendering of the still life behind the Virgin in the central panel and the water and fish at the feet of St. Christopher in the right panel.

The center panel is unusual because it shows the Virgin seated on the ground, surrounded by common domestic objects and furnishings. The triptych is a portable altarpiece, which may explain the inclusion of St. Christopher, the protector of travelers, who carries the Christ Child bearing a globe of the world.

Niccolò di Buonaccorso
unknown - 1388
Madonna and Child
1387
Tempera and gold on wood
60 x 23 in.

This painting was originally the central panel of a large altarpiece in the church of Santa Margherita in Costalpino, outside Siena. Its original frame carried the following inscription: "NICHOLAUS: BONACHURSI. ME PINXIT. A. DNI. 1387" (Niccolò di Buonaccorso painted me in the year of the Lord 1387).

Identification of Madonna and Child as a work by Niccolò di Buonaccorso, one of the most accomplished masters active in Siena in the last third of the fourteenth century, has enabled several other works of monumental scale to be attributed to him.

The presence of a nun dressed in a black, possibly Augustinian habit among the small donors at the feet of St. Lawrence suggests that this triptych originally may have been commissioned for an important female community of that order in Siena or its environs.

Luca Carlevarijs
1663 - 1730
The Piazzetta at Venice
n.d.
Oil on canvas
38 x 76-7/8 in.

Carlevarijs was the first painter of Italian origin to specialize in views of Venice. The artist's many precise renditions of the city reveal his early training as a mathematician.

His painting of the Piazzetta places the viewer in a boat on the Grand Canal, looking north toward the Piazza of St. Mark. The direction of the shadows from the southwest indicates that the time is afternoon. On the left are the library of Sansovino, the lower portion of its Campanile, and the column of St. Theodoric. To the right are the south side of St. Mark's, the Doge's Palace, and the column of St. Mark. The buildings, though not entirely accurate in certain architectural details, remain largely unchanged to this day.

Il Guercino 
(Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
1591 - 1666
The Return of the Prodigal Son
1654 - 55
Oil on canvas
61-1/4 x 57-1/2 in.

The parable depicted by Il Guercino (a nickname meaning "squint-eyed") is the one most frequently represented in Western art as teaching repentance and forgiveness.

Taken from Luke 15:11- 32, the story tells of a younger son who squanders his share of an inheritance and returns home to beg his father's forgiveness. Guercino shows the moment when the impoverished son is welcomed with compassion by his father, dressed as a wealthy man of the eastern Mediterranean region. The father sends his servant, in seventeenth-century Italian costume, to bring fine clothes for his penitent son and to kill a fatted calf for a feast. Guercino painted the subject on seven occasions, beginning in 1619.

Like other late works by the artist, this one is characterized by its clarity and simplicity.

The Magdalene Master and an Unknown Florentine Painter
end 13th-early 14th century
Madonna and Child and Two Angels, with Twelve Scenes from the Passion
ca. 1310
Tempera on panel
26-1/2 x 70-5/8 in.

In medieval art, paintings were usually part of a larger work, for example, a mural painted on a church or monastery wall. During the thirteenth century, individual wood panels that illustrated church doctrine and dramatized the significance of the Mass began to appear in Florence, Siena, and other Italian towns.

The central image of this panel, depicting the Madonna and Child, was among the last works by an artist known as the Magdalene Master or by his workshop. The style of this image differs from the style of the twelve scenes of the Passion on either side, which were painted by an unknown Florentine artist.

Perhaps two artists of different generations collaborated on the work from the beginning, or one artist completed the painting after the death of the other.

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo
active 1508 - after 1548
Torment of St. Anthony
ca. 1515-20
Oil on panel
27-3/8 x 47 in.

St. Anthony, a Christian saint and hermit, gave his wealth to the poor when he was a young man. Living in solitude, he devoted himself to prayer but was tormented by the Devil in the form of demons and evil spirits.

Savoldo shows St. Anthony with his hands clasped in prayer, fleeing from a dark, hellish vision into a pastoral landscape bathed in warm daylight. Like other northern Italian painters of the time, Savoldo was interested in Flemish painting, particularly Hieronymous Bosch's nightmarish monsters, which influenced his depiction of St. Anthony's tormentors. As the saint flees, his hands point to a monastery, a reminder that he was the father of monasticism.

Luca di Tommè
unknown - after 1390
The Trinity and the Crucifixion,
with Scenes from the Life of Christ
ca. 1355
Tempera on panel
22-3/8 x 21-3/8 in.

This triptych, or three-part altarpiece, is remarkable for being a compendium of narrative motifs more typically seen in large altarpieces.

The central panel depicts Christ three times: crucified and dying on the cross, resurrected at the tomb, and as part of the Trinity. It is the earliest known panel to show the Trinity as a single figure with three heads. The Angel of the Annunciation appears at the top of the left wing, opposite the Virgin receiving the Annunciation at the top right.

The remaining compartments in the left wing show the Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi; those in the right wing, the Mocking of Christ and the Lamentation.

Bartolomeo Veneto
unknown-1531
Portrait of a Lady in a Green Dress
1530
Oil on panel
33-7/8 x 26-5/8 in.

The fashionable costume worn by the figure in this portrait includes an ornamented white chemise under a green satin overdress; a red-striped orange fichu, or triangular scarf, covering her shoulders; and a wiglike headdress decorated with blue and gold ribbon.

Although the sitter is unknown, Bartolomeo Veneto has provided a sign of what might have been her favorite sport. She wears a hawking glove on her right hand and holds her left glove in her left hand.  This is an unusual detail, since European falconers traditionally carried their birds on their left hands. The subject of this painting may have been left-handed.

The artist signed the work on the cartellino, or tag, attached to the dark red curtain.

Paolo Caliari (called Veronese)
1528-1588
Madonna and Child with St. Elizabeth,
the Infant St. John the Baptist, and St. Justina
1565-70
Oil on canvas
40-7/8 x 62-1/4 in.

Called Veronese because of his birth and training in the city of Verona, Paolo Caliari gained his fame as a painter of frescoes and other major architectural commissions, as well as easel paintings, while living in Venice.

In this work, a sumptuously attired St. Justina, a patroness of Padua and Venice, is shown at right with the Holy Family. The infant Christ reaches toward St. Justina, demonstrating the favor in which she was held and her powers as an intercessor for the faithful. St. Elizabeth, the mother of St. John, Christ's cousin, sits on the left, rolling swaddling clothes.

Veronese arranges the figures in a stately flow of interconnecting forms and renders them using a rich play of light and a perfect balance of warm and cool colors.

Bartolome E. Murillo
Spanish
1617-1682
Christ on the Cross
1660-70
Oil on canvas
82-1/4 x 44-1/2 in.

In this late painting by Murillo, the luminous figure of Christ appears against an ominous sky. Below him, at the left, the outlines of the city of Jerusalem are visible within the shadowy mists.

According to Christian doctrine, Christ's sacrifice on the cross brought about the possibility of man's redemption from the original sin of Adam. Thus, the skull at the base of the cross suggests Adam and also Golgotha, where the crucifixion occurred. The inscription at the top of the cross reads "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."