Page 13 - Jacobello del Fiore - His Oeuvre and a Sumptuous Crucifixion
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part of the composition, which was then and drawing compositional parallels with the
scrupulously followed during the creation of Crucifixion frescoed by Altichiero in the
the painted surface - ( Figs. 4 & 5). Oratorio di San Giorgio in Padua - ( Fig. 6),
although in the end she ascribed it to a
eee Veronese artist active during the 1350s –
that is, in a period before the known activity
FROM ALTICHIERO TO JACOBELLO, of Altichiero.4 In 1964, the panel was
BY WAY OF FRANCESCO DEL FIORE presented once again as by Altichiero, in an
exhibition of old masters held at the Galleria
This painting has not always been Levi in Milan.5 Twenty years later, in 1984,
appreciated for the qualities described I had the occasion to study the picture for
above. Until its recent conservation, which myself in London, where it was owned by I.
was carried out in Florence, the colour & G. Ltd, London, who then exhibited it in
scheme was dull and dark due to the old, May 1986, at San Paolo Converso, Milan
yellowed varnishes that had obscured all the with the label ‘Pseudo-Altichiero’.6
richness of the original chromatic effect.2
When I first set eyes on this extraordinary Since I was then preparing a monograph
panel about two decades ago, I was struck on the Bolognese painter Jacopo Avanzi,
most by the monumentality of the which only appeared in 1992, I could not
composition and the intelligence behind its help being strongly drawn to the painting,
formal qualities, yet there was no way of which the late Carlo Volpe, the scholar with
knowing just how precious the colours and whom I had studied, had earlier led me to
handling were behind its dazzling surface. associate with some small panels with Scenes
from the Passion of Christ, a series divided
The painting cannot be considered a new between various museums and private
discovery, since it is well known by scholars collections. I dedicated ample space to the
in the field and has been published several work in my book, and in noting its strong
times. The first scholar to treat it was affinities, particularly with the work of
Edoardo Arslan, whose article of 1960 in the Jacopo, who was a collaborator of Altichiero
journal Commentari attributed it to the in Padua, I named its author ‘Pseudo-Avanzi’
painter Altichiero da Zevio.3 Subsequently, and left the matter of his precise origins,
Plinia Pettenella, the author of a monograph whether Bolognese or Venetian, an open
on this Veronese painter pointed out its high question.7
quality, referring to it as a ‘splendida tavola’
In the same years this artist was also the
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