Lot 272: BENVENUTO TISI, CALLED IL GAROFALO FERRARA 1481 - 1559

THE BEHEADING OF ST. BARTOLOMEW

measurements note
17 1/8 by 28 1/8 in. ; 43.5 by 71.5 cm.

inscribed in an old hand on reverse: Di Benvenuto/ do Garofalo

oil on panel, unframed, a predella

PROVENANCE

Church of San Bartolomeo, Ferrara, until at least 1752;
Private collection, Treviso;
Private collection, Rome.

LITERATURE

G. Frabetti, L'autunno dei manieristi a Ferrara, Ferrara 1978, pp. 8-9 and 81, reproduced fig. 5b (as by "Garofalo (or workshop)");
A. Fioravanti Baraldi, in La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara, Bologna 1992, pp. 144-5, under no. 166;
A. Fioravanti Baraldi, Il Garofalo: Benvenuto Tisi, pittore (c.1476-1559): catalogo generale, Rimini 1993, p. 260, under no. 189.

NOTE

This panel originally constituted the predella to Garofalo's signed and dated altarpiece showing The Adoration of the Magi with Saint Bartholomew painted in 1549 for the Church of San Bartolomeo, the main altar panel of which is today in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara (inv. 156; reproduced in color in Fioravanti Baraldi, see Literature, 1992, p. 143). The church was annexed to the Abbazia di San Bartolo, an abbey formerly of the Benedictine and then of the Cistercian Order, whose insignia appears beside the date on the main panel.

The altarpiece is first recorded by Giorgio Vasari in Garofalo's Vita and is described in detail in an 18th-century manuscript by Brisighella (published by M.A. Novelli, Descrizione delle pitture e sculture della città di Ferrara di Carlo Brisighella, Ferrara 1990, p. 572): the main central panel showed The Adoration of the Magi with Saint Bartholomew (now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ferrara); the finial showed The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (in the collection of Avventi in Ferrara in 1838 but since untraced); and the predella showed The Beheading of Saint Bartholomew (the present panel). During the Napoleonic era, as noted by Avventi (F. Avventi, Il Servitore in piazza - Guida per Ferrara, Ferrara 1838, pp. 83-5) and Cittadella (L.N. Cittadella, Indice manuale delle cose più rimarcabili in pittura, scultura, architettura della città e borghi di Ferrara, Ferrara 1844, p. 95), the altarpiece was taken to Milan and then to Paris, only to be returned to Ferrara at the end of the French rule: it was probably at around this time that the altarpiece was dismembered, for the present predella is recorded as having been in the winter chancel of the church from 1752 (as relayed by Fioravanti Baraldi, see Literature, 1993, p. 260). It was not until Frabetti's relatively recent publication that the picture was reassigned to Garofalo himself (see Literature, 1978).

In the main panel of the altarpiece, mentioned above, Saint Bartholomew is shown quite youthful and bearded, holding the knife with which he was flayed as well as his flayed skin. The representation in the predella of the saint as an écorché, with his flayed skin tied around his waist, is highly unusual and would have provided an interesting contrast to the idealised view of him in the main panel above.

For the provenance and literature of the altarpiece see Fioravanti Baraldi, under Literature, 1992, cat. no. 166, and 1993, cat. no. 189.

We are grateful to Dr. Anna Fioravanti Baraldi for confirming her opinion that the present predella is by Garofalo and from the St. Bartholomew altarpiece.