Lot 84: VINCENZO CIVERCHIO (Crema c.1470-1544)

Saint Bartholomew, in a feigned architectural niche oil on panel 81/8 x 71/4 in. (20.6 x 18.4 cm.) PROVENANCE Anon. Sale, Christie's, New York, 12 June 1981, lots 124-126 as Attributed to Carlo Crivelli. Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 16 May 1996, lot 5. NOTES The present painting is one of a series of apostles which originally formed part of a predella of an unknown and undocumented altarpiece. Four of the panels, including the present lot, were sold in 1981 with an incorrect attribution to Crivelli, and a fifth, Saint Peter, accurately attributed to Civerchio and sold in these rooms (10 January 1996, lot 91), was formerly in the collection of Sir John Pope-Hennessy. These paintings were first recognized as being by the Lombard painter, Vincenzo Civerchio, by Keith Christiansen. He compares them to an early portable altarpiece of circa 1490 in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (see M. Marubbi, Vincenzo Civerchio: Contributo alla cultura figurativa creasca nel primo cinquecento, 1986, p. 80).