Pietro Perugino, The Archangel Michael

Perugino painted this altarpiece for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza (known as il Moro). He had been recommended by the Duke’s agent, who described him as ‘an exceptional master [whose] works have an angelic and very sweet air’.

The picture stood upon the altar in the side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael in the Carthusian monastery (also known as a charterhouse or certosa) in Pavia, a town outside Milan where the Duke had his palace. Our panels formed the lower tier of two in this large-scale construction. The upper tier showed the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel, on one panel, giving the Virgin Mary, on another panel, the news that she would conceive the son of God. Between these panels was an image of God in glory, which is still in the church.

It seems that the Duke was not happy with the length of time that Perugino was spending on the paintings – he wrote to his agent in 1499 demanding that he set the painter a deadline. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke was captured by invading French forces, and the altarpiece was completed in the early sixteenth century by two other painters: Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli.

The painting is an excellent example of Perugino’s skill in working with oil paint. According to Vasari, the sixteenth-century biographer of artists, he was praised for his ‘harmonious blending of colours’; painters travelled from as far as France, Spain and Germany to see his work. This was due to his knowledge of the Netherlandish technique of painting in oil, which was renowned for being incredibly sophisticated. The skin, for example, was painted using thin layers of paint, taking advantage of the white ground covering the panel to make the flesh appear pale. More generally, using oil enabled him to create a depth of colour by layering different tones, using translucent glazes which modified the colours beneath. It is possible that his talent at painting in oil was due to a visit to Venice in 1495 – artists there were more expert in the medium than in central Italy, where he was trained.

The pictures were removed to the picture gallery in Milan in the late eighteenth century, at which time copies were made. By the time they were purchased by the National Gallery in the mid-nineteenth century they had been cut down in various places, and all of them at the bottom edge. Fortunately, their original appearance is preserved in the copies which remain in the monastery. The central panel of the upper tier is also still in the church, surrounded by two paintings by Ambrogio Bergognone that originally belonged to a different altarpiece.