Full title | An Angel in Green with a Vielle |
---|---|
Artist | Associate of Leonardo da Vinci (Francesco Napoletano?) |
Artist dates | 1452 - 1519 |
Series | Panels from the S. Francesco Altarpiece, Milan |
Date made | about 1490-9 |
Medium and support | Oil on poplar |
Dimensions | 117.2 x 60.8 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1898 |
Inventory number | NG1661 |
Location | Room 66 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This angel was part of an elaborate painted and sculpted altarpiece made for the church for San Francesco Grande in Milan. The main image of the altarpiece was Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’, also in the National Gallery’s collection.
This angel – playing a vielle, a type of fiddle – and its pair would have surrounded a sculpture of the Virgin Mary which stood above Leonardo’s image. We cannot be sure who painted it; it might be an artist called Francesco Napoletano, an admirer of Leonardo’s painting style who stepped in after the death of the artist from whom it was commissioned.
Here he imitates Leonardo’s dramatic use of light and shadow and blurred contours, particularly in the angel’s face, creating the effect of soft, delicate features. The angel is absorbed in music, and the overall mood is subdued, like that of Leonardo’s painting.
An angel is absorbed in playing the vielle, a type of fiddle. Eyes half closed, head bent to one side, he contemplates its sound. His long robes ruffle up around him as though dancing to the tune he plays. This angel is one of a pair – his companion plays a lute. Both panels were part of a large, elaborate sculpted wooden altarpiece that included a large sculpture of the Virgin Mary and Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, now known as the ‘Virgin of the Rocks’.
The angels were probably designed as graceful musical accompaniments to frame a sculpture of the Virgin which stood above Leonardo’s painting. Later on, in the late sixteenth century, when the chapel that the altarpiece had been made for was destroyed, the altarpiece was moved and re-designed: some parts of it were sold, while others were moved around. The angels ended up on either side of Leonardo’s painting. Later still, Leonardo’s painting was removed altogether and the angels switched position again. At some point during all this moving around, the angels were extended, cut down and placed within grey arches, painted to resemble niches for sculpture. The stark simplicity and rough painting of the niche doesn't complement the elegance and precision of the angel’s features, skin and drapery.
The names of four artists appear in the original contract for the altarpiece, including the half-brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de Predis, who were both working in Milan at around this time. This angel has sometimes been thought to be by Evangelista, but we now think it was painted after his death. It’s possible that Ambrogio enlisted his friend Francesco Napoletano to paint it instead. They had worked together in the past and so Ambrogio would have known his work well.
Whoever the artist was, they obviously admired Leonardo and tried to copy his style here. The angel’s face is shaped using light, which makes it seem three-dimensional. Some areas, like the eye sockets, are almost completely in shadow, giving the sense that they are sunken. But the fleshy chin and cheeks, and the areas that catch the light – the nose and forehead – are painted in bright, almost white, paint. If you compare this to the way that Leonardo shaped faces in The Virgin of the Rocks you can see how similar the technique is. The angel’s face, hair and the way in which he bends his head are so similar to Leonardo’s image of Saint John the Evangelist, painted for the fresco of the Last Supper in Milan in the mid to late 1490s, that it might even be based on it.
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An Angel in Green with a Vielle
Panels from the S. Francesco Altarpiece, Milan
These three panels all came from an elaborate, and partly sculpted, altarpiece that was made for the church of San Francesco Grande, Milan. By the time that Leonardo and his associates were commissioned to provide paintings in 1483, the sculptor Giacomo del Maiano had already finished the sculptures.
The altarpiece stood in a chapel devoted to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary that belonged to a confraternity (religious group) devoted to the Immaculate Conception. The two angels playing musical instruments probably stood on either side of a large sculpture of the Virgin. Leonardo’s painting, which was probably supposed to represent the Immaculate Conception, was placed directly beneath the sculpture.
The National Gallery’s painting is Leonardo’s second version of the picture. It was probably made to replace one (now in the Louvre, Paris) that Leonardo sold because the confraternity refused to pay him adequately for it.
In April 1483 Leonardo da Vinci and two Milanese painters, half-brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista de Predis, signed a contract to gild and paint a large, wooden, sculpted altarpiece recently completed by the Milanese sculptor Giacomo del Maiano. A new religious group, a confraternity formed for the devotion of the Immaculate Conception, commissioned the altarpiece; it would be the main focus of worship in their newly built chapel in the Church of San Francesco Grande, Milan.
The artists were commissioned to provide three paintings which would be placed within the structure of the altarpiece. These were of the Virgin and Child with angels, and two pictures showing angels making music. Leonardo tackled the Virgin and Child – the central image, now known as ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’. Ambrogio de Predis almost certainly painted the angel playing a lute, and when Evangelista died he appears to have enlisted his friend, Francesco Napoletano, to paint the angel in green playing a vielle.
The sculpted parts of the altarpiece are now lost, so we don‘t know exactly how it looked – but a list attached to the contract gives us an idea of the sculptures, and the impression of a complex and elaborate structure. The main sculpture was of the Virgin Mary. She wore a necklace of gold, pearls and enamel, suggesting that she was very lifelike, and stood beneath a domed canopy. The angels playing musical instruments might have stood on either side of this statue. Leonardo’s painting was the main image and was placed below the sculpture. The list also mentions carved narrative scenes ’of Our Lady', perhaps scenes from Mary’s life. At the base of the altarpiece was another carving, possibly Christ as a baby in his crib.
Leonardo’s picture in the National Gallery was painted to replace an earlier version that he had made for the altarpiece (the first is now in the Louvre, Paris). The composition of the Paris version is almost identical – the only difference is the angel, who in the Paris version looks out at us and points towards Saint John the Baptist, interrupting the connection between the Virgin and Christ.
It is not clear why two versions were made. Surviving documents that date to the early 1490s tell us that Leonardo and Ambrogio de Predis were in dispute with the confraternity about payment for their pictures; they were asking for more money than originally agreed because the materials had turned out to be more expensive than estimated. There is no evidence to prove what happened next but it seems that Leonardo sold his picture elsewhere, having been unable to persuade the confraternity to pay him the extra required.
The style of our version suggests that it was begun in the early 1490s, shortly after the dispute began. When the French captured Milan in 1499, Leonardo left the city for Florence without finishing the picture. In 1506 the confraternity demanded Leonardo return to Milan to complete it within two years. He was finally paid in 1508. The confraternity’s chapel was destroyed in 1576, the altarpiece was broken up and parts were sold.



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