Full title | An Angel in Red with a Lute |
---|---|
Artist | Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis |
Artist dates | about 1455 - 1510 |
Series | Panels from the S. Francesco Altarpiece, Milan |
Date made | about 1495-9 |
Medium and support | Oil on poplar |
Dimensions | 118.8 x 61 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1898 |
Inventory number | NG1662 |
Location | Room 66 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This angel is a pair to another in the National Gallery’s collection. Both were part of a large altarpiece made for the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan that included Leonardo’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks’, which is also in our collection. They were made to surround a sculpture of the Virgin Mary which stood above Leonardo’s picture.
Ambrogio de Predis and Leonardo were both named on the contract for the altarpiece which specifically asked for angels playing music. Here the angel plays a lute but looks distracted, apparently focusing on the statue of the Virgin Mary instead. The grey niche he stands in is a later addition.
An angel stands in a fluttering red robe, knee bent, playing a lute. He looks distracted from his music, staring intently at something or someone outside of the picture. The object of the angel’s fascination is a statue of the Virgin Mary which he and a companion angel, placed on her other side, are serenading with their music.
Both panels were part of a large, elaborate altarpiece that included a sculpture of the Virgin Mary and a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, now known as ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’. The angels were probably designed as graceful musical accompaniments to frame the sculpture, which stood above Leonardo’s painting. Later on, in the late sixteenth century, when the chapel that the altarpiece had been specifically 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 these niches looks out of place next to to the rich reds and gold-browns used here. Compared to its pair, An Angel in Green with a Vielle, it is more restrained: the range of colours is more even and there is less use of dramatic contrasts between areas of light and shade. For this reason it appears slightly less three-dimensional and has a more decorative effect overall.
Ambrogio de Predis was named in the original contract for the altarpiece which was signed in 1483. He was the court painter at Milan at the time, and Leonardo stayed with him when he first arrived in the city in the early 1480s. A surviving document from the early 1490s shows that both painters were asking for additional payment, claiming that the materials they had used had cost more than expected. This petition is useful because it reveals that the paintings must have been finished by that date and it confirms Ambrogio’s involvement in the altarpiece. What we don't know is whether he was ever paid what he asked for.
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An Angel in Red with a Lute
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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