Full title | Saint Mark (?) |
---|---|
Artist | Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano |
Artist dates | about 1459/60 - about 1517/18 |
Series | Two Panels from the S. Maria dei Crociferi Altarpiece |
Date made | about 1500 |
Medium and support | Oil on wood |
Dimensions | 103.2 x 40.6 cm |
Acquisition credit | Mond Bequest, 1924; entered the Collection in 1938 |
Inventory number | NG4945 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
A bearded saint stands in a stone niche. He holds a book and a pen: he is one of the Four Evangelists, the authors of the Gospels – possibly Saint Mark. Although a saint, he has no halo or attribute; he looks more like a Roman philosopher. The quiet stone, the saint’s abstracted and unfocused gaze and the clear morning light make him seem removed from the cares of this world.
This is one of two panels featuring evangelists from a multi-panelled altarpiece. Another panel, showing Saint Sebastian, is also in the National Gallery’s collection. We are not sure when or where it was made, but it was probably painted in around 1500.
A bearded saint stands in a stone niche. He holds a book and a pen, so he is one of the Four Evangelists, the authors of the Gospels, possibly Saint Mark: his dark curly hair and the colours of his drapery are similar to those of Saint Mark in Vivarini’s Saints Francis and Mark.
The book – finely bound in stamped blue leather with metal corners and bosses, and held shut with a clasp – represents his Gospel. His quill pen is the type used for writing with ink before the invention of pens with metal points. They were usually made from the flight feathers of geese; contrary to the popular image they would have been stripped of the barbs, leaving just the hollow shaft of the feather, as here.
Although a saint, this figure has no halo or attribute; he looks more like a Roman philosopher. The quiet stone, the saint’s abstracted and unfocused gaze, and the calm morning light make him seem far removed from the cares of this world.
This is one of two panels featuring evangelists from a triptych or polyptych, painted probably in around 1500 by Cima da Conegliano. Another panel from the altarpiece, Saint Sebastian is also in our collection.
Through skilful modelling and use of shadow, Cima has made the figure look more like a sculpture than a flat, painted image. The richly contrasting colours of the saint’s draperies and the brilliant light which falls on him from the right, casting shadows on the stone behind, are characteristic of Cima’s style (you can see both in The Incredulity of Saint Thomas). The head of this saint was clearly based on the model Cima used previously for Saint Thomas in that picture.
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Two Panels from the S. Maria dei Crociferi Altarpiece
Two monumental saints – Mark and Sebastian – stand in niches topped with shell-like arches. They must originally have formed the outer wings of a multi-panelled altarpiece. We don't know where they originally came from, but in the seventeenth century two panels were recorded in the church of the Crociferi, Venice, where they flanked an image of the Annunciation by Cima (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). They do not seem to have belonged together, however: the Annunciation is taller, quite different in composition and painted on cloth rather than wood.
It is possible that they came from an altarpiece which was part sculpted and part painted, like the one Cima da Conegliano painted for the parish church of Olera, near Bergamo. Its painted panels show standing saints, and they flank a carved and coloured statue of Saint Bartholomew in a shell-shaped niche.
Two monumental saints – Mark and Sebastian – stand in niches topped with shell-like arches. The panels must once have formed the outer wings of a triptych or polyptych, perhaps in a classical frame, like the altarpieces Cima da Conegliano painted for the parish churches at Ornica and Olera, near Bergamo and Capodistria in Slovenia.
We do not know where they originally came from, but in the seventeenth century two panels were recorded in the church of the Crociferi in Venice, in the chapel of the silk weavers. They flanked an image of the Annunciation signed by Cima and dated 1495 (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). They do not seem to have belonged together, however: the Annunciation is taller, quite different in composition and is painted on cloth rather than wood.
The figures seem to stand in front of the narrow niches: their elbows overlap the vertical edges, as if they are three-dimensional sculptures rather than flat, painted images. We see scalloped niches in fifteenth-century Venetian sculpture and painting – in the works of Jacopo Bellini in the 1430s, and behind the statues of saints in the monument to Doge Pietro Mocenigo carved by Pietro Lombardo in the church of SS Giovanni e Paulo. Cima himself painted a large altarpiece for the parish church of Olera, near Bergamo, in which painted panels show standing saints and flank a carved and coloured statue of Saint Bartholomew in a shell-shaped niche. It’s possible that our panels also came from an altarpiece which was part sculpted and part painted.


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