Fernández traveled to North Italy from Spain around 1508. In Lombardy he came under the influence of Bramantino (c. 1465-1530), a painter fluent in the innovations of Leonardo. Fernández’s knowledge of Leonardo is apparent in the intense expression of St. John’s face, the great attention paid to the particulars of physiognomy, and in the accentuation of the shadows around the orbits of the eyes. The taste for complex drapery, dominated by large folds falling at fractured angles also recalls his North Italian experience. This panel belonged to a polyptych for the high altar of Santa Maria della Grazia a Caponapoli. The remaining portions are today in the Museo Capodimonte, Naples.
Details
- Artist Name: Pedro Fernández (Spanish, (c.1480-1521))
- Title: Saint John the Baptist
- Date: c. 1509-10
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Dimensions: painted surface: 62-1/4 x 21 in. (158.1 x 53.3 cm); panel: 62-1/4 x 26-3/4 in. (158.1 x 67.95 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1978.02.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Museo Borbonico, Naples (as Andrea di Salerno), still in 1821.
[P. & D. Colnaghi, London, purchased 21 March 1977, sold 25 July 1978 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Another Renaissance. Spanish artists in Naples at the beginning of the Cinquecento
- Museo Nacional del Prado, 2022-10-18 to 2023-01-29
- Navarro, Fausta, Bolletino d'Arte, fig. 1 pp. 37-38
- Leonardo e el leonardismo a Napoli e a Roma, 1983, pp. 164-166
- Previtali, Giovanni, Andrea da Salerno nel Rinascimento Meridionale, 1986, p. 259
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 31
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1539 p. 418
- Zezza, Andrea and Riccardo Naldi, Otro Renacimiento. Artistas españoles en Nápoles a comienzos del Cinquecento, 2022, cat. 23d p. [2] (ill.), p. 196 (ill.), pp. 196-202, p. 201 (ill.)
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