BIAGIO D'ANTONIO

The picture shows a detail of the Last Supper, a fresco painted by Cosimo Rosselli in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. There are three “window” paintings in the background of the fresco, two of them, the Arrest of Christ and the Crucifixion were executed by Biagio d’Antonio Tucci who assisted Cosimo Rosselli in the execution of this fresco.

The picture shows a detail of the Last Supper, a fresco painted by Cosimo Rosselli in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. There are three “window” paintings in the background of the fresco, two of them, the Arrest of Christ and the Crucifixion were executed by Biagio d’Antonio Tucci who assisted Cosimo Rosselli in the execution of this fresco.

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Biagio d’ Antonio here clearly reveals his debt to Ghirlandaio both in the composition and the facial type. Biagio favoured bright, crystalline colors and a luminous palette to depict naturalistic details, techniques derived from Flemish and German paintings like those of Hugo van der Goes.

Biagio’s talent for portraiture is evident in the animated faces he painted in the Sistine Chapel. The present painting is one of the three surviving autonomous portraits by Biagio, all of them bust-length portrayals of young men standing before landscape background. The Portrait of a Boy in Washington is set before an unusual landscape with jagged mountain peaks.

The unidentified sitter - no more than fifteen or sixteen years old - stands before an extensive landscape and stares at the spectator with self-confidence. The view of the walled city of Florence in the middle ground at left indicates that he was Florentine.

Formerly the painting was attributed to Botticelli, only in the 1930s it was recognized as a work by Biagio d’Antonio, a prolific Florentine painter, a contemporary of Botticelli. Biagio was one of the team of artists including Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Luca Signorelli who decorated the side walls of the Sistine Chapel in 1481-82.

Biagio’s talent for portraiture is evident in the animated faces he painted in the Sistine Chapel. The present painting is one of the three surviving autonomous portraits by Biagio, all of them bust-length portrayals of young men standing before landscape background. The portrait in the Metropolitan Museum is the earliest, reflecting Verrocchio’s sculptural style, it probably dates from about 1470.

The size and shape of the panel suggest that it was used in a domestic setting as a spalliera which would have been attached at shoulder height to a cassone, or marriage chest. Its secular subject matter is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and tells the story of Io.

The beginning of the story, in which Jupiter transformed himself into a cloud to seduce the young Io, is not shown in the present panel, most likely because it was depicted on a companion spalliera. Here Biagio’s pictorial interpretation of the narrative runs from left to right and is mostly faithful to the second part of Ovid’s original. In order to deceive his wife Juno, Jupiter transformed Io into a heifer, seen here at left, but Juno, aware of the ruse, demanded to be given the cow as a gift. When she charged the hundred-eyed Argus to watch over the heifer, Jupiter sent his loyal servant Mercury to rescue Io, seen upper left. After lulling Argus to sleep with music from his hand-pipes, Mercury decapitated him and set Io free (not shown here). Argus’s eyes were then placed by Juno in the peacock’s tail (where they remain to this day). Io, still in the form of a heifer, is subsequently seen panting on the bank of the Nile fleeing from Juno’s persecution. She is depicted looking up begging for forgiveness from the queen of the gods, seen upper right beside Jupiter, who also pleads on Io’s behalf. Io was indeed eventually forgiven and is seen restored to her human form on the right side of the bank where she is welcomed back into her family.

In two panels in the Metropolitan Museum, one by Biagio d’Antonio and another by Jacopo del Sellaio, the story of Jason and the Argonauts unfolds in a continuous narrative. In the panel by Biagio d’Antonio, King Aëetes and his daughters Medea and Chalciope meet Jason and his companions. At centre, Jason plows the grove of Ares, where the Golden Fleece is guarded, while Orpheus lulls the dragon to sleep so that Jason may steal the fleece. At right, the King sends his sons off to capture the fleeing Jason and Medea.

The two panels recount episodes from the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece in vivid detail. They have been considered both cassone fronts and spalliere, or wainscoting, panels. Though their dimensions are consistent with those of many cassone panels, they have independent moldings and show none of the damages characteristic of cassone panels and were, therefore, certainly designed to be installed where they would not have been kicked or accessible to children.

There has been almost constant controversy about the panels’ authorship since they appeared on the art market in the first years of the twentieth century. Two panels are not by the same artist; collaboration on series of panels such as these was common practice.

The subject of this painting was taken from the writings of the ancient Roman author Livy. The Roman senate honours the hero Camillus, who returned from exile and rescued Rome from the Gauls, with a triumphal parade through Rome.

The painting was probably displayed like a frieze with other panels in the home of a wealthy Florentine family.

The painting was executed in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio with the participation of Biagio d’Antonio. The represented standing saints are, from left to right, an unidentified bishop saint, St Peter Martyr, St Vincent Ferrer and St James the Great. In the foreground St Catherine of Siena is knelling at the feet of the Virgin.