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Lot Essay
A remarkable discovery, this highly refined, exquisitely preserved panel is a ricordo of Giorgio Vasari’s Standard of Saint Roch, the large processional banner that is today preserved in the Museo Statale di Arte Medievale e Moderna, Arezzo (fig. 1). Vasari received the commission in 1568 from the Compagnia di San Rocco in his native town of Arezzo, of which he was also a member, and describes the painting in great detail in his Ricordanze, the inventory of his own commissions. Therein, he writes that he completed the double-sided banner and gave it to the Compagnia that same year (see K. and H.- W. Frey, Giorgio Vasari. Der literarische Nachlass, Munich, 1930). Executed using a brilliant palette of bold colors and employing the majestically-scaled figures that the artist favored in the works of his maturity, the standard originally showed on one side the saint, full-length, seated and gazing up into the sky, and on the other, a multifigured composition of Saint Roch visiting the afflicted. The latter of these served as the model for the present panel. Stylistically, both compositions were heavily inspired by the art of Michelangelo Buonarroti, but also reflect the paintings of Vasari’s collaborator, Jacopo Zucchi, who may have even assisted Vasari with the painting of the standard. Yet the present panel is no mere copy - in addition to the change in format from rectangular to arched top, there are numerous subtle differences, such as the inclusion of the fireplace at upper left that speak to a creative mind still at work. The standard was removed from its original site between 1850 and 1870, when the church of San Rocco, the headquarters of the Compagnia, was demolished as part of the city’s urban renewal plan.
According to legend, Saint Roch was born in Montpellier, France. Born into wealth, he travelled throughout Europe, tending to the poor and to victims of the plague. Miraculously cured of the disease himself, Saint Roch’s cult developed in the 14th century, as the Black Death ravaged Europe. In the following century, he was recognized as a protector of the sick. His veneration in Italy flourished after 1485, when the saint’s remains were stolen from Montpellier by the Venetians and taken to Venice. Vasari here portrays the saint dressed in his characteristic pilgrim’s cloak and hat, holding a walking staff as he tends to two sick, muscular men. The large interior, perhaps a hospital, is decorated with classically-inspired pietra serena carvings, reflecting the popular Tuscan architecture of Vasari’s day and thereby creating a more immediate connection for his audience to the holy event portrayed. Though the circumstances behind the creation of this autograph replica remain to be established, its vastly reduced scale, combined with the artist’s own personal connection to the commission, open the possibility that Vasari painted it for himself, or as a gift for one of his close friends, though without documentary support, this theory is purely speculative.
We are grateful to Carlo Falciani and David Ekserdjian for independently endorsing the attribution on the basis of firsthand inspection of the painting. Falciani further notes that this is a late painting by Vasari, executed shortly before his work for the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
According to legend, Saint Roch was born in Montpellier, France. Born into wealth, he travelled throughout Europe, tending to the poor and to victims of the plague. Miraculously cured of the disease himself, Saint Roch’s cult developed in the 14th century, as the Black Death ravaged Europe. In the following century, he was recognized as a protector of the sick. His veneration in Italy flourished after 1485, when the saint’s remains were stolen from Montpellier by the Venetians and taken to Venice. Vasari here portrays the saint dressed in his characteristic pilgrim’s cloak and hat, holding a walking staff as he tends to two sick, muscular men. The large interior, perhaps a hospital, is decorated with classically-inspired pietra serena carvings, reflecting the popular Tuscan architecture of Vasari’s day and thereby creating a more immediate connection for his audience to the holy event portrayed. Though the circumstances behind the creation of this autograph replica remain to be established, its vastly reduced scale, combined with the artist’s own personal connection to the commission, open the possibility that Vasari painted it for himself, or as a gift for one of his close friends, though without documentary support, this theory is purely speculative.
We are grateful to Carlo Falciani and David Ekserdjian for independently endorsing the attribution on the basis of firsthand inspection of the painting. Falciani further notes that this is a late painting by Vasari, executed shortly before his work for the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.