Notes: In exceptionally fine condition, this tender representation of the Annunciation is a rare, early painting by the South Netherlandish master, Jan Provost. Considered by Max J. Friedländer one of the most important exponents of the Renaissance as it was interpreted in the Low Countries, Provost was an extraordinarily inventive artist, never repeating his compositions and often striving for the esoteric and enigmatic in his paintings (M.J. Friedländer, op. cit.). His miniaturist training in France is evident here in the courtly, idealized figures, modeled with extraordinary delicacy, and in the lavish attention given to minute details, such as the feathers of Gabriel's multicolored wings and the exquisitely rendered plants and flowers.

Among the most popular themes of Renaissance painting, this Annunciation is set within a contemporary domestic interior. An elegant Virgin Mary, whose porcelain-like face, high forehead and elongated body reflect the ideal of feminine beauty then prevailing in the southern Netherlands, is seated before a simple wooden prayer bench. She has been interrupted while reciting her devotions by a magnificent Gabriel, gliding effortlessly into the room attired in a sumptuous gold-embroidered bishop's cope. His face framed with tussled locks, the Archangel gazes upward toward a dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, which descends from the heavens upon three divine rays alluding to the Trinity. Due to the presence of the bed, the contemporary viewer would have associated this space with a marriage chamber--the thalamus virginis--in which the Virgin Mary unites with Christ, her son and symbolic bridegroom as described in the Song of Solomon.

Delightful details abound, such as the metallic clasp of Mary's book, which hangs over the edge of her prayer bench, or the mille fleurs tapestry in the lower foreground and matching tasseled cushions at the far end of the room. The highly unusual placement of such a costly hanging on the floor beneath the Virgin emphasizes her exalted status and also reveals Provost's original approach to his subject matter--it is an astounding invention that apparently has no precedent. At the same time, the rich foliage decorating these textiles echoes the flowering plants visible beyond the portico on the left. In this way, man's artistic endeavors to honor God are contrasted with the beauty of the natural world--God's own art. The wall that rises behind Gabriel's resplendent wings signals that the house is set within an enclosed garden, the sacred precinct dedicated to the Virgin known as the hortus conclusis and symbolic of her chastity. At the far end of the room stands a blue and white maiolica pitcher, a luxurious item from Italy of a type the artist would have encountered at this time in Bruges, one of Europe's most important international trade centers. It contains a single stem of lilies with two white flowers and irises, symbols of the Virgin's purity and her suffering through the sacrifice of Christ, respectively.

Born in Mons, Jan Provost most likely received his initial training from his father, Jan Provost the Elder, and likely continued his training in the workshop of Simon Marmion in Valenciennes. Celebrated as the "prince of illumination" by his contemporaries, Marmion was one of the most important manuscript illuminators of his day. Upon Marmion's death, Provost married his widow, Johanna de Quarube. In 1493, Provost joined the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp and in the following year became a citizen of Bruges. He served as president of the Bruges painters' guild in 1519 and 1525, and worked on several important projects for the city throughout his career. Most notably, Provost had the honor of directing Bruges' decorative program for the Triumphal Entry of Charles V in 1520.

Like his contemporary Gerard David, Provost may have operated workshops in both Bruges and Antwerp, and it was in this latter city that he may have first met Albrecht Dürer. In September of 1520, the German artist recorded in his diary that while dining in the house of his friend, the Portuguese Factor, "I took the portrait of Master Jan Prost [Provost] of Bruges, and he gave me 1 fl.-it was done in charcoal." In the early 20th century, Martin Conway convincingly argued that a charcoal drawing on paper in the British Museum (fig. 1) should be identified as this very portrait on the basis of the sitter's similarity to the pointing figure in the background of Provost's Death and the Miser (Groeninge Museum, Bruges), which is almost certainly a self-portrait of the artist (M. Conway, 'Dürer Portraits, Notes', The Burlington Magazine, XXX, no. 187, October 1918, pp. 142-143, 146-147). The following April, Dürer traveled with Provost from Antwerp to Bruges. The German artist writes: "When I reached Bruges Jan Prost took me in to lodge in his house, and prepared the same night a costly meal and bade much company to meet me. So early on Tuesday we went away, but before that I drew with the metal-point the portrait of Jan Prost, and gave his wife 10 st. at parting" (ibid.). As Dürer's remarks reveal, Provost was truly at the center of the artistic community in Renaissance Bruges, and it is intriguing to consider the impact that Dürer and Provost had on one another through this friendship.

At the turn of the century, Provost likely travelled to Jerusalem, possibly via Italy. The present painting's porphyry column, with its boldly-carved composite capital, may correspond to similar architectural elements the artist would have observed on the peninsula during this trip. Provost later served as governor of the Fraternity of Jerusalem Pilgrims, and documentary evidence suggests that he may have been a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

An outstanding example of Jan Provost's early devotional paintings, this The Annunciation had by the 20th century entered the distinguished collection of B.S. Barlow, who owned several great early Netherlandish pictures.

(fig. 1) Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a man, The British Museum, London, © The Trustees of the British Museum Art Resource, NY. 

The striking painting Law and Grace by Lucas Cranach I (Kronach 1472-1553 Weimar) and Lucas Cranach II (Wittenberg 1515-1586 Weimar) is among the most important images of the Protestant Reformation (estimate: $1,500,000-2,500,000). Painted in 1536, the panel illustrates Martin Luther's doctrine of justification by faith with explanatory passages from a German translation of the bible written on papers affixed to its lower and upper edges. With its vivid, jewel-toned palette, deep, panoramic landscapes, and expressive figures, Law and Grace exhibits all of the stylistic hallmarks that placed Lucas Cranach at the forefront of artistic innovation in 16th-century Europe. 

Lucas Cranach I (Kronach 1472-1553 Weimar) and Lucas Cranach II (Wittenberg 1515-1586 Weimar), Law and Grace,  signed with the artist's serpent device and dated '1536' (lower right, on the rock), and extensively inscribed. oil, gold and paper on panel, transferred on panel, 25½ x 47½ (64.8 x 120.6 cm.). Estimate: $1,500,000-2,500,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Anonymous sale; Helbing, Munich, 20 June 1907, lot 2 (according to a file in the Witt Archive, Courtauld Institute).

PROPERTY OF A LADY

Christie’s is honored to be offering the beautiful Northern Renaissance Virgin and Child, circa 1470-1480, which was restituted to the Estate of Max Stern in March 2013, from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (estimate: $400,000-600,000). A stunning object of private devotion, this moving representation of the Virgin and Child, set before a golden background, corresponds to a type popularized in 15th-century Northern Europe by the Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden. Depicting a solemn Virgin Mary tenderly cradling the Christ Child in her arms, the painting is South Netherlandish in character, yet exhibits several key traits suggesting a German origin. 

The Master of the Stern Virgin and Child (active c. 1470-1480), The Virgin and Child, oil on panel, 13 x 9 3/8 in. (33 x 23.8 cm.). Estimate: $400,000-600,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Dr. Alexander Haindorf, Hamm.
Dr. Ernst Theodor Loeb, Galerie Caldenhof, Hamm-Rhynern, Germany; sale, Lepke, Berlin, 8 June 1929, lot 6, as the Master of Flémalle (entry by R. Verres).
with Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf, by April, 1936, as the Master of Flémalle.
Dr. -Ing.e.h. Heinrich Scheufelen, Oberlenningen, by whom donated in 1948 to
The Württenbergische Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, inv. no. 2318, as Circle of the Master of Flémalle, and later as Possibly by the Master of 1473.
Restituted to the Estate of Dr. Max Stern, 2013.

THE MAX STERN ART RESTITUTION PROJECT

Dr. Max Stern (1904-1987), a world renowned art collector and dealer, was born in München-Gladbach, Germany. His father, Julius, was a prominent gallery owner in Düsseldorf, and after earning his doctorate in art history at the University of Bonn, Max entered the family business, taking over the gallery after his father's death in 1934. Just before World War II, Stern was forced to flee the Nazi regime and eventually relocated to Canada. He had lost the contents of his gallery and private collection of valued artworks through forced sale and confiscation. Once in Canada, he and his wife, Iris, became the proprietors of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal, which became a focal point for promoting the work of living Canadian and European artists. Max Stern is remembered for many other contributions to the art world as well, having generously donated hundreds of works and major funds to Canadian, American and Israeli museums and universities.

After his death in 1987, the executors of his Estate established The Max Stern Art Restitution Project and received unwavering support from his university beneficiaries--the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, McGill University, and Concordia University in Montreal. The project's goals are to recover works taken from the late Jewish collector and dealer and to motivate governments, museums, collectors and the art trade to resolve injustices caused by Nazi cultural policies.

Concordia University has led the restitution project, working closely with the Holocaust Claims Processing Office in New York, as well as with the Art Loss Register in London, and the Lost Art Internet Database in Magdeburg. Since its launching, the project has identified 400 artworks lost by Stern, including paintings by Winterhalter, Brueghel and Carracci. Eleven paintings have been restituted to date.

Christie's is honored to be offering the beautiful Northern Renaissance Virgin and Child, which was restituted to the Estate in March 2013, from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart--the first German museum to hand back an artwork in the 10-year history of the Stern Project. Happily, the recovery of the painting also coincides with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf. The official return of this painting was part of a larger event in Berlin in which the Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) passed to Canada. The IHRA is an intergovernmental organization that positions the support of political and social leaders behind the need for Holocaust education, remembrance, and research.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF MAX STERN

Literature: E. Heye, Sammlung Dr. -Ing.e.h. Heinrich Scheufelen, Stuttgart, 1948, p. 26, illustrated, as Circle of the Master of Flémalle. 

Exhibited: Stuttgart, Württenbergische Staatsgalerie, 1948-2013.

The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic, Augustine, Margaret and Barbara by the Master of the Plumped-Cheek Madonnas (active Bruges, first quarter of the 16th-century) is a highlight among the six works in the Renaissance sale offered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to benefit the European Paintings Acquisitions Fund (estimate: $400,000-600,000). 

The Master of the Plump-Cheeked Madonnas (active Bruges, first quarter of the 16th century), The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic, Augustine, Margaret and Barbara, oil on canvas, transferred from panel, 38¾ x 51 in. (98.4 x 129.5 cm.). Estimate: $400,000-600,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: David P. Sellar, London; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6 June 1889, lot 27, as Gerard David.
Jean Dollfus, Paris, by 1904; (+), Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1 April 1912, lot 83, as Gerard David (50,000 FF to Seligmann).
with Jacques Seligmann, Paris, from whom acquired in 1926 by
Georges Blumenthal, New York, by whom bequeathed in 1941 to
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

PROPERTY FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE EUROPEAN PAINTINGS ACQUISITIONS FUND

Literature: A. Alexandre, 'La Collection de M. Jean Dolfus', Les arts, III, 1904, p. 4, as Gerard David.
H. Frantz, 'La curiosité: collections Jean Dollfus (tableaux anciens, objets d'art),' L'art décoratif, XXVI, 5 May 1912, pp. 290-291, as Gerard David.
S. Reinach, Répertoire de peintures du moyen age et de la renaissance (1280-1580), V, Paris, 1922, p. 414, as attributed to Gerard David.
S. Rubinstein-Bloch, 'Paintings-Early Schools,' Catalogue of the Collection of George and Florence Blumenthal, I, Paris, 1926, pl. 50, as possibly by Adrian Isenbrandt.
H.B. Wehle and M. Salinger, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings, New York, 1947, pp. 119-120, as 'Ambrosius Benson (?)'.
F. Bologna, 'Nuove attribuzioni a Jan Provost,' Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts Bulletin, V, 1956, p. 29, n. 18, as not by Benson and related to Provoost.
G. Marlier, Ambrosius Benson et la peinture à Bruges au temps de Charles-Quint, Damme, 1957, p. 335, no. 264, as not by Benson.
E. Larsen. Les primitifs flamands au Musée Metropolitain de New York, Utrecht, 1960, p. 82, as attributed to Ambrosius Benson.
G. Seligman, Merchants of Art: 1880-1960, Eighty Years of Professional Collecting, New York, 1961, p. 120, as Flemish Primitive.
M.W. Ainsworth and K. Christiansen, eds., From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1998, p. 407, as Netherlandish (Antwerp) Painter, 1510.
D. Martens, 'Le Maître aux Madones Joufflues: Essai de monographie sur un anonyme brugeois du XVIme siècle,' Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch LXI, 2000, pp. 112-115, 141, n. 23, figs. 1, 6, 15.
D. Martens, 'Une oeuvre méconnue du Maître aux Madones Joufflues,' Cahiers du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 2002, pp. 30-31.

Exhibited: Colorado, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Old Masters from the Metropolitan, 24 April-30 June 1949 (no catalogue).
Lexington, Washington and Lee University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Loan Exhibit, 30 October 1950-15 January 1951, no. 1, as Ambrosius Benson.
Athens, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 15 February-5 April 1951 (no catalogue).
Oxford, Ohio, School of Fine Arts, Miami University, 1 November-5 December 1952 (no catalogue).
Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, Religious Art of the Western World, 23 March-25 May 1958 (no catalogue).
Wilkes-Barre, Miners National Bank, Loan Exhibition from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1-15 December 1964, no. 3, as Ambrosius Benson.
Columbus, Georgia, Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, A Centenary of a Great Museum: Old Master Paintings, 1 November 1969-31 October 1970.
Billings, Montana, Yellowstone Art Center, Christmas-the Nativity, 1-31 December 1978 (no catalogue).
Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue Art Museum, Five Thousand Years of Faces, 30 January-30 July 1983 (entry by T. Schlotterback).

Notes: In 2000, Didier Martens assembled a group of seven paintings around this serene altarpiece, which he considered to be the most important work by an anonymous Bruges painter active in the first half of the 16th century (op. cit.). Stylistically, these paintings resemble the mature work of Gerard David and Ambrosius Benson, yet are distinguished by the idiosyncratically rounded, full faces of the figures. On the basis of this key and consistent identifying trait, Martens named the artist 'The Master of the Plump-Cheeked Madonnas'.

The present picture is a sacra conversazione, a format popular in mid-15th-century Italy, in which saints from different epochs are grouped together in a single space. The Virgin and Child are enthroned within a vast, verdant landscape with carefully-observed architecture in the distance. They are attended by a court of two male and two female saints, arranged in a frieze-like manner. As Martens has observed, the Mary and Christ figures appear to have been inspired by the designs of Rogier van der Weyden, which were still widely circulating in Bruges around 1500. Martens further noted that the pattern for the Virgin and Child was also used in a painting formerly in the Musées de Liège by a painter in the Circle of Joos van Cleve (ibid., pp. 114-155, fig 3.).

Saint Dominic (1170-1221), the founder of the Dominican Order, stands at the far left, dressed in his black and white habit. Before him is a dog with a lighted torch in its mouth, the traditional emblem of the Dominicans, who, due to the ferociousness of their faith and as a pun on Saint Dominic's name, were known as the "dogs of God" (domini canes). Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) stands to his right, wearing a red and gold mitre decorated with an embossed relief of the Virgin and Child standing on a crescent moon. He holds a crozier and a heart, a symbol of his religious fervor. Flanking the Virgin is Saint Margaret trampling a dragon. According to the Golden Legend, the Prefect of Antioch wished to marry her, but she refused and was jailed. While praying for her true enemy to be revealed, she was swallowed whole by the devil in the form of a dragon. After making the sign of the cross, she burst forth unscathed, and as such became the patron saint of pregnant women. Dressed in an elegant green gown with golden damask sleeves, the radiant Margaret reads from her prayer book while gesturing in benediction with her right hand. As Martens has noted (ibid., p. 114), similar figures are found in the wings of two Bruges altarpieces, the first by the Master of Saint Ildefonse (Musée de Cluny, Paris), and the second by a follower of Pieter Pourbus (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels). In the present painting, Saint Barbara appears at far right, holding a martyr's palm and standing before the tower in which she was imprisoned by her father, Dioscurus, to protect her from suitors. These four saints would have been selected by the patrons, and may have held special significance for the owners of the chapel where the panel was originally displayed. While no donor figures are present, they may have appeared with additional saints in altar wings as this panel likely once formed the central element of a triptych.

The detailed treatment of the vegetation in the foreground is reminiscent of tapestries, the costliest and most luxurious art form of the 16th century. Many of the flowering plants and herbs are identifiable and were chosen for their symbolic significance, including wild strawberries, snapdragons, dandelions (a symbol of Christ's passion), sage, and lily of the valley. Such a meticulous description of plant life is typical of Bruges painting of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and is often found in the work of artists active in the circle of Gerard David. Sensitively-rendered details such as the reflection of the trees on the surface of the water and the minute travelers in the background point to the Master's talent for combining spiritual vision with earthly beauty.

AGE OF VASARI

The Renaissance sale will feature a special selection of 9 works painted in mid to late 16th-century Florence during the so-called “Age of Vasari.” Property sold to benefit the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine will include The Pietà by Giorgio Vasari (Arezzo 1511-1574 Florence) (estimate: $300,000-500,000). Previously unpublished, this Pietà is a significant addition to Vasari’s corpus of paintings. It is typical of the smaller-scale devotional paintings that Vasari made for friends and private patrons during the earlier years of his career and, in particular, prior to his engagement as court artist to Duke Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence in 1555. This work is most likely identifiable as one of two paintings that Vasari made in 1549 for Ludovico da Ragugia, or Ragusa, a Florentine merchant. 

Giorgio Vasari (Arezzo 1511-1574 Florence), The Pietà, oil on panel, 22 5/8 x 17 in. (57.4 x 43.1 cm.). Estimate: $300,000-500,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: (Probably) made for Ludovico da Ragugia, Florence, 1549.

PROPERTY SOLD TO BENEFIT THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE

Literature: (Probably) G. Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass, ed. K. and H.-W. Frey, Munich, 1930, II, p. 868, no 189. 

Exhibited: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012-2013. 

Two exquisite paintings by Alessandro Allori (Florence 1535-1607), Laocoön and Noli me tangere, will also be sold to benefit the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (each estimate: $400,000-600,000). 

Alessandro Allori (Florence 1535-1607), Laocoön, oil on panel, 28 5/8 x 22¼ in. (72.7 x 56.5 cm.). Estimate: $400,000-600,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 14 October 1992, lot 179, as Italian School, 16th Century, where acquired by the present owner.

PROPERTY SOLD TO BENEFIT THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE

Exhibited: Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum, In Celebration: Works of art from the collections of Princeton alumni and friends of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 22 February-8 June 1997, no. 139.
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome, 29 May-7 September 2009, no. 92 (entry by L. Feinberg).

Notes: On the 14th of January, 1506, a group of ancient statues was accidentally discovered by a farmer digging in his vineyard on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. Pope Julius II (r. 1503-1513) was immediately notified, and promptly sent his most trusted expert, the architect Giuliano da Sangallo, to inspect the site. Years later, his son Francesco da Sangallo recounted the event:

The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near S. Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them. He set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions." Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw, all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence (quoted and translated in L. Barkan, Unearthing the Past, New Haven, 1999, p. 3.)
In the 16th century, the most famous account of the tragic death of the high priest Laocoön and his sons was Virgil's Aeneid. The ancient Roman poet describes how during the Trojan war the mainland Greeks, having feigned retreat, hid inside a great wooden horse ("Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!") they had left on the battlefield. Suspecting treachery, Laocoön warned his fellow Trojans by shouting "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!", but was ignored. Shortly thereafter, while Laocoön was preparing to sacrifice a bull according to his priestly duties, the gods sent two enormous serpents from the sea to attack him and his sons. The Trojan's interpreted Laocoön's horrific death as a sign of the divine disapproval of their refusal of the Greek's gift, and so they brought the wooden horse into their city, leading to its sack.

The rediscovery of the Laocoön in 1506 had a profound impact on Italian Renaissance art. Sangallo recounts that the sculptural group was instantly recognizable due to Pliny the Elder's glowing description of it in his first-century Natural History, which at the time was considered the most important and trusted account of the lost artistic treasures of ancient Rome. According to Pliny, the Laocoön was "a work superior to any painting and any bronze" [Natural History 36.37]. The sculpture was all the more praiseworthy, he continues, because it was the result of a collaboration between three sculptors--Hagesandros, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes--and was carved out of a single block of marble. To Michelangelo and his fellow artists, its reemergence must have been understood as divine providence: precisely at a time when they were striving to equal or even surpass the great achievements of their ancient predecessors, a fabled masterpiece literally reappeared out of the ground before their eyes. Immediately upon its discovery, Michelangelo and his companions began to draw the statue and converse about its relationship not only to other wonders of Antiquity, but also to the great works of their own day. As Leonard Barkan has noted, in this way "the unearthed object becomes the place of exchange not only between words and pictures but also between antiquity and modern times and between one artist and another (ibid.)". Soon after the Laocoön resurfaced, Pope Julius purchased it and had it transferred to the Cortile Belvedere. The boldly-carved statue (fig. 1), with its emotionally-charged figures in contorted, twisting poses, proved a powerful source of inspiration not only for Michelangelo, but also for his great contemporaries Raphael and Titian. It would also profoundly influence key Mannerist artists of succeeding generations, including Giorgio Vasari, Giambologna, and Alessandro Allori, the pupil and adoptive son of Agnolo Bronzino.

In the present painting, Laocoön and his sons struggle violently against the two serpents in precisely the same poses in which they appear in the ancient statue, which Allori almost certainly would have encountered on his first visit to Rome in 1554-1556. Allori has even replicated the figures' draperies down to the cloth that falls from the son's shoulder to the floor on the right--a detail that in the sculpture is required to support the weight of the marble, but here serves no apparent function. Notably, the painter situates the scene of Laocoön's death inside a simple courtyard with a classically-inspired archway opening onto a landscape. This architectural setting is more reminiscent of Bramante's Cortile Belvedere than the river bank outside the city of Troy described by Virgil. Allori's reference to the Laocoön's modern installation in the Vatican, together with the conspicuous inclusion of the ancient statue's stepped pedestal below his figures, signals his true intention for this painting. The artist assumes the role of a modern Pygmalion, surpassing mere earthly powers of representation by bringing the sculpture to life, not by the magic of the gods, but rather, by the power of his brush. In this manner, Allori evokes the Paragone, the philosophical debate over the relative merits of painting versus sculpture. The painter enhances the cold, white marble sculpture with colors taken from nature. The warm flesh-tones of Laocoön and his sons and the cool greens and yellows of the snakes' tactily immediate scales find no parallel in the art of sculpture as it was understood in the Renaissance. Likewise Allori's landscape - conceived according to the principles of atmospheric perspective with orange and pink tones gradually fading into light blues - creates an illusion of distance that the plastic arts cannot achieve. By "improving" upon the original statue in these ways, Allori makes a compelling case for painting's mimetic superiority over its sister art.

As Larry Feinberg recently observed, the Laocoön's struggling figures would find their way into several of Allori's other works (loc. cit.). For instance, the painter drew inspiration from the sculpture for his crucified thieves in his Deposition in the Prado (c. 1570-1575) and the figure in the upper right of his Deposition in the church of Santa Croce, Florence (finished in 1571). Feinberg dates the present painting to the same period in which Allori created these two paintings, that is, around the time he was working on the paintings for Francesco de Medici's studiolo in Florence. In these years, the painter was moving away from the style of Bronzino and embracing a more Michelangelesque aesthetic - in particular the twisting, energetic postures, powerful musculature, and intense emotion that Michelangelo had himself distilled from the Laocoön's example. Indeed, the figures of Allori's Laocoön are closely related to the hyper-muscular, contorted bodies found in his Pearl Gatherers and the Banquet of Cleopatra (both Palazzo Vecchio, Florence). The present painting compares even more closely to Allori's Abduction of Proserpine (Getty Museum, Los Angeles), in which the principal figures are likewise conceived as twisting, sculptural forms, swelling with energy. The latter work is signed and dated 1570, providing a strong reference point for the dating of the present painting (ibid.).

(fig. 1) Laocoön, prior to 20th century restoration, with extended arm (marble), Greek Vatican Museums and Galleries, Vatican City Alinari The Bridgeman Art Library. 

Alessandro Allori (Florence 1535-1607), Noli me tangere, signed and dated and inscribed 'NEL.A.M.D.99/ALESSANDRO BRONZINO/ALLORI DIPINGEVA' (lower center), oil on panel, 24¼ x 19¼ in. (61.5 x 48.8 cm.). Estimate: $400,000-600,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Palazzo Borghese, Rome, by 1872; sale, Giacomini & Campobachi, Rome, 7 April 1892, lot 666.
Giuseppe Volpi, 1st Count of Misurata (1877-1947), Rome, by 1929, and by descent to
Giovanni Colpi, Count of Misurata; his sale, Laurin & Gillaux, Palazzo Volpi, Rome, 11 October 1972, lot 109.
with Trinity Fine Art, London, 2004, where acquired by the present owner.

PROPERTY SOLD TO BENEFIT THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE

Literature: J. Meyer, Allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, Leipzig, 1872, I, p. 505.
C. Gamba, 'A proposito di Alessandro Allori e di un suo ritratto', in Dalla Rivista del Reale Istituto d'archeologia e storia dell'arte, I, 1929, pp. 274-275, fig. 9, as dated 1590.
A. Venturi, La Pittura del Cinquecento in Storia dell'arte italiana, VI, Milan, 1933, pp. 108-109, fig. 70.
L. Berti, 'Note brevi su inediti toscani', Bollettino d'Arte, XXXVIII, no. 2, 1953, p. 280, as dated 1590.
A Selection of Italian Drawings from North American Collections, exhibition catalogue, Montreal, p. 33.
S. L. Giovannoni, Alessandro Allori, Turin, 1991, pp. 263, 274-275, no. 117; p. 289, under no. 152, as dated 1590.

Exhibited: London, Trinity Fine Arts, 23 June-9 July 2004, no. 1.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012-2013.

The subject of this exquisite panel is based on a passage in John (20:17), which recounts the Resurrected Christ appearing before Mary Magdalene. At first, she thinks he is a gardener, but when she recognizes him and falls at his feet he instructs her not to touch him. Here, Christ carries a banner with the sign of the cross, symbolizing his triumph over death. Mary, her curly red-blond hair falling in waves over her shoulders, has just made her discovery and dropped to her knees before the Redeemer. The scene takes place in an elegant Italian villa garden surrounded by a crenellated wall and adorned with typically Florentine architectural decorations in pietra serena. A stately row of cypress trees rises up at right, and in the background, a pergola adorned with blooming vines stands out against the gentle glow of a spring sunset.

One of the most important painters active in Florence in the second half of the 16th century, Alessandro Allori was the pupil and adopted son of Bronzino and the father of Cristofano Allori, the distinguished Florentine painter of the early Baroque period. Alessandro's work reveals a deep respect for the bel disegno of the masters of the golden age of Florentine art, including Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto and, of course, Bronzino. His style, however, incorporates a variety of contemporary influences and his landscapes in particular may reflect firsthand knowledge of Northern painters such as Paul Bril.

After an early sojourn in Rome from 1554-1560, during which he studied antique statuary and the works of Michelangelo, Allori returned to Florence and became a favored artist of the Florentine elite. His paintings for the prestigious Salviati, cousins of the Medici, include mythological panels at Alamanno Salviati's villa at Ponte alla Badia, near Florence, and fresco decorations for Jacopo Salviati's Florentine palazzo as well as for his family chapel in the monastery of San Marco. Allori also frequently painted for the Medici; his frescoes in the Salone Grande of the family villa at Poggio a Caiano, near Florence, comprise his most important secular commission, and his iconic Pearl Fishers of 1570-1571, which decorates the western wall of Francesco de' Medici's studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, remains one of the most memorable images of the Florentine maniera.

The present picture was first published in in 1872, when it was still a part of the Borghese collection, as 'an important work in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, where one sees Christ portrayed as a gardener holding a vessel before the kneeling Magdalen, depicted as a gentlewoman with a beautiful head and a languid expression, wearing a lace collar and shawl' (Meyer, loc. cit.). Nearly fifty years later, Carlo Gamba saw theNoli me tangere in the collection of Count Volpi of Misurata in Rome. Gamba extolled the panel's 'delightful' qualities, pointing out the dignified serenity of the sacred figures and marveling at the soft evening light which envelops them:

'Calmo e nobilmente misurato nel gesto e nei severi drappeggi, che oramai rivestono d'austerità le sacre figure si manifesta l'Allori nel deliziosio Noli me tangere del Conte Volpi di Misurata del 1590, ove Christo e la Maddalena circonfusi di luce vespertina spiccano nel fondo cupo d'un classico giardino con archi e alberi contro il chiarore del cielo.' ['A calmness and noble restraint in gesture and in the severe garments, which enhance the austerity of the sacred figures, are manifested by Allori in the delightful Noli me tangere of 1590 owned by the Count Volpi of Misurata, in which Christ and the Magdalene are surrounded by evening light, set off out against the dark background of a classical garden with arches and trees before the glowing sky.'] (loc. cit.).

None of the scholars who subsequently published the picture had the opportunity to see it in person: Venturi (1933) and Berti (1953) relied on Gamba's black and white photograph, and in her 1991 catalogue raisonné on Allori, Giovannoni listed it as lost. Understandably, these scholars repeated Gamba's misreading of the date, which current examination has revealed to be '99', thus placing the panel nine years later than traditionally thought. As such, this recently rediscovered Noli me tangere provides valuable insight into Allori's most mature phase.

As Giovannoni notes, after 1580 Allori began to move away from the example of Bronzino, developing the highly refined, polished mode of his final years, in which the elegance of his figures and the intensity of their relationships became increasingly accentuated, often to great poetic effect (op. cit., p. 262). Two other versions of the Noli me tangere subject by Allori survive: a canvas of similar composition in the Confraternita della Misericordia, Arezzo, recorded as having once been dated 1584 (fig. 1; see Giovannoni, op. cit. no. 97), and a fresco of the mid-1580s from a series of scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene in the Palazzo Salviati, Florence (see Giovannoni, op. cit., no. 70). The present work is Allori's last known treatment of the subject, and typical of his most serenely spiritual mature paintings: crisply delineated as tangible presences, Mary and Christ at the same time evoke the sort of grace appropriate to holy figures. With the glow of a cruciform halo emanating behind him, Christ reaches out to bless Mary with an almost Baptismal gesture. Their gazes are imbued with remarkable intensity: lost in mutual contemplation, they seem indifferent to the loveliness of their surroundings, which unfold toward a radiant pink and blue sky behind, enhancing the poetry of the moment.

The importance of landscape evident in the present picture is characteristic of Allori's most mature works--those datable to after 1590--which reflect his developing interest in Flemish and Venetian painting. Several paintings from the last years of the artist's life demonstrate this new emphasis on richly described naturalistic backgrounds, including the Sacrifice of Isaac of 1601 in the Uffizi, Florence; the Christ in the House of Mary and Martha of 1605 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 2); and the St. Jerome in Penitence of 1606 in the Princeton University Art Museum. The prominence of the landscape in the present work is especially notable in light of the drawing upon which it was based (fig. 3), which was made some ten years earlier in preparation for a series of overdoor tapestries with scenes from the New Testament, woven between 1588 and 1598. While the drawing, and the tapestry for which it served as a design, repeat the general contours of the background, the landscape setting in the present panel is enhanced with myriad rich details and infused with the subtle tonality of approaching twilight.

The Noli me tangere has an illustrious provenance: from at least 1872 it was part of the celebrated Borghese collection in Rome, housed in the magnificent Villa Borghese outside the Porta Pinciana. In the spring of 1892 it was sold, along with the contents of the Villa Borghese. The entry in the auction catalogue, in which the correct date of 1599 is indicated, reads:

'La Madeleine et Jésus Christ. Madeleine agenouillée, ses cheveux blonds dénonés retombant sur les épaules, vêtue d'une robe brune et d'un manteau vert, contemple avec admiration Notre-Seigneur qui debout et tenant une bannière à longue hampe dans la main gauche, lève le bras vers elle; robe rouge et manteau bleu. Un jardin avec berceau, entouré de murs crénelés, et des collines à l'horizon, forment le fond. Tableau d'un beau caractère et d'une grande finesse d'exècution; signè et datge: = NEL. A. M. D. 99 = ALESSANDRO BRONZINO = ALLORI DIPINGEVA.'

By the early 20th century, the Noli me tangere had entered the collection of Giuseppe Volpi, 1st Count of Misurata, a diplomat and Italy's leading industrialist. Often referred to as the 'Last Doge', Volpi served as Italy's Finance Minister from 1925-1928, successfully negotiating Italy's First World War debt repayments to the United States and England. Among other achievements, he was Chairman of the Venice Biennale and founder, in 1932, of the Venice Film Festival. He and his wife, the Countess Nathalie Volpi di Misurata, were pillars of contemporary Roman and Venetian society, hosting magnificent annual balls at their palaces in Rome and Sabaudia that were attended by guests from Cole Porter to Winston Churchill and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. By wish of Pope John XXIII, Count Volpi was buried in the basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, one of the greatest churches in the city. The Palazzo Volpi in Rome, where the present picture was housed, overlooks the city and the once-Royal gardens from 15,000 feet of terraces and five floors. It was built in the 17th century by the architect Alessandro Specchi, who also designed the Spanish Steps in Rome.

(fig. 1) Alessandro Allori, Noli me tangere, Confraternita della Misericordia, Arezzo.
(fig. 2) Alessandro Allori, Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Photo Credit : Erich Lessing Art Resource, NY.
(fig. 3) Alessandro Allori, Noli me tangere, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven.

Another highlight of the “Age of Vasari” is a Portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-74) by the great Florentine artist, Jacopo Pontormo (Pontormo, near Empoli 1494-1556 Florence) (estimate: $300,000-500,000). This imposing portrait of Cosimo I de’ Medici was created around 1537- 1538, just after he was elected Duke of Florence in January 1537 at the age of 18. A work of the artist’s mature phase, the portrait typifies Pontormo’s approach to the genre, in which the elegantly elongated and haughtily posed sitter seems intensely alive as a psychological presence. 

Jacopo Carucci, called Jacopo Pontormo (Pontormo, near Empoli 1494-1556 Florence), Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-74), half-length, in a black slashed doublet and a plumed hat, holding a book, oil (or oil and tempera) on panel, 39½ x 30¼ in. (100.6 x 77 cm.). Estimate: $300,000-500,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2014.

Provenance: Riccardo Romolo Riccardi (1558-1612), before 1612, Florence, and thence by descent until at least 1814.
Charles T.D. Crews, London; (+), Christie's, London, 2 July 1915, lot 144, as Bronzino, where acquired by the following.
with Pawsey & Payne, London.
Sir Thomas Merton, Winforton House, Hereford (according to Witt Library Mount).
with F.A. Drey, London.
Lord Burton, England.
with Wildenstein & Co., New York, by 1952, from whom acquired in 1980 by the present owner.

THE AGE OF VASARI

The Age of Vasari is a useful if broad catch phrase for the period in Italian art from c. 1520-1580, when the so called Mannerist style, as developed in Florence and Rome in painting, sculpture, and architecture, was diffused throughout Italy and all Europe. Vasari, born in Arezzo in Tuscany, was himself a leading Mannerist painter, but is best known for his great biographical work, the Lives of the Artists, in which he chronicles the careers of Italian masters past and present in unprecedented depth, anticipating modern art history. According to Vasari, the arts in Italy had evolved to perfection in the work of Michelangelo, and the High Renaissance of the early Cinquecento, dominated by Raphael and Leonardo as well as Michelangelo, still seems from today's perspective to have achieved exemplary harmony in an Italy otherwise beset by political strife and foreign incursions. Indeed Raphael's fresco of The School of Athens in the Vatican (1509-1510; fig. 1), though the philosophers are Greek, evokes in monumental form the stability of a long-vanished Roman imperium that had lasted well over a millennium. But just as the Roman Empire was undermined by internal disruption, so the High Renaissance point of balance was not destined to last. Indeed the seeds of change were already present in one of its greatest achievements, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (fig. 2). Here the energetic and complex body language and the bright aggressive color contrasts adumbrate the more restless style of the next generation where sophisticated artifice and virtuosity were prized over naturalism, and abstruse compositions and subject matter were preferred to narrative clarity.

In Rome, all the arts were dominated by the juggernaut figure of Michelangelo. To imitate him was not condemned as uncreative eclecticism but honored as appropriate homage to an unsurpassable exemplar. In Michelangelo's Last Judgment, completed in 1541, the whole company, both damned and elect, seem weighed down by the gross physicality of the human condition. We live in a world of sin and can only be saved by divine fiat. The helplessness of man in the face of the Almighty is a somewhat Protestant concept from a Roman point of view, so the Last Judgment, also criticized for indecorous nudity, excited unease as well as reverence and awe. In Florence, the other principle fount of the Mannerist style, Michelangelo's unsettling influence was also pervasive and in a masterpiece of the first generation of Florentine Mannerism, Pontormo'sDeposition (fig. 3) of 1528, the Christ immediately recalls Michelangelo's canonical sculpture of the Pietà in Saint Peter's. The balletic grace of the figures, the pale surreal colors and the trance-like but very dead Christ with leaden eyelids and lips, conjure up a dreamlike atmosphere from which the anthropo-centric certainties of Renaissance humanism have been banished in favor of something approaching the transcendental Christianity of Byzantium and Hagia Sofia. In the Deposition by Rosso (fig. 4), the other great master of this generation of Mannerism in Florence, there is by contrast something devilish and infernal in the vicious angular poses, the razor-sharp draperies, and the aggressive Michelangelesque colors which evoke the dismal agony of earthly grief rather than the otherworldly promise of redemption in the Pontormo.

In the group of paintings on offer, the influence of Rosso is clearly apparent in the confrontational and angular Madonna and Child by Carlo Portelli and that of Pontormo in the balletic grace of Mirabello Cavalori'sEntombment. In the latter, form dominates content in a typical display of Mannerist complexity, and the subject matter is swamped by the graceful drift of the figures. The same sort of effect can be seen in a fresco by Bronzino, Pontormo's pupil, of the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (fig. 5) in the eponymous church in Florence where the saint on the grill is overwhelmed by the other figures in a riot of athletic visual gymnastics.

At the height of the age of Vasari, in the mid-16th century, Rome was fully theocratic under a papacy enriched by tribute from all over Europe and the New World. In Florence, the rule of the Medici was less oligarchic than in times past and firmly autocratic under the Grand Duke Cosimo, who came to power in 1537. The Medici had risen to prominence through the wool trade and banking, and gilded the lily by magnificent patronage of the arts. They had their ups and downs, including periods of exile, but by the end of the 16th century, were secure in the European political pantheon, furnishing four popes and two Queens of France. The court of Cosimo was conspicuously splendid but he could never have survived without the backing of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and predominant power in Italy. His glittering court will be forever identified with the cold elegance of Bronzino's portraits, which are raised to greatness by a hint of the tensions burgeoning beneath the polished carapace of 16th-century high life. Bronzino rated as a portrait specialist but his master Pontormo painted portraits on a more occasional basis. His portrait of Cosimo shortly after his accession forms a remarkable contrast with his Getty Halberdier (fig. 6), thought by some to represent an idealized, adolescent Cosimo, rigged out in the smartest para-military gear, romantically defending his native city. The work here on offer shows him in sober civilian guise but with a sense of mastery appropriate to his aristocratic role and the claims of the Medici to primacy. As with Velasquez's early portraits of Spanish royalty, he has no need of showy costume to demonstrate his authority.

Few people would rate Vasari himself on the same level as Pontormo, Rosso, or Bronzino, and he never painted anything so attractive as the luscious tapestry-like fresco decorations by his friend Francesco Salviati. As an architect he is more original, and his Uffizi, designed as government offices, anticipates the 20th-century office block in its dry, modular style. However, as the Pietà in the present group shows, he is often a more expressive artist than his somewhat academic reputation suggests. Vasari was a highly influential artistic impresario and in 1570-1572 he helped design a key Mannerist project, the studiolo of Francesco dei Medici (Cosimo's successor) in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. This cycle of small paintings, inspired by Francesco's collections of minerals and curiosities, is the epitome of Mannerist elitism in its ultra-sophisticated refinement and abstruse pseudo-scientific subject matter. Unfortunately, for the Council of Trent, established in 1545 to reform the church in the face of the Protestant challenge, the studiolo set a bad example. An art of greater clarity was called for, especially in religious paintings, where the message and stories of the scripture could be more accessible to the layman. Inevitably the Tridentine mandate achieved mixed results. Religious art became easier to read but much of it was pedantic and formulaic. The chief culprit here was Federico Zuccaro, the doyen of late Mannerism in Italy. Zuccaro redeemed himself by his brilliance as a draftsman but it remains a mystery why he and his followers failed to translate the incisive virtuosity of their drawings into the more formal medium of painting and fresco.

A more successful response to Tridentine ideals is represented in the present group by Alessandro Allori's Noli me tangere. Allori was Bronzino's adopted nephew but here he has outgrown his Mannerist origins in favor of a much more realistic style, which is easier to read. Typical of this new emphasis is the costume of the Magdalen, which is not generalized like Christ's but based on contemporary fashion. On close inspection, Christ's right arm is unusually long and his hands, like the Magdalen's, exceptionally large. This adroit exaggeration, in an age where rhetoric still mattered, gives gesture a leading role in a way that was soon to be spectacularly exploited by Caravaggio in his Supper at Emmaus in London (fig. 7). In this very fine late work, Allori has embraced the realism of the early Baroque in a foretaste of 17th-century Baroque classicism.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF BARBARA PIASECKA JOHNSON
PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE BARBARA PIASECKA JOHNSON FOUNDATION

Literature: MS., Archivio di Stato, Florence, Carte Riccardi, fil. 258, n. 1.
MS., Archivio di Stato, Florence, Carte Riccardi, fil. 278, c. 15.
B. Berenson, I Pittori italiani del rinascimento, Milan 1948, p. 272, no. 133, reproduced.
H. Keutner, "Zu einigen Bildnissen des frühen Florentiner Manierismus," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, VIII, 1959, p. 152.
G. Rosenthal, 'Bacchiacca and his friends. Comments on the exhibition', The Baltimore Museum of Art News, XXIV, no. 2, 1961, pp. 14-15, 58, no. 56.
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School, London, 1963, I, p. 181.
K.W. Forster, 'Probleme um Pontormos Porträtmalerei (I)', Pantheon, XXII, 1964, p. 380, as by workshop of Bronzino, datable to c. 1540-41.
L. Berti, Pontormo, Florence 1964, p. 101.
R.B. Simon, Bronzino's Portraits of Cosimo I de' Medici, Ph.D., Columbia University, 1982, pp. 181-187, 343, as close to Pontormo.
P. Costamagna and A. Fabre, Les portraits florentins du début du XVI siècle à l'avènement de Cosimo I: catalogue raisonné d'Albertinelli à Pontormo, II, Paris 1986, pp. 384-388, no. 98.
J. Cox-Rearick, 'The Influence of Pontormo's Portrait', in Christie's sale catalogue, New York, 31 May 1989.
L. Berti, 'L' Alabardiere del Pontormo, Critica d'Arte, LVI, 1990, p. 46, as workshop of Bronzino.
P. Costamagna, Pontormo, Milan 1994, pp. 242-244, no. 79.
A. Forlani Tempesti and A. Giovannetti, Pontormo, Florence, 1994, p. 142, no. 48, repeats earlier attributions.
E. Cropper, L'Officina della Maniera, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Uffizi, 1996, p. 380, no. 142.
E. Cropper, Pontormo. Portrait of a Halberdier, Los Angeles 1997, pp. 100-105, no. 52.
A. Pinelli, La bellezza impure: Arte e politica nell'Italia del Rinascimento, Rome 2004, p. 129.
F. Russell, 'A Portrait of a Young Man in Black by Pontormo', The Burlington Magazine, CL, October 2008, p. 676.

Exhibited: Burlington House, 1888.
Houston, Allied Arts Association, Masterpieces of Painting through Six Centuries, 16-27 November 1952.
Baltimore, Museum of Art, Bacchiacca and His Friends: Florentine Paintings and Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, 10 January-19 February, 1961, no. 56.
Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Style, Truth, and The Portrait, 1 October-10 November 1963, no. 2.
Florence, Uffizi, L'officina della maniera, 18 September 1996-6 January 1997, no. 380.