Vincenzo Foppa of Brescia, founder of the Lombard school, his life ...

Chap. II. FRESCO AT HERTFORD HOUSE 53
The great charm of the composition lies in its extreme simplicity, in the
winning expression of the child, who studies his Cicero with absorbed attention,
and in the natural pose and easy grace of the figure.
The flesh painting and modelling of the head are of remarkable beauty,
and the whole work, according to the opinion of an expert in technique,
is, with the exception of a few unimportant retouchings, practically in
its original state. This is the more remarkable as for several centuries
the fresco must have been exposed to the action of the weather ; it must
also have successfully survived the processes of restoration which the
building is known to have undergone, and especially that of 1688, when
the house was owned by Count Barnaba Barbo.' For all technical
questions relating to this work and its present condition we refer our
readers to Mrs. Herringham's note in Appendix I, which, as the opinion
of one of the most accomplished connoisseurs of technique in England
expressed after a close and searching examination of the fresco, is of special
interest and carries great weight.
Unlike the few remaining fragments of fresco by Foppa, which have
all been transferred to panel or canvas, and have in consequence suffered
severely, this is a portion of the actual wall of the Medici Bank. Hence
the authoritative attribution to Foppa is of the very first importance, for
it restores to him what is undoubtedly the most beautiful existing example
of his work as a fresco painter and the most notable criterion of his style
in this branch of art which we possess. But in classing this fresco among the
works of Foppa, it is scarcely necessary to observe that it has nothing to do
with the series in the loggia on the left of the entrance, executed, as we
assumed, between 1462 and 1467, a series which included the portraits of
Francesco Sforza, his wife and children. The whole aspect of the painting
proves that it must have been produced at a later period, and though it agrees
in some particulars with the Brera altarpiece, it is certainly maturer and more
advanced in date. If it could be proved that the child actually represents
Gian Galeazzo Sforza, we should then have a sufficiently certain chronological
basis for the production of the work, for Gian Galeazzo, born in 1469, would,
judging from the age of the child here represented, have been ten or twelve
when this fresco was painted, and we might assume that the latest date to
which it could be assigned would then be 1481. But have we any more justification
in this case for the name of Gian Galeazzo, than for that of Pico
della Mirandola, by which it appears to have been known in the time of
Monger! ? This brings us once more to the difficult question of the
history and origin of the fresco.
^ De Pagave, op. cU., p. 332, note, and Casati, op. cit., p. 588.