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

Chap. III. MADONNA, TRIVULZIO COLLECTION 85
and ungainly. The woodwork of the throne is light in colour ; the robe of
the Madonna is of a deep cherry red, a shade rarely met with in the works
of Foppa, her mantle pale blue, lined with sage green. The landscape is
composed altogether in his spirit and in touch is closely connected with his
manner in many other works ;
the lights on the trees and bushes are put in
with white, and not with gold, as is often the case in paintings of this date.
The workmanship throughout must always have been coarser and far less
careful than in the Castello Madonna; but in spite of this, of its divergency
in some particulars from Foppa's typical methods, and of its present damaged
condition, the panel must certainly be included in the category of the master's
genuine works. As in the picture of the Castello Museum, Foppa here
introduces a motive much in vogue with the painters of Northern and Central
Italy,
the string of red beads suspended above the head of the Virgin, these
two pictures being the only examples by him known to us in which this
decorative accessory appears. In this instance it hangs from the cord,
stretched across the top of the picture, which supports the cloth of honour
forming the background to the figure of the Madonna. Owing presumably to
the injured condition of the picture, it is not exhibited in the gallery, but is
kept in the depot.
Not far from these two pictures in the chronological development of Foppa
should, we think, be placed the Madonnas mentioned above, in the collections
of Prince Trivulzio and Mr. Berenson, the former being perhaps the
earlier of the two, though later in date, we should assume, than the Virgins of
the Castello and of the Berlin Gallery. The weakness of drawing noticeable
in the Trivulzio Madonna, especially in the leg and foot of the Infant Saviour
and in the outline of the Madonna's throat, might indeed induce some to reject
it altogether from the category of the master's genuine paintings; yet the
picture contains so many individual traits
distinctive of Foppa, that we think
it must certainly be included among his authentic, though less successful,
works. Many of the outward characteristics which we found in the Noseda
picture are present here : the type of the Madonna with the straight nose
and heavy eyelids, the opaque quality of the iris in both the Virgin and
Child, and the form of the lips of the Infant Saviour. The manner in which
the hands are drawn shows a great advance upon the hands in the Noseda
picture ; the left is a development of the hand of the Virgin in the Castello,
while the right is more nearly connected with the type of hand found in
Jacopo Bellini's drawings,' and this picture, in the feeling of the charming
composition and in the general design—equally with the three other
Madonnas to be mentioned immediately—is a further distinct proof of Foppa's
' See especially Giraudon, No. 745.