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

90 VINCENZO FOPPA
arms of the cross which is seen against the dark blue background, and on
either side are the reed and spear.
The owner of this picture and Morelli (who saw it when it was first
acquired), considered it to be not much later than the Crucifixion of 1456.^
The drawing of the cranium certainly recalls that of the central figure in the
picture at Bergamo, and the hands, in form, come very near to the hands of the
Trivulzio and Berenson Madonnas. The expression of the head is significant
and touching, though the type is unusually soft and gentle. The outline is
still rigid and primitive, but the modelling of the body is remarkably good for
so early a date, and in this particular it is interesting to compare the drawing
of the form with the figure in the three versions of the St. Sebastian, with the
Dead Christ in the Pieta of the Berlin Gallery, and with that of the Bernasconi
Collection, all works of much later date.'^
Innumerable examples of this subject are met with in every branch of art
from the fourteenth century onwards;^ and among panel paintings this picture
may have been the prototype of a vast number of works of the school, many of
which are still existing in North Italy and in Liguria. An example in fresco
which in some respects comes fairly near to the master himself, though it is
manifestly on a lower plane than the Conway picture, is reproduced in
chap. X.*
^ This is also the opinion of Dr. Gustav Pauli, see Zeitschrift fiir bildende Kunst,
Neue Folge X, Heft 5, p. 106, 1898. In the case of pictures in private collections, the
opinion of an owner who is also a connoisseur, would certainly carry more weight than
that of an outsider, to whom only a brief and casual inspection
of the picture would be
possible. Hence, though opinions may differ as to the chronology of this work judging
from the photographic reproduction, the views of the owner, based upon long years of
intimate acquaintance with the picture, and supported by the verdict of Morelli, whose
knowledge of Lombard art was probably unrivalled, must be accepted as the most likely
to be correct.
"
Chaps. VI and viii.
^ The subject is sometimes erroneously termed the " Ecce Homo" (see note to the
predella of the Brera altarpiece, chap, v, p. 121), though, as pointed out by the author
of the History of On I- Lord . . in . . Art, " if further distinguished as the Eucharistic
Ecce Homo, no fitter title could be bestowed upon it." The mode of representation
hardly varies: "the figure is always erect, self-supporting, and therefore alive, yet
with His eyes closed . . and with those signs on His body which show that He has
already undergone the death of the Cross" (II, pp. 92, 360 and foil.). The significance
of this composition is readily understood when we remember that the original
purpose of this class of subject was to adorn the door of the ciborium.
* Among examples of this subject may be mentioned one at Brescia which, in composition,
appears to approach nearly to the pictures mentioned in the text. It is a fresco
at
the corner of the Via S. Martino and Via Moretto, but the wire grille which protects
the painting renders it impossible to see more than the general outline.