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

Chap. VIII. ADORATION OF THE MAGI, NATIONAL GALL. 209
have found in all the works of Foppa asserts itself more and more in his
later paintings, and is so marked in
the head of St. Joseph and in the features of
two of the Magi, that the Brescian master here appears as the direct forerunner
of Luini ; from this point of view the picture is an important link in a chain of
development showing the lines upon which the Lombard school of Foppa
might have proceeded had it followed its natural course undeterred by
Leonardesque influence. Side by side with these types we have the strikingly
Foppesque figure of the page who holds the crown of the kneeling king,
and the vigorous and life-like figures of the negro king and of the horseman
with uncovered head behind the second of the Magi, whose features are
modelled in
Foppa's characteristic manner and whose pose and gesture recall
the similar figure in the Justice of Trajan, the drawing in the Print Room at
Berlin, to which allusion was made in chap. 11 (see illustration). It is interesting
to compare the two compositions and to note the connection between them,
though the picture is certainly much later in date than the drawing. In
decorative details and other particulars the master returns in the National
Gallery altarpiece to
the methods of an earlier period, and in the painting of
brocaded stuff's and embossed ornament fifteenth century taste still prevails.
The draperies are adorned as before with borders composed of letters treated
decoratively in imitation of embroidery ; to the second king the master gives
a mantle of jewel-like red with golden lights brilliant as translucent enamel,
which in texture and handling recalls the robe of the early Madonna in the
Castello at Milan ; the jewels are treated precisely as in the Brera altarpiece,
some being indicated by small sunk hollows glazed with the colour of the
precious stone which the painter desired to represent ;* the crowns of the
Three Kings are very similar in design to the crown of the Madonna in
the central panel of that altarpiece, and the decorative motives throughout the
picture recall those in the Brera polyptych and in many other works by the
master. The fragment of an arch behind the Madonna, with its massive pier,
is drawn with remarkable skill and knowledge and great freedom and sureness
of hand, and in treatment closely resembles the architectural features and
details in the two compositions of the St. Sebastian. The horses are still
curiously reminiscent of Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini, though treated in a more
modern spirit, and in the retinue of the Magi in the background we are once
more reminded of the Regisole. In every part of this interesting picture we
have evidence of Foppa's hand, but in spite of the fact that in certain particulars
the master has reverted to the methods of a more primitive period, we
think, taking into consideration the greater development of the whole, that
^
For this and other questions of technique see Mrs. Herringham's note in App. I,
No. 6, and also Cr. and Cav., II, p. S, note,
p