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

Chap. IX. SCHOOL PICTURES: MILAN AND PAVIA 239
The lunette fresco of the Dead Christ standing- in the tomb, to which we
alluded in chap, in when speaking of the composition belonging to Sir Martin
Conway, is catalogued with the works of Foppa in the Brcra, though with
the remark that even if the hand of the master himself cannot be discerned in
it, it nevertheless shows his influence, which is certainly true. It came, like
the fresco of 1485 and the St. Sebastian, from S. Maria di Brera, where it
occupied a place over a door. In spite of its injured condition it shows considerable
affinity with Foppa in modelling and expression, and in the general
lines of the composition, and may certainly be regarded as one of the
best among the numerous examples of this subject referred to on p. 90,
of which Sir Martin Conway's picture was perhaps the prototype. The
position now assigned to it in the Brera, above the fresco of 1485 and in
close proximity to the St. Sebastian, facilitates the most minute comparison,
which serves to prove that it can only be regarded as a good work of the
master's school.
To Foppa some critics are now disposed to attribute the altarpiece once in
the Bottigella Chapel in the Church of S. Tommaso at Pavia, and now in the
Academy of Painting in that city, which has also been ascribed to Bergognone
and Bernardino de' Rossi. It represents the Madonna and Child enthroned
between SS. Jerome, Stephen, John Baptist, and Matthew ; in front kneel the
donors Giovanni Matteo Bottigella and his wife Bianca Visconti, who are
presented by the Beato Domenico of Catalonia and the Beata Sibillina of
Pavia. The Madonna is certainly very Foppesque in type and closely
resembles the Virgin of the Berlin Museum, though softer in expression,
weaker in drawing, and considerably later in date than that picture. The Child,
in its spontaneous and life-like movement, recalls Foppa's compositions, and
in the two figures presenting the donors we find many traits which link them
with certain figures in the Brera altarpiece ; but here all connection with the
Brescian master ends, for the saints on either side of the Madonna differ
widely in type and expression from those in any known works by Foppa, and
the whole method of painting and the crude colour observable throughout
this altarpiece are beneath the level of his art.
It appears to be by a Pavian
painter who fell under the influence of the master in the last quarter of the
fifteenth century, the picture having probably been produced between 1480
and i486.' The painter has not been identified, for the names of Bergognone
1
The date of Domenico de Catalonia's death is not known, but he was still alive in
1477, and as he appears here with the halo of a Beato round his head he must have been
dead for some years when this picture was painted. The portrait of Bianca Visconti
is evidently from life, and as her death occurred on March 24, i486, the picture would
have been produced before that date. From these facts therefore we infer that it must
have been painted between 1480 and i486.