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

242 VINCENZO FOPPA
is constantly described as "The Procession to Calvary," though there is not
the slightest doubt that it represents the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane
immediately after the Betrayal, with St. Peter smiting Malchus in the foreground,
and Christ being led away bound to the High Priest. We should not
have thought it necessary to refer to this picture, which in the gallery has
been relegated to the "School of Squarcione, " and was ascribed to Parentino
by Dr. Frizzoni as long ago as 1890, had not a recent writer of great authority
ascribed it once more to Foppa, speaking of it moreover under the very
misleading title of "Christ bearing the Cross."'
Among drawings bearing the name of Foppa, but which cannot be admitted
may be mentioned the figure of an old man leaning with both hands
to be his,
upon his staff, in the Staedel Institute at Frankfort,* which appears to be by
some later Milanese draughtsman, and a horseman in the Print Room at
Berlin, in a very bad state of preservation (No. 5035), formerly in the Bertini
Collection. This drawing, though showing some analogy in technique with
the Justice of Trajan, in the same collection, is too wooden, lifeless, and
mechanical in execution to be by the master himself.
It appears to be founded upon compositions by Ercole Roberti, for it shows
a very close connection with a horseman in the background of Ercole's Pieta
at Liverpool, and with another in the predella of that painter's large altarpiece
in the Brera. It is decidedly curious that a drawing ascribed to Foppa at
Berlin seems to be undoubtedly a copy after Ercole Roberti, while the Justice
of Trajan, which we venture to think might be a drawing by Foppa, is there
ascribed to the Ferrarese master.
Two drawings in the British Museum were attributed to Foppa by Morelli:
the Crucifixion, an overcrowded composition (probably of the school of
Mantegna), and three standing figures ; ' but the attribution to Foppa is not
convincing, and they do not bear the name of the master in
the Print Room.
^ See Malaguzzi Valeri, Milano, ed. 1906, p. 149.
2 The late Dr. Ludwig considered that a drawing of the Pieta in the Print Room at
Berlin (No. 1539) might be by Foppa. The drawing, which was formerly in the
collection of Sir Charles Robinson, is ascribed at Berlin to Ercole Grandi, a name
which seems certainly more appropriate than that of the Brescian master.
3 Morelli, III, 108 note.