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

252 VINCENZO FOPPA
other works by the master of that period. The Infant Saviour in type
and drawing shows an intimate connection with the Bambino of the Brera
altarpiece and with the Christ Child on the front of the processional banner
at Orzinuovi ; the gold background with decorative design in black recalls
the ornament (now almost obliterated) of the architectural portion of the Brera
altarpiece, a method of decoration often adopted by Bergognone for the background
of his pictures ;
extremely characteristic are the angels, which in some
particulars recall the types and forms in vogue among the painters of Piedmont.
Here again, as in the case of the painter of the Poldi Madonna, we have a
distinct personality, an artist of the school of Foppa whom it should not
be difficult to identify should other works by him be in existence. Our
illustration may serve to make the picture more widely known.
By another but far weaker pupil of Foppa, is the Madonna and Child with
angels in the Cook Collection at Richmond : here the throne is also gold with
a decorative design in red ; the form of the upper portion with the three
ptcfti, and the hanging of gold and red brocade at the back, recall the
composition of the throne in the Savona altarpiece ; the angels at the sides
are connected with other examples of the school, at Brescia and elsewhere.
The brilliant and characteristically Lombard colouring makes the picture as a
whole very attractive, but the drawing is feeble throughout, and the heads
somewhat empty in expression.
Giovanni Ambrogio Bevilacqua, who is often described as a pupil of
Bergognone, though both painters probably worked contemporaneously, may
also be classed among followers of Foppa. Like Bergognone, he too was
attracted by the more suave and gentler side of Foppa's art rather than
by its sterner qualities, but being a painter of limited ability the types of
Foppa in his hands are weakened to the verge of insipidity, as is evident in
one of his latest works of 1502.^ Other paintings of his showing a connection
more or less close with Foppa are : the frescoes bearing the signature of
Bevilacqua and the date 1485 in the Church of S. Vittore at Landriano ;^
a Madonna and saints ascribed to him by Morelli in the Accademia Carrara
at Bergamo ; ' and an early picture of the Madonna in a rose garden
adoring the Infant Saviour, in the Malaspina Gallery at Favia, of which there
is a later version in the Dresden Gallery.*
Another painter who may have been a direct pupil of Foppa was Giovanni
Donato Montorfano. His large fresco of the Crucifixion in the refectory of
S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan shows its dependence upon the Brescian master
^
Brera, the Madonna and Child with St. Peter Martyr, King David, and a donor.
'
Mai., Pitt. Lomb., 172-79. ^ Morelli, III, 122 note.
* This was first ascribed to Bevilacqua by Morelli.