These two panels were probably part of a polyptych made around 1485-1490 for an unidentified Franciscan monastery, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and to Saint Francis. The left panel shows Saint Bernardino of Siena and Saint John the Baptist, the right one Saint Jerome and Saint Francis of Assisi. The other panels of the altarpiece are kept at the Museum of Fine Arts in Dijon and at Waddesdon Manor in England.

Giovanni Ambrogio Bevilacqua is a representative of the first Lombard School of painting. Active for the most part in Milan and the surrounding areas, he was undoubtedly a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa, but was also influenced by Bernardino Butinone and Ambrogio da Fossano. He was probably born around 1460 and is mentioned for the first time in 1481 in a register of painters in Milan. His last signed work is dated 1502, but he is still mentioned in documents in 1512.

Bevilacqua gradually distanced himself from the Gothic tradition and turned to Bramante, the illustrious Renaissance architect. Although he was in Milan when Leonardo da Vinci came to the city, it seems that Leonardo had no influence on him. Instead, his paintings reflect the decorative overabundance that was popular at the Milan court of the Sforzas, for instance in the work of the Master of the Pala Sforzesca. On the other hand, the architecture depicted in the background of our two panels bears the undeniable imprint of Bramante and his first church, Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan.

Acquired from a Luxembourg collector during the Nazi occupation for the Führermuseum in Linz, these paintings were returned to Luxembourg in 1946 and integrated into the museum’s collections.

Text | CC BY-NC | Michel Polfer