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拍品专文
This intimate devotional panel is a characteristic work by Giovanni di Pietro, known as Lo Spagna, one of the most accomplished followers of Pietro Perugino. The composition presents the Virgin half-length against a tranquil Umbrian landscape, cradling the Christ Child, who gently holds a sprig of roses—an established symbol of his mother's purity and, through its thorns, a prefiguration of the Passion. The Virgin wears a blue mantle over a crimson dress, adorned with a gold star at her shoulder, while both figures are distinguished by gold halos. Behind them, a slender sapling rises against an atmospheric landscape of rolling hills and distant copses.
The painting exemplifies Lo Spagna's later style, in which the lessons of Perugino's workshop are tempered by the influence of the young Raphael, whose presence in Perugia during the first years of the sixteenth century profoundly affected the development of local painting. The composition relates to the Nativity in the Musée du Louvre, Paris—the central panel of an altarpiece originally in the church of Sant'Antonio in Perugia, documented by November 1510 as having been begun by Lo Spagna. The physiognomy of the Virgin recalls the artist's Madonna and Child, with a Monk Saint and Saint Catherine of Siena in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The fluid treatment of fabric, quite distinct from the harder linear folds of the earlier Umbrian tradition, is evident in the Virgin's voluminous blue mantle, which cascades around her shoulders with a supple, natural fall.
Giovanni di Pietro was known as 'Lo Spagna' (the Spaniard), a sobriquet traditionally understood to indicate Spanish heritage, though neither his birthplace nor birth date is securely documented (E. Parlato, 'Giovanni di Pietro, detto lo Spagna', Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LVI, Rome, 2001). The artist's career was entirely rooted in the towns and cities of Umbria, and none of his works betray traces of an Iberian training. He is first securely documented in Perugia on 9 March 1504, when he acted as arbiter in a dispute between the administrators of the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro and the painter Fiorenzo di Lorenzo—a role suggesting he already enjoyed considerable standing among the city's artists. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the second edition of the Vite (1568), praised Lo Spagna's coloristic skills and recorded that he was forced to leave Perugia due to the hostility of local artists (E. Parlato, loc. cit.). By late 1507, Lo Spagna had relocated to Todi, and subsequently to Spoleto.
The reverse of the panel preserves several wax seals that offer important evidence of its early Italian provenance. The most legible is an episcopal seal, surmounted by a miter and bearing the partial inscription 'EPISCOPUS' around its circumference. The arms have been identified as those of the Simonetta family, several of whose members held Italian bishoprics during the sixteenth century; among them was Giacomo Simonetta (1475-1539), who served successively as Bishop of Pesaro and of Lodi (see A. Chacón, Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum et S. Rom. ecclesiae cardinalium, II, Rome, 1630). A second seal displays the arms of the Bojali family of Bologna, recorded in the Blasone Bolognese (1791-1795). A third seal, bearing a crowned letter 'B', may be associated with the Bisconti family of Ravenna or the Larini family.
Small-scale devotional panels of the Madonna and Child form a significant component of Lo Spagna's oeuvre. Intended for private contemplation in a domestic setting, their intimate scale and refined finish made them desirable objects for the educated patrons of Umbria and beyond. An unpublished letter from Bernard Berenson to the Countess Malherbe, dated 29 June 1909, confirms the painting's presence in the Malherbe collection in Paris and records the scholar's early endorsement of the attribution, praising it as 'one of the earliest [and] certainly one of the finest that Spagna ever painted'. This work was acquired in the early 1920s by the newspaper publisher and philanthropist Ralph Harman Booth (1873-1931), who was instrumental in the transformation of the Detroit Museum of Art into the Detroit Institute of Arts, serving as the founding President of the Detroit Arts Commission and as the museum's Chief Executive Officer until the new building opened in October 1927. Booth, who began collecting at the age of fourteen with the purchase of a Whistler etching, assembled notable holdings of Northern European paintings, classical sculpture, and Post-Impressionist works, many of which were gifted to the DIA and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. His son, John Lord Booth (1907-1994), who acquired the present picture in 1946 from his mother's collection, was a broadcasting pioneer and founder of the Booth American Company; he likewise served as a benefactor and trustee emeritus of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
We are grateful to Christopher Daly for endorsing the attribution following first hand inspection (16 December 2025).
The painting exemplifies Lo Spagna's later style, in which the lessons of Perugino's workshop are tempered by the influence of the young Raphael, whose presence in Perugia during the first years of the sixteenth century profoundly affected the development of local painting. The composition relates to the Nativity in the Musée du Louvre, Paris—the central panel of an altarpiece originally in the church of Sant'Antonio in Perugia, documented by November 1510 as having been begun by Lo Spagna. The physiognomy of the Virgin recalls the artist's Madonna and Child, with a Monk Saint and Saint Catherine of Siena in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The fluid treatment of fabric, quite distinct from the harder linear folds of the earlier Umbrian tradition, is evident in the Virgin's voluminous blue mantle, which cascades around her shoulders with a supple, natural fall.
Giovanni di Pietro was known as 'Lo Spagna' (the Spaniard), a sobriquet traditionally understood to indicate Spanish heritage, though neither his birthplace nor birth date is securely documented (E. Parlato, 'Giovanni di Pietro, detto lo Spagna', Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LVI, Rome, 2001). The artist's career was entirely rooted in the towns and cities of Umbria, and none of his works betray traces of an Iberian training. He is first securely documented in Perugia on 9 March 1504, when he acted as arbiter in a dispute between the administrators of the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro and the painter Fiorenzo di Lorenzo—a role suggesting he already enjoyed considerable standing among the city's artists. Giorgio Vasari, writing in the second edition of the Vite (1568), praised Lo Spagna's coloristic skills and recorded that he was forced to leave Perugia due to the hostility of local artists (E. Parlato, loc. cit.). By late 1507, Lo Spagna had relocated to Todi, and subsequently to Spoleto.
The reverse of the panel preserves several wax seals that offer important evidence of its early Italian provenance. The most legible is an episcopal seal, surmounted by a miter and bearing the partial inscription 'EPISCOPUS' around its circumference. The arms have been identified as those of the Simonetta family, several of whose members held Italian bishoprics during the sixteenth century; among them was Giacomo Simonetta (1475-1539), who served successively as Bishop of Pesaro and of Lodi (see A. Chacón, Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum et S. Rom. ecclesiae cardinalium, II, Rome, 1630). A second seal displays the arms of the Bojali family of Bologna, recorded in the Blasone Bolognese (1791-1795). A third seal, bearing a crowned letter 'B', may be associated with the Bisconti family of Ravenna or the Larini family.
Small-scale devotional panels of the Madonna and Child form a significant component of Lo Spagna's oeuvre. Intended for private contemplation in a domestic setting, their intimate scale and refined finish made them desirable objects for the educated patrons of Umbria and beyond. An unpublished letter from Bernard Berenson to the Countess Malherbe, dated 29 June 1909, confirms the painting's presence in the Malherbe collection in Paris and records the scholar's early endorsement of the attribution, praising it as 'one of the earliest [and] certainly one of the finest that Spagna ever painted'. This work was acquired in the early 1920s by the newspaper publisher and philanthropist Ralph Harman Booth (1873-1931), who was instrumental in the transformation of the Detroit Museum of Art into the Detroit Institute of Arts, serving as the founding President of the Detroit Arts Commission and as the museum's Chief Executive Officer until the new building opened in October 1927. Booth, who began collecting at the age of fourteen with the purchase of a Whistler etching, assembled notable holdings of Northern European paintings, classical sculpture, and Post-Impressionist works, many of which were gifted to the DIA and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. His son, John Lord Booth (1907-1994), who acquired the present picture in 1946 from his mother's collection, was a broadcasting pioneer and founder of the Booth American Company; he likewise served as a benefactor and trustee emeritus of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
We are grateful to Christopher Daly for endorsing the attribution following first hand inspection (16 December 2025).