Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings Inscribed: (right foreground, on sword sheath) MAR SVE·; (on breastplate) [ ]S· IN·SO; (on floor) [illegible]
Gallery Label This imposing yet unidentified scene taking place in a grand Renaissance palace probably belonged to a series that decorated a large room. The composition and architectural detail reveal knowledge of Mantegna's frescoes in Padua and Venetian sculpture.
Notes The subject of this painting has remained a matter of conjecture since its acquisition. The painting may have belonged to a series of wall decorations of a type popular in Southern Germany and Switzerland during the first half of the 16th century. It has most likely suffered from water damage.
Provenance Paul Methuen, Corsham Court, Chippenham, Wiltshire (by 1766–d. 1795); Paul Cobb Methuen, Corsham Court (1795–d. 1816); Paul Methuen, 1st Baron Methuen, Corsham Court (1816–d. 1849); Frederick Henry Paul Methuen, 2nd Baron Methuen, Corsham Court (1849–86); Henry G. Marquand, New York (1886–89)
Exhibition History London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1877, no. 141.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Exhibition of 1888–89," 1888–89, no. 6.
References [Thomas Martyn]. The English Connoisseur: Containing an Account of Whatever is Curious in Painting, Sculpture, &c. in the Palaces and Seats of the Nobility and Principal Gentry of England, Both in Town and Country . London, 1766, vol. 2, p. 36.Pictures by Old Masters, Loan Collections and Recent Gifts to the Museum, the Henry G. Marquand Collection . New York, April–November 1897, p. 89, no. 293.Burlington Magazine 18 (February 1911), pp. 295–96.Letter to Dr. Burleigh Parkhurst . July 21, 1911 [according to handwritten notes in the EP Archive file].Catalogue of Paintings . 1st ed. New York, 1914, p. 164.Letter to Harry B. Wehle . September 11, 1933.Letter to Margaretta Salinger . October 25, 1936.Burlington Magazine 69 (September 1936), pp. 134–35, ill. p. 132.The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings . New York, 1947, pp. 225–27, ill.Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600 . Baltimore, 1969, p. 216.Draft label copy . May 1979.in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Bellini, Dürer and Titian . Exh. cat., Palazzo Grassi. Milan, 1999, p. 333, ill. p. 334.
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