Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 98. (Budapest, 2003)

SALLAY, DÓRA: A Proposal for a Baptism of Christ-Lunette by Guidoccio Cozzarelli

There is, in fact, a large fragment ( 112 by 64 cm) attributed - with a question mark - to Guidoccio Cozzarelli in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, which depicts precisely the central section of another, cut-up Baptism of Christ-scene (fig. 10).

7 Though regularly cited in museum catalogues, it has escaped the attention of non-Russian scholars since 1914, when Tancred Borenius attributed it to Cozzarelli in his edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's A History of Painting in Italy? on the basis of Muratov's opinion of 1910.

9 The attribution to Cozzarelli is fully convincing and needs no question mark: the bright palette, the emphasis on contours, the angular movements, studied gestures, and mild facial expressions show a close relationship with Cozzarelli's early works. The work clearly echoes, though with less powerful expression, the figurai types created by Cozzarelli's master and model, Matteo di Giovanni; for example, the St. John the Baptist (S. Pietro a Ovile altarpiece, Museo Diocesano d'Arte Sacra, Siena) or the St. Sebastian (National Gallery, London). The ideal beauty of Christ is underlined by his downcast eyes, the slight turn of his torso, and his graceful praying gesture. John stands higher up on the rocky riverbank and carries out the ritual with a distant, prophetic look. The Dove of the Holy Spirit above seems to alight almost directly on his raised hand. Behind the figures, with a sudden leap of scale, a deep vista stretches back, with roads and waters, a miniature townscape, and a range of mountains on the horizon. Standard compositions of the Baptism of Christ in Italian Quattrocento painting, however, require Christ and John standing in a wider landscape, with two or more attendant angels holding Jesus' garments on the sides. Cozzarelli himself followed this scheme in the Sinalunga Baptism. In view of this firmly established compositional tradition, the Moscow piece, in which the two protagonists take up the entire pictorial field, cannot but appear to be a fragment of a larger work.

10 There is good reason, then, to believe that the two angels in Budapest originally attended upon the Christ now in Moscow. The attribution of the Budapest piece to Cozzarelli has not been questioned for almost a century, since Berenson's first proposal in 1909:

11 indeed, the colour scheme and the physiognomic types, the characteristic open, flaccid mouths with visible tongues and especially the slightly vacuous look 7 Inv. 140, tempera and gold on canvas (transferred from wood). The halos, the cross, the Baptist's dish, and the rays emanating from the Dove are gilt. Acquired in Italy between 1880-1898 by Dmitry Khomyakov, who presented it to the Rumyantzev Museum in Moscow in 1901 ; from there it came to its present location in 1924. For recent publications on the work, see Markova, V., Gosudarstvenniy muzey izobrazitelnih iskusstv imeni A. C. Puskina. Italjanskaja zivopis X1II-VIII vekov, Moscow 1992, p. 97; ead., in Gosudarstvenniy muzey izobrazitelnih iskusstv imeni A. C. Puskina. Katalogzivopisi (ed. Danilova, I.E.), Moscow 1995, pp. 98-99; ead., Italija VIII-XVI vjekov. Sobranie zivopisi. Gosudarstvenniy Muzey Izobrazitelnich Iskusstv Imeni A. S. Puskina, Moscow 2002 (henceforth abbreviated Markova, 2002), pp. 147-149, all with previous bibliography. 8 Crowe, J.A. - Cavalcaselle, G.B., A History of Painting in Italy. Umbria, Florence and Siena from the second to the sixteenth century V, 2nd rev. and enl. English ed. (ed. Borenius, T.), London 1914, p. 186. 9 Muratov, P.P., Ocherki italjanskoj zivopisi v Moskovskom Rumyantsevskom muzee II, Quattrocento 1910. 10 Also Viktoria Markova hypothesized recently that the Moscow piece is cut on all sides and its composition may have originally included angels. Markova, 2002 (n. 7) pp. 147-148. 11 Berenson, 1909 (n. 2) p. 158.