FG FINE ART LTD
Matteo Cesa
Belluno, 1425 c. - 1495 c.
The artistic profile of Matteo Cesa has been completely reconstructed thanks to the study, which lasted over fifty years, of the documents relating to the Belluno artistic commissions of the second half of the fifteenth century: he did not train in his father's workshop, as various documents report that his father Donato was a blacksmith and there are no mentions of his activity as an artist. It is likely that he had his influences from Venice, given that Belluno did not have large workshops until the last decade of the century. As Mauro Lucco has correctly stated, it is unlikely that Cesa's works can be dated before the 1470s, even if the painter was born around 1435 - as attested by Sergio Claut's documentary research - and was still alive in 1
Presentation of Jesus in the temple
Assumption of the Virgin
Tempera grassa on panel, 36.5 x 44 cm each
Provenance
Sargnano (Belluno), church of Santa Maria, until 1883-1885
Bibliography
A. Agosti, Giornale pittorico che contiene alcune memorie dei quadri, pitture e sculture osservate da un dilettante nella città e provincia di Belluno, 1822, in F. Vizzutti, in “Archivio Storico di Belluno Feltre e Cadore”, 1990, n. 271, p. 98
F. Miari, Dizionario storico, artistico, letterario bellunese, Belluno 1843, (reprinted) Bologna, 1968, p. 46
J.A. Crowe, G.B. Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in North Italy, Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century, London 1912, p. 60
L. Alpago Novello Le memorie di don Flaminio Sargnano, in “Archivio Storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore “, IV, n. 21, 1932, p. 31
G. Della Vestra, in I pittori bellunesi prima dei Vecellio, Venezia 1975, pp. 239-240
F. Zeri, Antonio Rosso da Cadore: una serie e alcuni problemi, in “Antologia di Belle Arti”, IV, 1980, pp. 141-144; Giorno per giorno nella pittura: scritti sull’arte dell’Italia settentrionale dal Trecento al primo Cinquecento, Turin, 1993, pp. 193-195
G. Della Vestra, Matteo Cesa ricomparso in un’asta a Milano, in “Archivio storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore”, 1995, 292, pp. 204-205
M. Lucco, Un esercizio di filologia: l’autore del trittico in S. Nicolò a Padova, in “Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova”, LXXII, 1983, p. 105
M. Lucco, Belluno, in La pittura nel Veneto. Il Quattrocento, Milano 1990, II, pp. 583-584
G. Della Vestra, Matteo Cesa ricomparso in un’asta a Milano, in “Archivio storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore”, 1995, 292, pp. 204-205
S. Claut, G. Tomasi, Notizie sui pittori bellunesi: Andrea de Foro, Bartolomeo da Torino, Giovanni da Cividal, Matteo Cesa, Iacopo da Valenza, Antonio Rosso, Antonio da Tisoi, Paolo da Tisoi, Iseppo da Cividal, Giovanni Gobelli, Battista da Cavessago, Teodoro da Cavassico, in “Archivio storico di Belluno, Feltre e Cadore”, 2003, 321, p. 26.
L. Sartor, in A nord di Venezia: scultura e pittura nelle vallate dolomitiche tra Gotico e Rinascimento, Cinisello Balsamo 2004, pp. 111-133, 194, 196-197
Both works are part of the same polyptych from the Church of Santa Maria di Sargnano. Federico Zeri put together most of the panels making up this monumental altarpiece and was the first to reunite a panel already present in the Harry Harris Collection in Rome with the Journey to Bethlehem and the Nativity of Christ; the Adoration of the Magi, formerly in the collection of Countess Margherita Gallotti Spiridon in Rome; another panel from the Harry Harris Collection with the Angels offering Mary the palm of the Annunciation - a rather rare subject in Italian painting, also known as the “Second Annunciation” - and John the Evangelist receiving the palm branch, the Birth of the Virgin and The Funerals of the Virgin, recently auctioned at Sotheby's New York, but already known when they were in the Raul Tolentino collection and finally a panel with the Madonna and Child, transferred to canvas, already in the Frederick Mont collection in New York, the central part of the altarpiece.
Mauro Lucco was the first to carry out archival research, discovering that the altarpiece was already mentioned in the 17th century on the occasion of the bishops' pastoral visits to the church of Santa Maria in Sergnano, near Belluno. The first mention of a “Palla antiqua in tabulis cum imagine in medio B.V.M.” placed on the only altar of the church of Santa Maria di Sargnano, it is found in the report of the pastoral visit of Bishop Alvise Lollino in 1624. This discovery helped to relate this altarpiece to a drawing by Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle from 1865-66, when it was still on the main altar of the church.
The Madonna of the main panel is considered the oldest work to survive the Belluno diaspora at the end of the 19th century. It reveals the painter's considerations on the models of Giovanni Bellini and Antonello da Messina and, consequently, must be dated to the late 1480s.
The Sargnano polyptych dates back to the mid-1480s, not far from the triptych with the enthroned Virgin and Child with Saints Lucia (?) and Sebastian of the church of Santa Lucia a Cet (Belluno). In this phase, the suggestions of various artists are added to the painter's Venetian models, including Jacopo da Valenza
A full fact sheet is available on request.
