L’Arcangelo Michele (c.1496-1500)

Perugino (c.1446-1523)

L’Arcangelo Michele (The Archangel Michael)
c.14961500
Oil and egg temera on poplar, 114.7 x 56.6 cm
National GalleryLondon

This was the left panel of the predella of an altarpiece made for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza.

Altarpiece, Certosa di Pavia (c.1496-1500)

This panel is one of three that come from the lower tier of an altarpiece made for the Duke of Milan. The other two – The Virgin and Child with an Angel and The Archangel Raphael with Tobias – are also in our collection.

The Archangel Michael stands triumphant after his cosmic battle with the devil (Revelation 12: 16). He was often shown as a youth wearing armour, with large elaborate wings. A pair of scales, hanging on the tree stump to the left, are a symbol of Michael’s role in the judgement of souls after death, when good and evil deeds were weighed up. Perugino has signed the painting just below the tree stump: PETRVS PERVSINV(S) / PINXIT.

Depictions of Michael often show him dressed in armour trampling the devil (look at panels by Piero della Francesca and Bermejo, for example). You can still see part of the body of the devil here: his long, curved horn is hooked over Michael’s foot, his black wing against his shield. The rest was lost when the panel was cut down in the eighteenth century, but a painted copy, made before this, records its original appearance. Perugino planned the armour in a detailed drawing, now in the Royal Library, Windsor: it is almost identical to the final painted version, down to the strap which ties the breastplate to the tunic. The drawing is highlighted with strokes of white paint to indicate the areas that reflect the light, showing just how concerned Perugino was with getting the texture of the armour right. Michael’s pose may be inspired by Donatello’s sculpture of the youthful Saint George, made for the church of the Orsanmichele in Florence (Museo del Bargello, Florence). The sculpture, which Perugino would certainly have known, shows the saint as a boy and a hero who is like Michael, both gentle and strong.

Later in the eighteenth century, after it had already been reduced in size, the painting was cut in half and the upper half was cut at each edge, reducing the size of the wings; we don’t know why. The two halves were reunited before the picture entered our collection, through the fragments of the wings were never recovered. By that time they had been replaced, so the outer edges of the wings that we see today are not original. (NG)

Central panel:

Perugino (c.1446-1523)
Madonna col Bambino e un angelo
c.14961500
National GalleryLondon

 

 

Right panel:

Perugino (c.1446-1523)
L’Arcangelo Raffaele con Tobia
c.14961500
National GalleryLondon

 

 

Perugino painted this altarpiece for the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza (known as il Moro). He had been recommended by the Duke’s agent, who described him as ‘an exceptional master [whose] works have an angelic and very sweet air’.

The picture stood upon the altar in the side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael in the Carthusian monastery (also known as a charterhouse or certosa) in Pavia, a town outside Milan where the Duke had his palace. Our panels formed the lower tier of two in this large-scale construction. The upper tier showed the Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel, on one panel, giving the Virgin Mary, on another panel, the news that she would conceive the son of God. Between these panels was an image of God in glory, which is still in the church.

It seems that the Duke was not happy with the length of time that Perugino was spending on the paintings – he wrote to his agent in 1499 demanding that he set the painter a deadline. Shortly afterwards, however, the Duke was captured by invading French forces, and the altarpiece was completed in the early sixteenth century by two other painters: Fra Bartolommeo and Mariotto Albertinelli.

The painting is an excellent example of Perugino’s skill in working with oil paint. According to Vasari, the sixteenth-century biographer of artists, he was praised for his ‘harmonious blending of colours’; painters travelled from as far as France, Spain and Germany to see his work. This was due to his knowledge of the Netherlandish technique of painting in oil, which was renowned for being incredibly sophisticated. The skin, for example, was painted using thin layers of paint, taking advantage of the white ground covering the panel to make the flesh appear pale. More generally, using oil enabled him to create a depth of colour by layering different tones, using translucent glazes which modified the colours beneath. It is possible that his talent at painting in oil was due to a visit to Venice in 1495 – artists there were more expert in the medium than in central Italy, where he was trained.

The pictures were removed to the picture gallery in Milan in the late eighteenth century, at which time copies were made. By the time they were purchased by the National Gallery in the mid-nineteenth century they had been cut down in various places, and all of them at the bottom edge. Fortunately, their original appearance is preserved in the copies which remain in the monastery. The central panel of the upper tier is also still in the church, surrounded by two paintings by Ambrogio Bergognone that originally belonged to a different altarpiece. (NG)

See also:

• Sforza, Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan (1452-1508)