GIROLAMO MOCETTO
Murano, 1458 – 1531
Saint Sebastian
oil and tempera on canvas, cm. 90,5×62,5
Recently surfaced from an important private collection in Mantua and hitherto unpublished, the painting depicts Saint Sebastian according to an iconography of intense private devotion, particularly widespread in early 16th-century Venice. The saint, represented as a youth scarcely beyond adolescence, stands frontally as he is pierced by four arrows, set against a marble column within a sparse architectural setting opening onto the sky beyond. His direct gaze towards the viewer emphasises the intercessory function of the image, most likely intended for private contemplation and for protection against the plague, of which Saint Sebastian was traditionally regarded as a patron saint.
As noted by Peter Humfrey, author of the expertise of the work, the painting belongs fully within the Venetian figurative tradition established by Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano, from whom it derives the severe compositional structure and the lucid construction of the figure. In particular, the main point of reference appears to be the celebrated Saint Sebastian in Cima da Conegliano’s Dragan Altarpiece, now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, from which the present work borrows not only the pose of the saint but also specific details, such as the placement of the arrow embedded in the saint’s left thigh. Humfrey further draws attention to two additional versions of the subject executed by Cima, now respectively in the National Gallery, London, and the Berenson Collection at Villa I Tatti, attesting to the popularity of this iconographic model in Venetian painting of the period.
Compared with these precedents, however, our painting reveals a more independent and refined ornamental sensibility. The loincloth is enriched with an elegant pseudo-Cufic decoration along the hem and a soft, elaborate fringe, while the hair is rendered in delicate decorative waves of almost miniaturist refinement. Precisely on the basis of these stylistic characteristics, and following an attribution proposed by Mauro Lucco and endorsed by Humfrey, the work may be assigned to Girolamo Mocetto, the Venetian painter, engraver and designer of stained glass active between the late 15th and the early 16th century.
Although still not fully defined from a biographical point of view, Mocetto reveals throughout his oeuvre a figurative culture deeply indebted to Bellini and Mantegna, yet also receptive to the influence of Cima da Conegliano. Significant comparisons may be drawn with the Portrait of a Boy in the Galleria Estense in Modena and with the triptych in the Chapel of San Biagio in SS Nazaro e Celso, Verona, particularly in the soft modelling of the faces and the linear elegance of the hair. Such comparisons plausibly suggest a dating for the painting around 1515–1517, during a mature phase of the artist’s activity.