LIBERALE da Verona

Liberale (Liberale di Jacopo dalla Biava) was one of the main representatives of the Veronese School. He was formatively influenced by Pisanello and Mantegna. His painting is of variable quality, his miniatures for Montoliveto and Siena (1467-76) are renowned. From 1492 he was in Verona where his studio produced outstanding masters of the Veronese School: Giolfino, Torbido, Caroto and others.

There were cultural connections between Siena and northern Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century which were made more substantial by the presence in Siena of Liberale da Verona and Girolamo da Cremona, two highly talented manuscript illuminators who worked on a large number of liturgical books for the Opera del Duomo during the 1460s and 1470s. Their work provided a graphic demonstration of the daring feats of pictorial illusionism and decorative ornamentation that were characteristic of north Italian art at that period. They also introduced Sienese painters to the luminous effects common in the work of such painters as Andrea Mantegna, as seen in the gleaming pearls and inset jewels that decorate this page of a choirbook depicting the Resurrection of Christ and four roundels depicting events after the Resurrection. The choirbook was illuminated by this two artists.

This painting comes from the church of San Domenico in Ancona.

This panel belonged to a cassone from which another panel with The Rape of Europa is in the Mus�e du Louvre, Paris.

In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy, also known as Helen of Sparta, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Her abduction by Paris brought about the Trojan War.

The composition of this Virgin and Child is based on models by Sano di Pietro.

This panel depicts the Virgin and Child before a green curtain with an open book. It probably dates to around 1490, contrasting with the artist’s early depictions of the Virgin and Child carried out during his time spent in Siena between 1467-76, which employ gold grounds with stamped and incised haloes. This picture reflects the influences on Liberale’s work, in the last decades of the fifteenth century, of the schools of Ferrara and Venice, where he is documented as living and working in 1487 before returning to Verona.