Lorenzo di Credi

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Lorenzo di Credi: Maria with the child and two saints, Dresden , Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Lorenzo di Credi: Madonna and Child

Lorenzo di Credi , actually Lorenzo di Andrea d'Oderigo , (* around 1459 in Florence , † January 12, 1537 in Florence) was an Italian painter , goldsmith and sculptor.

life and work

Lorenzo di Credi was the son and pupil of the goldsmith Andra d'Oderigo . At a young age he learned the craft of a painter and also that of a sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio . One of his classmates was Leonardo da Vinci , who was to have a strong influence on him. One of Lorenzo's earliest works was a participation in the altar panel (Madonna di Piazza), probably ordered from Verrocchio in 1474, for the sacrament chapel of the Cathedral of Pistoia , which was completed by 1479 at the latest . How much Lorenzo's contribution to the board is has long been controversial, but modern research tends to ascribe most of the execution to him. In addition to the main panel, he made at least one more predella panel, which is now in the Art Museum in Worcester . The Madonna Dreyfus , which is often ascribed to him, is likely to have been created around the same time, and which has recently been assigned more frequently to Leonardo, as the execution of the picture goes beyond Credi's ability to a large extent. Nevertheless, in view of the badly painted Christ Child, it cannot be ruled out that the picture was painted by more than one artist. It soon became apparent that Lorenzo was an excellent artist that Verrocchio could no longer do without. In order to bind him more tightly to himself, as Vasari reports, he entrusted Lorenzo with “all administrative matters, that is, the supervision of income and business in the workshop” , and he “left ... him the free use of drawings, reliefs, Statues and all equipment ” . Verrocchio is said to have often entrusted Lorenzo with sculptural works, although it is difficult to classify them today. However, research has tried to claim a small amount of work for him. Only his desired participation in the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni , whose casting he was supposed to take over, is certain . Since he did not trust himself to do this, he entrusted the work to the Florentine bronze caster Giovanni d'Andrea di Domenico , who ultimately did not carry out the order, so that the task was ultimately carried out in 1492 by the Venetian mint maker Alessandro Leopardi . After Verrocchio's death, Lorenzo continued his workshop under his own direction. Shortly afterwards, he created his famous Venus , which he painted for the Medici and which is now in Florence ( Galleria degli Uffizi ). It is the only known picture with a profane theme to date. Later he fell under the spell of Savonarola, whose enthusiastic supporter he became. He withdrew to his workshop, where he lived like in a monastery cell. In 1531 he went to the hospital in Santa Maria Nuova, where he died on January 12, 1537.

Lorenzo di Credi mainly painted Madonnas, Adorations of the Child and a series of portraits in which he performed his most mature achievements. His early works are strongly committed to Verrocchio's style, whereby he mixed his formal language with Leonardo's smoothed chiaroscuro paintings in his pictures, so that some of the better works were even considered works by Leonardo himself for a long time. One of the best examples is undoubtedly The Annunciation in the Louvre in Paris , which was considered a work of Leonardo for a long time before it has recently been assigned to Lorenzo again. Yet he did not even come close to achieving its mastery. His pictures were lovely, religious representations that were nice to look at at first glance, but without offering anything new. Nevertheless, they were wanted and helped him gain the reputation of a respected painter. With age, it began to repeat itself more and more frequently. The subtleties that had distinguished his early work were more and more lost, so that his later work no longer came close to the quality of the works of his heyday.

Factory selection

painting

  • Ajaccio, Musée Fesch
    • Maria with the child.
  • Belgrade, Narodni Muzej
    • Adoration of the child.
  • Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
    • Maria adoring the child. around 1480 - 1485
    • Mary of Egypt.
    • The Holy Family with the boy John. (attributed)
  • formerly Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum
    • Maria adoring the child. (probably destroyed in 1945)
  • Dresden, Old Masters Picture Gallery
    • Maria with the child. around 1480 - 1485
    • Mary with the child and Saints Sebastian and John the Evangelist. around 1516
  • Esztergom, Keresztény Múzeum
    • The Assumption of St. Mary Magdalene. around 1510
  • Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
    • The Annunciation. around 1480 - 1485
    • Venus. around 1493/94
    • Portrait of Pietro Perugino. around 1504
    • Adoration of the Shepherds. 1510
    • Mary with the child, the boy John and two angels.
  • Forlì, Pinacoteca Civica
  • Hanover, Lower Saxony State Museum
    • Portrait of the Franciscus Alumnus.
  • Karlsruhe, State Art Gallery
    • Mary adoring the child with the boy John. around 1480
  • London, National Gallery
    • Maria with the child. around 1480 - 1500
    • Maria adoring the child. around 1490 - 1500
  • Mainz, State Museum
    • Mother of God enthroned with the Christ child in front of a landscape.
  • Munich, Alte Pinakothek
    • The birth of christ.
  • Nebraska, Joslyn Art Museum
    • Mary with the child, the boy John and two angels. around 1490
  • New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
    • Portrait of a Young Woman.
    • Mary adoring the child with the boy John and an angel.
  • Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
    • Maria with the child.
  • Paris, Musee du National du Louvre
    • The Annunciation. around 1478/79 ( is sometimes assigned to Leonardo da Vinci )
    • Enthroned Mary with the child and Saints Julian and Nicholas of Myra. around 1494
  • Pistoia, Cathedral, Sacrament Chapel
    • Madonna enthroned between John the Baptist and St. Donatus (Madonna di Piazza). around 1478/79 (together with Andrea del Verrocchio )
  • Rome, Borghese Gallery
    • Mary with the child and the boy John.
  • Turin, Galleria Sabauda
    • Mary with the Child (Church Madonna).
  • Washington, National Gallery of Art
    • Mary with the Child (Madonna Dreyfus). around 1475 (recently assigned to Leonardo da Vinci )
  • Worcester, Art Museum
    • Saint Donatus and the tax collector. around 1478/79

Possible sculptural work

  • formerly Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum
    • Maria with the child. (missing since 1945 - relocation location undocumented from April 7, 1945)
  • London, Victoria & Albert Museum
    • Saint Jerome. (is often published as a work by the Verrocchio workshop, sometimes with reference to Lorenzo di Credi; more rarely listed as an autograph work by Andrea del Verrocchio )
    • Clay model of the Forteguerri cenotaph. (is mainly attributed to Andrea del Verrocchio )
  • Paris, Musee National du Louvre
    • Floating right angel. (Work by the Verrocchio workshop, the attribution usually fluctuates between Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo di Credi)

literature

  • Kindler's Malereilexikon , Kindler Verlag AG, Zurich 1964–1971
  • Franziska Windt, Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci , Münster, 2003, ISBN 3-930454-39-4
  • Gottfried Biedermann, Some iconographic annotations on Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the rock in Paris (Louvre) and some specific remarks on the digital gesture in other paintings. In: Historia Artis Magistra, Ljubljana 2014, pp. 281–288

Web links

Commons : Lorenzo di Credi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files