Giovanni Battista della Cerva
The Coronation of the Virgin
circa 1541
Oil on wood panel
87 cm x 71.5 cm (34 1/4 in. x 28 1/8 in.)
The Suida-Manning Collection

Gaudenzio Ferrari was the most important painter of the sixteenth century in northwest Italy. His style, combining the lessons of Leonardo da Vinci's Milan, Raphael's Rome, and German art, including Dürer's prints, was the most advanced and influential in the area that is now Piedmont. Through his early maturity, this style featured generalized forms but an extraordinarily modern light, at once coherent and unidealized, and touchingly earnest human expression. From the late 1520s, and especially after his move to a newly conservative Milan in the early 1530s, his paintings became more self-conscious, formulaic in their composition, and ornamental in their finish. This panel was long considered a late work by Ferrari himself. It was in fact painted by Giovanni Battista della Cerva, his principal assistant and closest follower during the period in Milan. The gentle Coronation and the expansive God-the-Father amid putti were devised by Ferrari for a major altarpiece of 1541 in Busto Arsizio, just north of Milan. The latter motif was frequently repeated by della Cerva and another assistant, Bernardino Lanino, as in their frescoes of 1548-1549 for the Milanese church of San Nazaro. Della Cerva's variation upon the master's language is distinguished by busier description, milder sentiment, and a softer touch. In superb condition, this painting is among the best examples of Ferrari and his school in this country