Saint Mark

1570-1571

Giorgio Vasari

Artist, Florentine, 1511 - 1574

Giorgio Vasari

Attributed to

A pale-skinned, muscular man sitting and reading a book as a lion rests at his feet fills this vertical painting. The man’s knees are angled slightly to our right but his torso twists back to the left. His head follows that direction so he’s almost in profile as he looks at the book, which he holds up to our left. His brows are deeply furrowed, and he has a bumped, blade-like nose. He has short, copper-red hair and a squared beard. He wears a tunic and knee-lengths pants that shimmer in shades of topaz blue and pearly white under a carnation-pink cloak that drapes from his shoulders and across his thighs. A round, gold pin holds the cloth in place on his left shoulder, to our right. His lower legs and feet are bare. He rests the heel of one foot on a rounded plinth and lifts the toes so they come at us. The other knee bends deeply and the toes of that foot perch lightly behind the first leg. The man leans to our right to look at the open book, which he holds in both arms to the left. Visible text on the far page reads, “ANGELVS DESCENDIT EVO.” He braces a black inkpot and spindly white feather quill in one hand and holds a pair of pince-nez glasses with the other. The lion is small in comparison to the man and has a curly mane and translucent gray wings. The background is dark except a strip off-white floor along the bottom edge.

Media Options

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The Saint Luke and Saint Mark panels were part of a commission from Pope Pius V in 1569 to decorate the newly built Torre Pio (Pius Tower) in the Vatican. The project, for which Vasari was knighted by the pope, was finished in two years. In the upper chapel, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, Vasari’s Coronation of the Virgin occupied the main altar while elaborately framed mirrors flanked either side of the chapel doorways. Large panel paintings of the four evangelists–Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John–were set within these mirrors. After 1750, the chapel complex was dismantled and the paintings were dispersed. Saint Matthew, Saint John, and the Coronation altarpiece eventually went to churches in Livorno, Italy, while Saint Luke and Saint Mark were held in private collections in Europe and the Americas, before their donation to the Gallery in 2012 by Damon Mezzacappa.

Saint Luke, patron saint of painters, with his attribute of a winged ox, is seen in the act of painting or drawing (a faint sketch of Madonna and Child is barely visible over his right shoulder).

Saint Mark, with his winged lion, writes his Gospel.

Both Evangelists twist and turn, larger than life, ready to burst from their confined space, evoking Michelangelo’s Sibyls and Prophets in the Sistine Chapel.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 21

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned 1569, with NGA 2012.79.2 (Saint Luke), by Pope Pius V for the Chapel of the Archangel Michael in the Torre Pio of the Vatican Palace;[1] begun December 1570 and finished by June 1571; chapel dismantled after 1750. probably Charles Grignion II [1754-1804], Rome; his brother, Thomas Grignion [c. 1748-1821], London;[2] (sale, Christie's, London, 2 May 1807, no. 55, bought in); (sale, Christie's, London, 28-29 April 1809, no. 92); Sir Thomas Baring [1772-1848], Stratton Park, Hampshire; purchased from his estate by his son, Thomas Baring [1799-1873], London and Stratton Park; by inheritance to his nephew, Thomas George Baring, 1st earl of Northbrook [1826-1904], London and Stratton Park; by inheritance to his son, Francis George Baring, 2nd earl of Northbrook [1850-1929], London and Stratton Park; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 12 December 1919, no. 138 [with NGA 2012.79.2]); Vicars. (Galerie Charles Brunner, Paris), by 1929.[3] Don Lorenzo Pellerano, Buenos Aires; (his sale, Guerrico & Williams, Buenos Aires, October 1933, no. 970 [with NGA 2012.79.2 as no. 971]). (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 5 June 1986, no. 11 [with NGA 2012.79.2]); (Richard L. Feigen and Co., New York); sold to Damon Mezzacappa, Palm Beach, Florida; (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 11 January 1996, no. 55 [with NGA 2012.79.2], bought in); Damon Mezzacappa, Palm Beach, Florida; gift 2012 to NGA.
[1] Provenance according to the 1996 sale catalogue.
[2] Charles Grignion II, a British artist who lived and worked in Italy, acquired numerous paintings from prominent Italian aristocratic families in financial need. He apparently sent them to Thomas, his older brother and a watchmaker and clockmaker, for resale in England. See the description for Sale Catalog Br-487 in The Getty Provenance Index Database; copy in NGA curatorial files.
[3] The paintings were numbers 2267 (Saint Mark) and 2268 (Saint Luke) in Brunner's stock; Brunner labels remain on the reverse of both panels.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1823

  • British Institution, London, 1823, no. 159.

Bibliography

1836

  • Passavant, Johann David. Tour of a German Artist in England. Translated by Elizabeth Eastlake. 2 vols. London, 1836: 1:283.

1838

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Works of Art and Artists in England. 3 vols. London, 1838: 3:34.

1854

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss.. 3 vols. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. London, 1854: 2:176.

1980

  • Del Canto, Fabrizio. "Chiesa di San Sebastiano." In Livorno e Pisa: due città e un territorio nella politica dei Medici. Livorno: progetto e storia di una città tra il 1500 e il 1600. Pisa, 1980: 300-301.

1982

  • Frey, Karl, and Herman-Walther Frey, eds. Der Literarische Nachlass: Giorgio Vasari. Reprint of 1923 edition, 3 vols. Hildesheim and New York, 1982: 2:882, 884-886.

1989

  • Corti, Laura. Vasari: Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1989: 106, repro.

1994

  • Baldini, Umberto. Giorgio Vasari: Pittore. Florence, 1994: 183.

1996

  • Dal Canto, Fabrizio. "Opere d'arte vendute dai francesi a Livorno nel 1799 e le vicende dei dipinti del Vasari della cappella di San Michele in Vaticano." Nuovi Studi Livornesi 4 (1996): 99-122, esp. 109-116, fig. 4.

2013

  • "Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 4-5, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20176750

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