Provenance

Damon Mezzacappa

American, 1936 - 2015

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A pale-skinned man sitting hunched over as he draws on a tablet and a bull lying at his feet fill this vertical painting. The man faces our right in profile, and he looks down at the book. He has a lined forehead, a bumped nose, and wrinkles around his nose. He has lanky, chin-length hair and a curly, unruly beard. He sits with one leg pulled up so he can partially brace the tablet on that knee. He holds the inkwell and clutches the top of the tablet with one hand and draws using a feather quill with the other. His other leg stretches down, and the ball of the bare foot is perched against the edge of the low platform on which the man sits. His garment has a white collar over a tunic that shimmers from plum purple to moss green. Extending from under the tunic’s short sleeves are long sky blue and pale laurel green sleeves. A golden yellow robe drapes over one shoulder and wraps around his lap. The gray bull, which is shown in about half the scale of the man, sits with one front leg tucked under his body as he looks over to our right. The floor is pale mauve purple, and the background is dark green, almost black. A glimpse of a work of art showing a woman holding a baby is visible near the top left corner of the painting.
Giorgio Vasari, Saint Luke, 1570-1571, oil on panel, Gift of Damon Mezzacappa in Loving Memory of Elizabeth Mezzacappa, 2012.79.2

Saint Luke

Giorgio Vasari · 1570-1571 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2012.79.2

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.
Giorgio Vasari, Saint Mark, 1570-1571, oil on panel, Gift of Damon Mezzacappa in Loving Memory of Elizabeth Mezzacappa, 2012.79.1

Saint Mark

Giorgio Vasari · 1570-1571 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  2012.79.1