Italian, North, 'Saint Hugh', about 1525-1600

The saint in this painting carries a bishop’s crosier and wears the white habit of the Carthusian Order. The Carthusians were an enclosed Catholic religious order of monks and nuns founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084. Bruno was called to Rome by Pope Urban II, and while there founded a new hermitage in Calabria in southern Italy.

The way that the crosier has been cropped suggests that the panel may have been cut down from a larger painting. The inscription ‘S~ UGO’ (Italian for Saint Hugh) may be a later addition and it is not certain whether Saint Hugh of Grenoble (1053–1132) or Saint Hugh of Lincoln (1135/40–1200) is represented. Both of these saints were Carthusians. However, the white habit may have been underpainted only and left unfinished.

The saint is represented with a shaved head, his hood up against a plain black background. He is brightly lit from top right, which is unusual, and suggests that the picture was made for a specific location with natural lighting from that direction. The stark light emphasises every line and wrinkle on the saint’s face and reflects with uncompromising realism from the smooth, glossy surface of his forehead.

We do not know who painted this picture. It has previously been attributed to Mansueti and to Lodovico da Parma, who were both working in the sixteenth century, but neither identification is convincing.