Italian, Venetian (?), 'An Apostle, Saint, Prophet or Sage', probably late 16th century

This picture is a fragment of a larger painting which would have decorated the spandrel of an arch. There would have been another figure in a complementary pose on the other side of the arch. The painting consists of five separate pieces of canvas, which were probably originally glued to a wooden support as they show no evidence of stitching. It is likely that the two pieces of canvas with the architectural elements were painted by a specialist and then joined to the piece with the figure when the picture was put in place.

The picture is broadly painted – the separate brushstrokes of lead white are visible in the shirt at the top of the figure’s right arm – but it is now obscured by a thick and darkened varnish. The paint surface is badly creased perhaps from when the canvas was peeled off the earlier wooden support. The blue pigment has faded to a dull grey. The features of the man’s face are difficult to see in the shadowed areas where the paint has been rubbed and has become translucent, and his beard is now barely visible.

The proportions of the figure, the projecting knee and the scale and breadth of painting style suggest that the picture was intended to be placed very high up where small details would not have be seen. It may have formed part of the decoration of a church, possibly over an arch in the aisle at the entrance to a chapel.

The unidentified figure looks down and clasps a round shaft, which could have been part of a large key, an attribute of Saint Peter, or perhaps a pilgrim’s staff as carried by Saint James or Saint Roch, or maybe even a banner. It is difficult to tell which, as the canvas with the other end has been cut off. He may be a prophet or ancestor of Christ, from an Old Testament story prefiguring the New Testament subject matter in the chapel below.

The painting is likely to be from Venice or the Veneto where, due to the damp conditions, murals were more usually painted on canvas rather than directly onto the wall plaster (a technique known as fresco). However, this painting is unusual because here the architectural elements have also been painted rather than carved in stone or modelled and moulded in stucco. It is likely that the painting dates from the last decades of the sixteenth century or later when extensive canvas decorations in the naves of Venetian churches became popular.

The painting was given to the National Gallery in 1855 by Pietro Vallati, a painter and art dealer from Rome, as a model for teaching how to paint on a grand scale. He believed it to be by Pordenone, but the brushwork has more in common with contemporaries of Palma Giovane, and this type of spandrel figure was also painted by followers of Veronese.