D'Antonio Solario dit le Gitan au Maître de Monteoliveto, ou la redécouverte d'un peintre brugeois de la fin du XVème siècle

The Monteoliveto Master owes his provisional name to a series of nine panels from the end of the 15th century, which originally belonged to three triptychs. During the 18th century, these panels were shown in the novices' chapel of the Monteoliveto Monastery in Naples and described in detail by the so-called 'Neapolitan Vasari' Bernardo de Dominici. Nowadays they are kept in the reserve collection of the Museo di Capodimonte. For a long time, they have been attributed to a Neapolitan workshop strongly influenced by the Flemish school but in 2002, Caterina Virdis argued very convincingly for their Flemish origin. This origin seems rather obvious: on the reverse of the panels, the painter has represented figures in grisaille. Consequently the three triptychs can be considered to be typical Flemish altarpieces. Formally" speaking, they don't have anything to do with the local Neapolitan tradition of altarpieces that consist of superimposed fixed panels. In these three triptychs, the Monteoliveto Master used a very characteristic repertoire of human faces and brocade patterns. It's therefore possible to attribute to him other works kept in Padua, Amiens and Tournai. Common features in the faces also induce to recognize the Monteoliveto Master's hand in both wings of the Saint George altarpiece belonging to the Groeningemuseum in Bruges. This altarpiece was ordered around 1493 by the local Old Saint George Guild of the Crossbowmen. It is certainly a work of a painter officially established in Bruges. If the proposed attribution to the Monteoliveto Master is correct, this would mean that he was one of these 'little masters' of Bruges who lived and worked in Hans Memling's time, like the Master of the Ursula Legend or the Master of the Godelieve Legend, with whom he has some points in common. As most Flemish 'little masters', he often borrowed from 'great masters'. For instance, he not only copied models related with Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden, but also some elements from Martin Schongauer, and transposed the latter's Natiuity engraving into a painting. Paradoxically enough, in borrowing a complete composition from Schongauer with its architectural frame, he displays a certain sense of originality since, in his time, Flemish painters rarely quoted German prints and, as they did, they limited themselves to single figures.SCOPUS: re.j