LORENZO SABATINI (Bologna, 1530 - Rome, 1576) Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine Oil on panel, 64.5X54 cm Provenance: Collection of the Viscount of Allemby London, Sotheby's, 29 October 1980, lot 48 (as Lorenzo Sabatini and workshop) Private collection Bolognese by birth and a collaborator of Primaticcio, Sabatini's activity took place mainly in his native city, but stays in Florence and Rome were very important for his education. In the Grand Duchy city, in fact, we know him to have collaborated with Giorgio Vasari on the decoration of Palazzo Vecchio and in 1565 on the preparations for Francesco de' Medici's wedding; in the same year he was registered as a foreign painter at the Accademia del Disegno. From these few details, it can be deduced that the painter was quite successful. Looking at his production, one can clearly perceive a monumentality peculiar to Vasari's mannerism and a sort of classicism that placed him at the forefront in the decades immediately following the middle of the century. Without listing the innumerable commissions he obtained in Bologna, the 1570 commission for La Madonna Assunta (Pinacoteca Nazionale Bologna) is extremely important: a splendid altarpiece, played on strong chiaroscuro effects, bright colours and bold perspective views. This composition earned him the attention of Pope Gregory XIII, the Bolognese Ugo Boncompagni, who commissioned him in 1572 for La Madonna col bambino e San Giovannino (Madonna and Child with St. John), in which the name of the newly elected pope is expressly inscribed next to the signature 'Laurens Sabadis Pictor Bono sant.i Dni Nri Gregori XIII'. This is the year Sabatini was summoned to Rome to fresco the Sala Regia and the Sala Paolina. Returning to the panel examined here, it can be dated to an earlier period due to its similarities with the Sacra famiglia, San Michele and San Giovannino painted in collaboration with a still young Dioniso Calvart around 1566 and destined for the church of San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna, in which a similar interest in the pictorial civilisation of Parma and in particular the work of Parmigianino is perceived, in a tenor that we also note in the panel with the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine in the Szépmuvészeti Múzeum (cf. Balzarotti 2021, p. 300, no. 22, fig. 76). We thank Emilio Negro for tracing the work back to the hand of Lorenzo Sabatini. Reference bibliography: J. Winkelman, in Pittura bolognese del '500 edited by V. Fortunati Pietrantonio, Bologna 1986, pp. 595-630 V. Balzarotti, Lorenzo Sabatini: la grazia nella pittura della Controriforma, Bologna 2021, ad vocem