An old master in the new world: The oeuvre of pietro perugino through the lens of paintings in North American public collections

The career of painter Pietro Perugino (ca. 1450-1523) is deceivingly familiar. Although his celebrated panel paintings and frescoes of the mid-1480s through approximately 1510 are sampled in the traditional survey of Italian Renaissance art, the master's formative period is infrequently discussed and his prolific late period is virtually unknown even to specialists. Furthermore, it is customary that any discussion of Perugino focus on works maintained in Italian or French collections. An Old Master in the New World: the Oeuvre of Pietro Perugino through the Lens of Paintings in North American Public Collections is an exhaustive study which examines the whole of Perugino's career through the lens of eighteen important, yet largely unfamiliar paintings in North American collections. It is important to note that that there are more works by Perugino, his studio and followers in North American collections than any other Italian master of the quattrocento save for Giovanni Bellini and Sandro Botticelli. Ironically, no single volume dedicated to the former body of work has been undertaken as it has with the latter two. In addition, lavish attention has been dedicated to the study of those paintings by the prodigious Raphael in North American collections, yet scholars are largely unaware of those works by his prolific master, Perugino, held by the same body of museums and galleries. The scarcity of Perugino literature in general is incongruous with a industrious master who was celebrated by contemporaries as the best painter in Italy. It is well-known that Pietro Perugino was among the most prominent masters and teachers of the Renaissance commanding commissions from across the Italian peninsula iv and attracting students from as far away as Spain, France, and Germany, yet less than a handful of scholarly publications dedicated to the master have come forward in the last fifty years. An Old Master in the New World: the Oeuvre of Pietro Perugino through the Lens of Paintings in North American Public Collections addresses two outstanding needs in the of study of Italian Renaissance painting in providing a substantive survey of Perugino's career driven by the study of a specific, yet overlooked, body of images never considered together. Part I of the current study is an extensive essay which examines the oeuvre of Perugino in four distinct sections: Early Career (through 1485); Mature Period (c. 1485 - c.1500); Crisis and Transition (c. 1505-1511); Late Period (c. 1512-1523). Part II is a extensive catalogue of the eighteen paintings in North American collections which serve as the foundation of discussion in the previous chapter. Works are presented in chronological order with significant attention given to issues of intrinsic study, provenance, condition and bibliography. In end, this study provides for a complete understanding of all stages of the master's oeuvre in recognizing a significant body of work unknown to most scholars.