2021, gift of the Galantino family; restoration supported by Metalwork spa, 2022

2022, loan, BPER Banca collection

2022, loan, BPER Banca collection

2022, gift of Clara Bottarelli in memory of her husband Pierangelo Gramignola

2022, gift of Clara Bottarelli in memory of her husband Pierangelo Gramignola

2022, gift of Clara Bottarelli in memory of her husband Pierangelo Gramignola

2022, gift of Clara Bottarelli in memory of her husband Pierangelo Gramignola

2022, gift of Clara Bottarelli in memory of her husband Pierangelo Gramignola

2022, on loan, by concession of Pietro Fenici and Valeria Gramignola

The Pala dei mercanti reveals, in its iconographic and formal characteristics, the richness of an intense historical experience in Brescia, whose events are not yet fully clarified. These past have caused a notable impoverishment of the pictorial drafting, with interventions that have not always been documented that have occurred over time. Vincenzo Foppa, the initial protagonist of the Brescia school of the sixteenth century, uses a perspective space pervaded by a natural luminosity, different from the unifying concept of central Italian painting and Venetian tonalism.

The half-length representation of the Angel, by the hand of a very young Raphael, represents a fragment that must have been part of a larger altarpiece, depicting the Coronation of St. Nicholas of Tolentino. The events that brought the work to Brescia are extremely complex: Paolo Tosio, a well-known collector from Brescia, managed to buy it, with the certificate of authenticity of the Florentine Academy, in 1822 - 1823. At the time the painting was known as "Portrait of young man ”and was already attributed to Raphael. In 1912 Oskar Fischel, a profound connoisseur of Raffello, with a brilliant intuition identified in the "Portrait of a young man" the face of the first angel on the left of the large altarpiece with The coronation of San Nicola da Tolentino, painted by the artist for the church of Sant'Agostino in Città di Castello. Immediately, the painting underwent restoration and the removal of a layer of dark green paint from the background revealed the presence of the wing and other elements relevant to the original composition.

The sacred scene takes place inside a hut: two shepherds, accompanied and encouraged by two angels, offer the Child their gift, a lamb, a symbol of divine sacrifice. The Madonna, on her knees, contemplates her son absorbed while Joseph, behind her, watches over. Everything is apparently simple: from the placement in the space of the characters, arranged on different levels, to the transformation of the symbolic motifs into naturalistic elements, of extraordinary emotional suggestion. The human and divine characters and the animals are equally linked to the same intimate participation. The ancient provenance of the work is unknown, we know that it became part of the collection of the famous Brescia collector Paolo Tosio for a purchase between 24 August and 5 January 1825.

Against an apparently uniform background, the young spinner, sitting on a boulder with her hands in her lap, rests. He has a mild expression and seems to accept his tiring reality. A narrative component is missing, present in the other representations of this theme, one of the most recurrent in genre painting. Purchased at auction in 2003, the work was deposited in the Tosio Martinengo Art Gallery and only recently, in 2010, with an act of great generosity, was it donated to the Art Gallery.

Considered one of Savoldo's masterpieces, the work was performed during the second stay in Venice of the Brescian painter. The flutist, who emerges from the dim light of a room, appears absorbed in melancholy amorous meditations on the verge of psychological introspection. The presence of the recorder, usually depicted in pastoral settings, refers to the “Giorgione” tradition, where there is no lack of similar figurative solutions.

The painting was one of the first purchases made by the famous Brescia collector Paolo Tosio, who had recently begun to compose his collection. The dating - fixed by scholars, on the stylistic bases, to the years 1505/1506 - places the tablet in the last years spent in Urbino by the young Raphael, before his transfer to Florence. In those years the artist painted small-sized works of great stylistic refinement, destined for private devotion and densely characterized by references to classicism, in line with the culture of the Urbino court, one of the main centers in Italy of elaboration and propagation of 'Humanism. The figure of Christ is placed in the foreground against a slightly hinted landscape background. The royal red cloth, the crown of thorns, the hand brought to the side and the gesture of blessing define the sacredness of the figure and determine its religious message.