ANDREA SOLARIO
Andrea Solario (1460?–1515?), who was perhaps the pupil of his brother Cristoforo a sculptor and architect, went with him to Venice in 1490 and remained there at least three years. During this time he came under the influence of Alvise Vivarini and Giovanni Bellini. Earlier in his career he was impressed by the pictures of Antonello da Messina, who was in Venice and Milan in 1475–1476. Solario can hardly have become Antonello’s pupil at that early age. He must also have come within the sphere of Leonardo da Vinci’s influence. Leonardo, who worked in Milan between 1482 and 1500 and from 1506 to 1513, was asked by the Cardinal George of Amboise to decorate a chapel in the Château at Gaillon in Normandy. He, however, advised the Cardinal to employ Solario. Solario in consequence went to France in August 1507 to undertake the work. The Louvre is rich in his pictures. His charming Madonna of the Green Cushion (No. 1530) is inscribed:
Andreas de Solario fa.
This small panel was once the property of Marie de Médicis. The Crucifixion (No. 1532) was formerly catalogued under the name of Andrea de Milan, which led some to confuse Andrea Solario with the much less efficient painter, Andrea Salaino. This picture is inscribed:
ANDREAS MEDIOLANENSIS FA 1503,
a form of signature which is said to have been employed by Solario only for such of his pictures as were destined for other towns than Milan. The Head of St. John the Baptist on a Charger (No. 1533) is said to be signed and dated
ANDREAS DE SOLARIO, FAT, 1507.
The Portrait of Charles d’Amboise, Seigneur of Chaumont and Governor of Milan (No. 1531), like many other of Solario’s pictures, has in the past, when the range of his art was not so well understood, been attributed to other artists.