Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Lorenzo di Credi
Italian; 15th-century
Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum
69%
A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo. 1475-79. Oil on panel (attributed to Lorenzo di Credi, with Leonardo da Vinci)
This panel was once a predella, so we're missing a lot of its point when we judge it as a standalone artwork. But it's been removed from its altarpiece and it's displayed by itself in the museum, so what else can we do? Each figure is extremely well modeled, and the robes of the angel in particular have a fulsome beauty, contoured as they are by those lighter tones on his back. But the space in which we find these figures isn't articulated to quite the degree it ought to be: Donatus is too squarely framed by the portal behind him and the trees behind that, and the angel's gestures fail to find an adequate groove with the architecture. It's not impossible that the rest of this panel's original altarpiece would have justified some of its shortcomings, but as it stands it's a minor work. Cool that there's a Leonardo (attributed) in Worcester, though! (TFS, 2025)