Francesco Malcotto

Monumental early 18th-century Italian fresco depicting Padri Dell’Ordine Domenicano by Francesco Malcotto, who made this painting for the Renaissance basilica Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, which is where Leonardo Da Vinci painted his masterpiece, The Last Supper. Large tear depicting 15 Dominican fathers arranged in two rows, the first genuflected and the second bystander. In the foreground is a dog with a torch in its mouth, an attribute of St. Dominic and the monastic order; two triraptychs, one of them reclining enigmatically; and a book. The friars depicted with variations of expertly shaded and juxtaposed chromatic tones are projected in the very foreground with the characteristic tonsure, white robe and black cloak, two bishops with miters on the left and in the foreground two popes wearing mozzettas, Innocent V and Pius V.
he author of the painting is Francesco Malcotto, who created this pictorial complex for the back wall of the apse of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In the first decades of the eighteenth century, the decoration of the apse was conceived in a unified way by placing on the back wall the great Resurrection of Christ by Melchiorre Gherardini flanked by two frescoes depicting saints of the Dominican order, distributed on several levels in the act of adoring the deity in the center.
Bibliography AA.VV. S.M. delle Grazie, Milan 1983, pp. 177-179.
This decoration was removed in its entirety during the 1935-1937 renovation. About the author we have not been able to find much information except that he worked at the convent of San Domenico in Cremona, in the Gallarati Scotti palace in Milan.
The technique of tearing consists of detaching from the wall only the layer of the fresco color using animal glues placed on the canvas of the surface of the fresco to be torn off, which once detached is placed on the canvas of the new support. The method of tearing allows the original sinopia to be recovered if it exists. In the operation the deeper layers of color are often lost with the consequent decrease in the coloristic intensity of the pictorial piece that, applied on the new support, ends up losing the original characteristics of painting conducted on plaster giving a more delicate appearance.
This monumental antique painting measures 223 x 267 cm, comes from a private collection in Lombardy, and is in good conservation condition.