Christ and the Samaritan, Nativity, Baptism, Noli me tangere – Institute of Art – Chicago
The four panels currently preserved at the Art Institute in Chicago, along with another depicting the Resurrection, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, once constituted a predella of an unidentified altarpiece, whose theme was probably the Crucifixion or the Deposition from the Cross: it is therefore thought that the panels could be referred to the Pala Chigi, whose predella was actually lost during the architectural reconstruction of the church of Sant’Agostino in Siena.
The panels, which date back to 1506/1507, show various stories of the life of Christ: his birth, the Baptism by Saint John the Baptist in the Jordan River, the conversation with the Samaritan woman and his apparition to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection (Noli me tangere).
The pictorial style of all the tablets already presages the clear and serene tone that will become typical in the mature phase of Perugino’s production; the compositional schemes, already experimented previously, create a sense of extreme symmetry and balance, while all the figures are built with many small strokes of color that give a sense of three-dimensionality.
The predella tablets are preserved at the Art Institute of Chicago.
