Saint Dominic

This single figure of Saint Dominic, the friar who founded the Dominican order, is a survivor. It once belonged to a large altarpiece that was later taken apart and sold panel by panel, so its companions are now scattered. Scholars have tried to reassemble it on paper: the panel almost certainly stood beside the Saint Anthony now in the Louvre, and some link the group to the Roverella Altarpiece, whose central section is in London, though the original arrangement remains uncertain. Tura painted it around 1475 as court artist to the Este family in Ferrara, and his manner is unmistakable. The figures are drawn with a hard, almost metallic edge, as if carved rather than brushed. The ground behind the saint is real gold leaf, laid on in the old way at a time when many painters were already replacing gold backgrounds with open sky.