Nadia Righi, "Giovanni Ambrogio Bevilacqua: proposte per la cronologia e per il catalogo,"  in Arte Cristiana, v. LXXXIII, 1995, p. 184, no. 13.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The condition of this picture is extremely uneven, and while original paint is visible in small areas throughout, very broad and lazy retouches have been applied in most areas. While the picture has been fairly recently restored, a fresh look at the entire project is in order. A restorer should be consulted before purchasing this work.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Giovanni Ambrogio Bevilaqua's career was spent in his native Lombardy, producing frescoes, altarpieces and easel pictures for patrons in and around Milan.  He was one of the artists active there at the time of Leonardo's arrival, circa 1482/3.  Hℱis style, however, appears to have been immune to the Florentine's innovations, and rather he turned to Vincenzo Foppa as an🐻 example; as he developed as an artist it is clear that other painters also made an impact on him, including Bergognone and the Master of the Pala Sforzesca. 

This impressive, large-scale Christ on the Road to Calvary, in fact, exhibits these differing influences.  It relates in composition to a small panel of very similar composition formerly in the Suida-Manning collection, and now in the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas.  Righi, in an in depth article attempting to create a chronology for Bevilacqua's corpus of work, notes that despite the similarity of the two pictures, they are painted at different moments in the artist's career.  The present, large panel would appear to date from the mid-1480's, about the same time as one of his few securely dated works, a series of frescoes in the church of  San Vittore in Landriano, which are signed and dated 1485.  This was the artist's most strictly "Foppesque" moment, with solidly modeled and strongly drawn figures.  The Suida-Manning picture, however, dates to a later moment, 1490-95, when the artist began to feel the influence of other artists, such as the Pala Sforsesca Master; it clearly relies on the present painting for its composition, and is painted in a more graphic manner and with variations in number of ways, suggesting that it must have been a redaction by the artist, painted for a specific purpose or patron, rather than a ricordo.