The prophet David

The prophet David, king and psalmist whose lineage traced to Christ, appears in this panel from 1550 at the Nantes Museum of Arts. The extremely late date — Perugino died in 1523 — raises attribution questions, suggesting either a posthumous work by a follower trained in his style or a significant misdating. If by Perugino's circle, the panel demonstrates how his figure types and compositional conventions became the standard vocabulary of Umbrian painting for generations after his death. The Nantes museum's Italian holdings, formed through various channels during the early modern period, preserve works that would otherwise remain in relative obscurity in provincial French collections.

The prophet figure follows established conventions for the depiction of David, with crown and harp potentially identifying the biblical king. The handling reflects the Perugino workshop tradition if not necessarily the master's own hand. The palette and compositional approach are consistent with the Peruginesque tradition.