Lot Essay
The attribution to Agnolo Gaddi was first proposed by the late Philip Pouncey.
Howell Wills, who lived in Florence, presumably assembled his collection there: no fewer than eleven of his early Italian works were, like this triptych, acquired by Quilter. Henry Wagner (1840-1926) formed a distinguished collection of Renaissance pictures and works of art, making frequent purchases at Christie's from 1876. In 1918 he presented four sections of the polyptych from the high altar of the Church of Santa Croce at Florence by Ugolino di Nerio to the National Gallery, nos. 3375-8: he made other gifts to that institution. For an account of Wagner as a collector, see J. B[yam]. S[haw]. in A. Wagner and A. Dale, The Wagners of Brighton, London and Chichester, 1983, pp. 143-5.
Howell Wills, who lived in Florence, presumably assembled his collection there: no fewer than eleven of his early Italian works were, like this triptych, acquired by Quilter. Henry Wagner (1840-1926) formed a distinguished collection of Renaissance pictures and works of art, making frequent purchases at Christie's from 1876. In 1918 he presented four sections of the polyptych from the high altar of the Church of Santa Croce at Florence by Ugolino di Nerio to the National Gallery, nos. 3375-8: he made other gifts to that institution. For an account of Wagner as a collector, see J. B[yam]. S[haw]. in A. Wagner and A. Dale, The Wagners of Brighton, London and Chichester, 1983, pp. 143-5.