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Lot Essay
In attitudes of pious contemplation, seven figures are gathered around the dead Christ, whose body rests on the knees of the Virgin Mary, St. Mary Aegyptica (?) and St. Anne. In his traditional position at the head of Christ, Joseph of Arimathea holds the three nails, instruments of the Passion. Next to him, St. John the Evangelist supports Christ's torso and at Christ's feet kneels St. Mary Magdalen, behind whom stands Nicodemus. Christ's body, while apparently laid on the knees of the female saints, is presented, almost eucharistically to the viewer. While the narrative is enlivened by a vibrant palette of contrasting reds, blues and greens, Giuliano sets an appropriatly mournful mood through subtle allusions to the Crucifixion: the bloody base of the cross, the foot of a ladder and a skull and above all through the powerfully conceived rocky landscape, whose crevices modeled in deep shades of grey converge upon and envelop the protagonists at the dismal scene.
Giuliano di Simone is a Lucchese artist whose career was first defined (in 1971) by Alvar Gonzales-Palacios, who grouped a corpus of panels and frescoes around a signed and dated Virgin and Child Enthroned of 1389 in Castiglione di Garfagna. This artist, who was an exact contemporary of Angelo Puccinelli, was evidently influenced by the boldly modeled, neo-Giottesque narrative style of Spinello Aretino, who worked around Lucca in the 1380s. While Boskovits and, more recently Pisani, hypothesize that Giuliano was already producing works that demonstrate a knowledge of Florentine painting in the 1370s - and may indeed have been in Florence himself - it is for his paintings executed in the idiom of Spinello that Giuliano is best known. These include a magnificent Crucifixion (Kunsthaus, Zurich) and a beautiful Madonna and Child with four saints, angels and Eve (Galleria Nazionale, Parma), similar to a tabernacle of an almost identical composition also by Giuliano in the Louvre, Paris.
This moving predella panel was deaccessioned by the Jocelyn Art Museum in 1998, when it was catalogued as a work from the circle of Lorenzo Monaco. It does bear a superficial resemblance to a predella of the same subject by Lorenzo (private collection, New York) first published by Gaudenz Freuler in 1993. This parallel was noted by Pisani (op. cit.) who was the first to publish this predella as a work by Giuliano. The attribution, however, was made by Pia Palladino, who recognized the authorship of this panel and proposed that it formed part of a now dismembered altarpiece, the central element of which, a Madonna and Child, is in Moriano Castello, Lucca. The lateral panels (one of which is cut in half) are now in S. Martino, Bargecchia, the church for which the triptych may have originally been painted and that stands next to what was once the church of S. Lorenzo in Conca. In poor condition, the Moriano altarpiece has been variously considered both an early and late work. Pisani dates it to the mid 1380s after Spinello's arrival in Lucca but prior to the Castiglione Garfagnara Madonna and Child.
Giuliano di Simone is a Lucchese artist whose career was first defined (in 1971) by Alvar Gonzales-Palacios, who grouped a corpus of panels and frescoes around a signed and dated Virgin and Child Enthroned of 1389 in Castiglione di Garfagna. This artist, who was an exact contemporary of Angelo Puccinelli, was evidently influenced by the boldly modeled, neo-Giottesque narrative style of Spinello Aretino, who worked around Lucca in the 1380s. While Boskovits and, more recently Pisani, hypothesize that Giuliano was already producing works that demonstrate a knowledge of Florentine painting in the 1370s - and may indeed have been in Florence himself - it is for his paintings executed in the idiom of Spinello that Giuliano is best known. These include a magnificent Crucifixion (Kunsthaus, Zurich) and a beautiful Madonna and Child with four saints, angels and Eve (Galleria Nazionale, Parma), similar to a tabernacle of an almost identical composition also by Giuliano in the Louvre, Paris.
This moving predella panel was deaccessioned by the Jocelyn Art Museum in 1998, when it was catalogued as a work from the circle of Lorenzo Monaco. It does bear a superficial resemblance to a predella of the same subject by Lorenzo (private collection, New York) first published by Gaudenz Freuler in 1993. This parallel was noted by Pisani (op. cit.) who was the first to publish this predella as a work by Giuliano. The attribution, however, was made by Pia Palladino, who recognized the authorship of this panel and proposed that it formed part of a now dismembered altarpiece, the central element of which, a Madonna and Child, is in Moriano Castello, Lucca. The lateral panels (one of which is cut in half) are now in S. Martino, Bargecchia, the church for which the triptych may have originally been painted and that stands next to what was once the church of S. Lorenzo in Conca. In poor condition, the Moriano altarpiece has been variously considered both an early and late work. Pisani dates it to the mid 1380s after Spinello's arrival in Lucca but prior to the Castiglione Garfagnara Madonna and Child.