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Piero di Giovanni, called Lorenzo Monaco (?1370/75-c.1425/30 Florence) and Workshop

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PROPERTY FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE EUROPEAN PAINTINGS ACQUISITIONS FUND

Piero di Giovanni, called Lorenzo Monaco (?1370/75-c.1425/30 Florence) and Workshop

The Madonna of Humility with adoring angels

Details

Piero di Giovanni, called Lorenzo Monaco (?1370/75-c.1425/30 Florence) and Workshop
The Madonna of Humility with adoring angels
tempera and gold on panel
35¼ x 22 1/8 in. (89.5 x 56.2 cm.)

Provenance

Art market, Dover, England, where purchased by the following.
with Victor G. Fischer, Washington, D.C., by 1905, from whom acquired in 1909 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Literature

O. Sirén, Don Lorenzo Monaco, Strasbourg, 1905, pp. 36-37, pl. V, as Lorenzo Monaco.
B. Burroughs, 'Principal Accessions', Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, IV, no. 8, August 1909, pp. 141-142, as Lorenzo Monaco.
B. Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, New York and London, 1909, p. 154, as Lorenzo Monaco.
M. Bernath, New York und Boston, mit 143 Abbildungen, Leipzig, 1912, p. 68, as Lorenzo Monaco.
V. Lazareff, 'Una Madonna di Lorenzo Monaco a Mosca', L'Arte, XXVII, 1924, p. 124, as Lorenzo Monaco.
R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1927, IX, p. 134, fig. 87, as Lorenzo Monaco.
W. Suida, 'Lorenzo Monaco', in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, XXIII, Leipzig, 1929, p. 392, as Lorenzo Monaco.
B. Berenson, Pitture italiane del rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 258, as Lorenzo Monaco.
G. Pudelko, 'The Stylistic Development of Lorenzo Monaco-I', Burlington Magazine, LXXIII, no. 429, Dec. 1938, p. 238, note 13, as Lorenzo Monaco.
H.B. Wehle, A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish and Byzantine Paintings, New York, 1940, pp. 18-19, as Lorenzo Monaco.
P. de Montebello, 'Four Prophets by Lorenzo Monaco', Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, XXV, no. 4, Dec. 1966, pp. 164-166, fig. 14, as Lorenzo Monaco.
F. Zeri with E.E. Gardner, Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School, New York, 1971, pp. 67-68, as Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco.
B.B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteeth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, 1972, p. 111, as Lorenzo Monaco.
M. Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370-1400, Florence, 1975, pp. 243, under note 200, 350, repeats earlier attributions to Lorenzo Monaco/Lorenzo Monaco and Workshop.
M. Laclotte and E. Mognetti, Inventaire des collections publiques françaises: Avignon - Musée du Petit Palais, Peinture Italienne, Paris, 1976, p. 119, under no. 199, repeats Zeri's attribution.
M. Laclotte and E. Mognetti, Avignon, musée du Petit Palais: Peinture italienne, Paris, 1987, p. 129, under no. 119, repeats Zeri's attribution.
M. Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, Princeton, 1989, pp. 150-151, fig. 141, as Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco.
E. Skaug, Punch marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico, Oslo, 1994, I, p. 284, as Lorenzo Monaco.
M. Laclotte and E. Moench, Peinture italienne: musée du Petit Palais Avignon, Paris, 2005, p. 125, under no. 129, repeats Zeri's attribution.
A. G. de Marchi, Revelations: Discoveries and Rediscoveries in Italian Primitive Art, Rome, 2013, pp. 49-50, fig. 41.

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Lot Essay

Born Pietro di Giovanni, Lorenzo Monaco entered the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence in 1391 and adopted the monastic name Lorenzo. Renowned for his narrative inventiveness, subtle color harmonies, and elegance of design, Lorenzo 'brought to a peak of refinement the traditional character of late Trecento paintings and introduced an element of poetry and fantasy to its worn-out set of conventions' (De Montebello, op. cit., p. 156).

The present Madonna of Humility exemplifies Lorenzo's characteristically lyrical imagery and also reveals the keen sense of color and sinuous, curvilinear forms that made him a pioneer of the luxurious, sophisticated style commonly referred to as the 'International Gothic'. In the present work, the majestic Madonna is typical of Lorenzo's noble figure types, while the delicately modulated shades of pink, purple and blue show his highly refined coloristic sensibility.

Though long attributed to the master himself, more recent scholarship has convincingly associated this Madonna of Humility with an artist in Lorenzo's workshop, which included, among others, the young Fra Angelico. However, Federico Zeri (loc. cit.) has argued that while executed by a close associate, the design of the present work must have been invented by the master himself. Zeri suggests The Madonna of Humility was painted c. 1405-1410, while Eisenberg (loc. cit.) favors a dating of c. 1408-1410.

Zeri also observed that the same artist in Lorenzo's studio was likely responsible for the Saint Laurence Triptych of 1407 (Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon and Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome). Michelle Laclotte (loc. cit.) described the Saint Laurence Triptych as 'Lorenzo Monaco and Workshop' and suggested that, as in the present work, the composition was designed by Lorenzo himself and executed under his supervision. Eisenberg (ibid.) tentatively ascribes the Avignon-Rome triptych to Bartolomeo Fruosino (c. 1366-1441), who he posits may also have had a hand in the execution of the present panel.

A Madonna in Humility in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (catalogued by Eisenberg as 'Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco'), repeats the composition of the present work, and a tondo which repeats the central portion was formerly in the collection of the Earl of Southesk (see A.G. De Marchi, loc. cit.).

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