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Lot Essay
This fine panel is an important addition to the corpus of paintings by Tommaso del Mazza, also known as the Master of Saint Verdiana. The striking palette and elegant design are characteristic of his mature style, which showed both the marked influence of his contemporaries, notably Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna, and an independent spirit that excelled in narrative details.
His oeuvre was initially reconstructed by Miklós Boskovits, who grouped the pictures under the name of the anonymous master, in reference to a panel showing the Madonna and Child with Six Saints, which included a rare representation of Saint Verdiana, in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Subsequently the artist was identified by Barbara Deimling as Tommaso del Mazza, who is recorded between 1377 and 1392, and was active in Florence, Prato and Pisa. Documents were found that showed Tommaso was responsible for the altarpiece for the ospedale founded by Bonifazio Lupi in Florence, a work identified as the triptych in the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, which up until that point had been given to the Master of Saint Verdiana.
We are grateful to Dr. Gaudenz Freuler for proposing the attribution of this newly discovered panel. He notes that it forms part of a predella from which four other elements featuring scenes from the Life of the Virgin are known: the central panel, showing the Marriage of the Virgin, is in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (fig. 1), while three others are recorded in the Berenson archive as being formerly owned by Wildenstein. These compositions all show a deep understanding of Agnolo Gaddi’s renowned frescoes of the same subject, made between 1392 and 1395 for the Cintola Chapel in Prato Cathedral. Tommaso must have seen this decorative cycle when he visited the city, subsequently reinventing and reworking the compositions in his own idiom.
His oeuvre was initially reconstructed by Miklós Boskovits, who grouped the pictures under the name of the anonymous master, in reference to a panel showing the Madonna and Child with Six Saints, which included a rare representation of Saint Verdiana, in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Subsequently the artist was identified by Barbara Deimling as Tommaso del Mazza, who is recorded between 1377 and 1392, and was active in Florence, Prato and Pisa. Documents were found that showed Tommaso was responsible for the altarpiece for the ospedale founded by Bonifazio Lupi in Florence, a work identified as the triptych in the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, which up until that point had been given to the Master of Saint Verdiana.
We are grateful to Dr. Gaudenz Freuler for proposing the attribution of this newly discovered panel. He notes that it forms part of a predella from which four other elements featuring scenes from the Life of the Virgin are known: the central panel, showing the Marriage of the Virgin, is in the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (fig. 1), while three others are recorded in the Berenson archive as being formerly owned by Wildenstein. These compositions all show a deep understanding of Agnolo Gaddi’s renowned frescoes of the same subject, made between 1392 and 1395 for the Cintola Chapel in Prato Cathedral. Tommaso must have seen this decorative cycle when he visited the city, subsequently reinventing and reworking the compositions in his own idiom.