The Clarisse Master (active Siena, second half of the 13th Century)
The Clarisse Master (active Siena, second half of the 13th Century)

The Madonna and Child with the Annunciation, the Crucifixion in a lunette above, and scenes from the Last Judgement in the spandrels

Details
The Clarisse Master (active Siena, second half of the 13th Century)
The Madonna and Child with the Annunciation, the Crucifixion in a lunette above, and scenes from the Last Judgement in the spandrels
tempera on gold ground panel
12.3/8 x 7.5/8in. (31.4 x 19.4cm.)
Provenance
Campo Santo di Pisa (wax seal on the reverse).
Acquired by the grandfather of the present owners before the 1st world war.

Lot Essay

This panel, evidently the main element of a small tabernacle, has been convincingly attributed to the Clarisse Master, so named from the panel of Christ and the Virgin enthroned in the Convento delle Clarisse, Siena (Edward B. Garrison, Italian Romanesque Panel Painting, Florence, 1949, no. 161, where dated 1285-95). Close compositional parallels have been noted for the face of the Madonna in the Kress Madonna and Child with Four Saints, in the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis and for the Crucifixion in the triptych in the Czartoryski Museum, Cracow (J.H. Stubblebine, Guido da Siena, Princeton, 1964, nos. XVII and XXII)

The Clarisse Master has been plausibly identified as Rinaldo, documented in Siena in 1274-80, who supplied a Biccherna cover of 1278, now in Berlin. On the basis of the small group of works attributable to him, the Master can be considered as perhaps the most refined of the artists who emerged in the following of Guido da Siena and thus as a key figure in Sienese painting at the time of the emergence of Duccio.

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for confirming the attribution.

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