The Master of Santo Spirito* (active end of the 15th Century)

Saint Anthony Abbot (?)

Details

The Master of Santo Spirito* (active end of the 15th Century)
Saint Anthony Abbot (?)
oil on panel
26 x 19in. (66.6 x 48.9cm.)

Provenance

Mrs. E.D. Thaw, Paris, 1916.
Benjamin Thaw, New York.
with F. Kleinberger, New York (Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives, Nov. 1917, no. 29) as Bartolomeo di Giovanni;
by whom sold at the American Art Association, Plaza Hotel, New York, Jan. 23, 1918, lot 27 as Bartolomeo di Giovanni.
Edward Brandus.
Anon. Sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, Dec. 4, 1954, lot 101 as Bartolomeo di Giovanni.
Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, March 23, 1973, lot 28, as Bartolomeo di Giovanni.
Anon. Sale, Drouot Montaigne, Paris, June 25, 1991, lot 2 as Giovanni Scheggini, called Graffione.

Literature

E. Fahy, Some Followers of Domenico Ghirlandajo, 1976, p. 195, as Saint Bartholomew.

Lot Essay

Although the identity of this master has not yet been fully resolved, in 1988 Anna Padoa Rizzo put forward an argument for associating this artist with Agnolo di Domenico di Donnino del Mazziere and his brother, Donnino di Domenico (A. Padoa Rizzo, Agnolo di Donnino: nuovi documenti, le fonti e la possibile identificazione con il 'Maestro di Santo Spirito', Rivista d'arte, 40, 1988, pp. 125-68). A further strong case has been put forward to identify this artist with Giovanni Scheggini, called Graffione (E. Fahy, op. cit.; and H.P. Horne, Il Graffione, The Burlington Magazine, VIII, December 1905, pp. 189-96). Mr. Fahy was the first to recognize the present work as being a second fragment from the same altarpiece as the Saint George in the collection of the Marquess of Lothian, Newbattle Abbey.

We are grateful to Mr. Everett Fahy for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.