Giovanni di Paolo (active by 1417-d.1482)

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

Details

Giovanni di Paolo (active by 1417-d.1482)

A Triptych: in the centre The Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and (?) Lucy and two Angels, God the Father and the Holy Spirit above; on the wings Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Bartholomew and Dominic, the Annunciation above; on the base the Man of Sorrows between the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist

inscribed with two coats-of-arms (on the sides of the base)
tempera on gold ground panel, pointed tops, with the original framing and the central panel and base with the original painted geometric decoration on the reverse

overall (open) 25 5/8 x 22 5/8in. (65 x 57.5cm.)

Provenance

Acquired by the present owner's great-great-grandfather, an eminent gynaecologist at the Berlin Charité

Lot Essay

We are grateful to Mr. Everett Fahy for identifying this portable triptych (from a transparency) as an early work by Giovanni di Paolo, datable to the 1430s by comparison with the predella panels from the altarpiece painted for the Fondi family in 1436 and now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, nos.174-6 (P. Torriti, La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. i dipinti dal XII al XV secolo, 1980, pp.306-7, illustrated in colour). He also points out that the figure of the Christ Child derives from Ambrogio Lorenzetti's 'Small Maestà' of c.1340 in the same gallery, no.65 (ibid., pp.122-3, illustrated in colour)

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