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Lot Essay
Paolo Schiavo was an artist of great versatility, equally adept at small scale panel painting and polyptych altarpieces as well as frescoes and manuscript illumination. He even supplied cartoons for embroiderers and tapestry-makers. Vasari states that he was a follower of Masolino, but his early work also shows a marked affinity with that of his slightly younger contemporary Masaccio, particularly those works dating from the 1430s, as is the case with the present picture.
This panel, representing two scenes, Christ before Caiaphas, and The Denial of Saint Peter, would have originally formed part of a predella, some of whose other constituant parts were first recognised by Federico Zeri (loc. cit.). Zeri identified four other related panels by Schiavo, of almost identical size and also representing scenes from the Passion: two in the Kress Collection of The Flagellation and The Crucifixion (K216, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; and K1188, University of Georgia, Athens, GA; see F.R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Italian Paintings XIII-XV Century, London, 1966, p. 105, figs. 281-2); The Betrayal of Christ (private collection, Florence); and The Resurrection (formerly in the collection of Willard Golovin and sold at Sotheby's, New York, 23 January 2003, lot 176). Professor Miklós Boskovits added a further panel, the Agony in the Garden, previously unpublished (private collection, see Boskovits, op. cit., pp. 336 and 339, fig. 8). He considers these panels to possibly be part of the same paliotto, and dates them to around 1435-1440.
Henry Harris (d. 1950) formed a major collection during the early 20th century of Renaissance pictures, bronzes, and works of art, that were sold posthumously in a series of sales held by Sotheby's in London. Among the highlights of the collection were Giovanni di Paolo's, Saint John the Baptist, a portrait by Federico Barocci and a bronze fountain figure by Rustici. He also bequeathed an unfinished picture of The Madonna with the children at play by a follower of Leonardo, to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (A.790).
This panel, representing two scenes, Christ before Caiaphas, and The Denial of Saint Peter, would have originally formed part of a predella, some of whose other constituant parts were first recognised by Federico Zeri (loc. cit.). Zeri identified four other related panels by Schiavo, of almost identical size and also representing scenes from the Passion: two in the Kress Collection of The Flagellation and The Crucifixion (K216, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; and K1188, University of Georgia, Athens, GA; see F.R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Italian Paintings XIII-XV Century, London, 1966, p. 105, figs. 281-2); The Betrayal of Christ (private collection, Florence); and The Resurrection (formerly in the collection of Willard Golovin and sold at Sotheby's, New York, 23 January 2003, lot 176). Professor Miklós Boskovits added a further panel, the Agony in the Garden, previously unpublished (private collection, see Boskovits, op. cit., pp. 336 and 339, fig. 8). He considers these panels to possibly be part of the same paliotto, and dates them to around 1435-1440.
Henry Harris (d. 1950) formed a major collection during the early 20th century of Renaissance pictures, bronzes, and works of art, that were sold posthumously in a series of sales held by Sotheby's in London. Among the highlights of the collection were Giovanni di Paolo's, Saint John the Baptist, a portrait by Federico Barocci and a bronze fountain figure by Rustici. He also bequeathed an unfinished picture of The Madonna with the children at play by a follower of Leonardo, to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (A.790).