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拍品專文
The Master of the Misericordia was a key figure in later trecento Florentine painting. Influenced by Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna, and Bernardo Daddi, his body of work has been steadily recovered, ever since Richard Offner identifed his hand in the 1920s in two particular works: in compartments relating the Stories of Saint Eligius, formerly in the Cambò collection, Barcelona, and in the panel held in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, the Madonna della Misericordia with Kneeling Nuns, the latter previously given to the circle of Agnolo Gaddi. Offner initially labelled the artist the ‘Master of the Virgin of Mercy’, but that name did not hold. As he began systematically to identify works around the Misericordia in Florence, it had been Offner’s intention to publish a monograph on the artist as part of the monumental Corpus of Florentine Painting, but this never materialised. Instead, a list of attributed works was published posthumously in 1981. By that point, Federico Zeri and Miklós Boskovits had both independently expanded the catalogue, with Boskovits listing 51 works in his 1975 volume, praising the Master as worthy of a place amongst the truly great protagonists of Florentine painting, distinguished by his capacity to express a greater degree of naturalism. An updated catalogue, with a highly informative chronological and stylistic evaluation of his oeuvre was recently produced by Sonia Chiodo, as part of the Corpus. A formal identification of the artist, however, remains elusive.
Though the present lot was exhibited in 1925, first mention of it was only made by Offner in 1947, in his Corpus volume on Bernardo Daddi and his circle. There, in a discussion of treatments of the Coronation of the Virgin, he records the work – described as the central part of a tabernacle – as being in the Ullman collection in Frankfurt, but only goes so far as to call it ‘Cionesque’, without venturing further (Offner, op. cit., 2001). Later he would refine that view, attributing it fully to the Master of the Misericordia. The panel was dated to circa 1380-85 by Boskovits, but Chiodo places it at the close of the previous decade, given the fine rendering of the features and garments. Chiodo notes too a further interesting feature: the paved floor here is decorated with a pattern made of a diamond with a four-leaf flower insert in the centre, which is a trademark motif of the Master that crops up repeatedly on garments, or as part of the background in his panels after the 1360s (Chiodo, op. cit., pp. 56-7).
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for further confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs (written communication, 2014).
Though the present lot was exhibited in 1925, first mention of it was only made by Offner in 1947, in his Corpus volume on Bernardo Daddi and his circle. There, in a discussion of treatments of the Coronation of the Virgin, he records the work – described as the central part of a tabernacle – as being in the Ullman collection in Frankfurt, but only goes so far as to call it ‘Cionesque’, without venturing further (Offner, op. cit., 2001). Later he would refine that view, attributing it fully to the Master of the Misericordia. The panel was dated to circa 1380-85 by Boskovits, but Chiodo places it at the close of the previous decade, given the fine rendering of the features and garments. Chiodo notes too a further interesting feature: the paved floor here is decorated with a pattern made of a diamond with a four-leaf flower insert in the centre, which is a trademark motif of the Master that crops up repeatedly on garments, or as part of the background in his panels after the 1360s (Chiodo, op. cit., pp. 56-7).
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for further confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs (written communication, 2014).