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Lot Essay
This panel belongs to a group of works assigned by Richard Offner in 1956 to the Master of Mezzana (A Corpus of Florentine Painting, Florence, III, VI, 1956, pp. 57-63). Miklós Boskovits (in Offner, III, VIII, 1984) later proposed to identify the anonymous master with the documented Pratese painter, Bettino di Corsino, recorded as working in the city between 1288 and 1313. This suggestion, however, was subsequently overturned by Boskovits’s later research.
In a recent essay, Angelo Tartuferi re-examined the artistic situation in Prato, a city which despite its proximity to Florence, was for much of the trecento a significant artistic centre in its own right (op. cit.). Beginning his study from the late thirteenth century, Tartuferi investigated the development of Bettino di Corsino, perhaps the most celebrated painter in Prato of the period whose oeuvre shows the splendid moment of transition between the two-dimensional Byzantine tradition and the first attempts to construct space in paintings more realistically (op.cit., pp. 65-82). Within this dynamic artistic context, Tartuferi identifies a different artist’s hand in the Master of Mezzana, active by around 1315. Possibly Florentine, the painter developed as the most prolific interpreter of Giotto’s early work, well before the presence of famed painters like Taddeo Gaddi or Bernardo Daddi in Prato. His earliest works, dating before 1320, were described by Tartufieri as a form of 'giottismo aspro e arcaizzante', which however evolved in part due to the influence of Jacopo del Casentino and the Master of Saint Cecilia. He tentatively identified the Master with the 'Francischo pictori de Florentia', who was entrusted to paint parts of the great hall on the first floor of the Palazzo Pretorio at Prato in 1336. The surviving fragments stylistically confirm this identification, and make the master one of the most important painters in Prato, corroborating the idea that he was a Florentine, well versed in the artistic novelty of his native city.
This painting can be dated to around the first half of the 1320s, and shows a true “Giottesque” style in the way the painter represents the three-dimensionality of the throne, on which the Madonna seems to be convincingly seated. Likewise, the figures are solidly modelled, again demonstrating the Master’s awareness of Giotto’s oeuvre.
In a recent essay, Angelo Tartuferi re-examined the artistic situation in Prato, a city which despite its proximity to Florence, was for much of the trecento a significant artistic centre in its own right (op. cit.). Beginning his study from the late thirteenth century, Tartuferi investigated the development of Bettino di Corsino, perhaps the most celebrated painter in Prato of the period whose oeuvre shows the splendid moment of transition between the two-dimensional Byzantine tradition and the first attempts to construct space in paintings more realistically (op.cit., pp. 65-82). Within this dynamic artistic context, Tartuferi identifies a different artist’s hand in the Master of Mezzana, active by around 1315. Possibly Florentine, the painter developed as the most prolific interpreter of Giotto’s early work, well before the presence of famed painters like Taddeo Gaddi or Bernardo Daddi in Prato. His earliest works, dating before 1320, were described by Tartufieri as a form of 'giottismo aspro e arcaizzante', which however evolved in part due to the influence of Jacopo del Casentino and the Master of Saint Cecilia. He tentatively identified the Master with the 'Francischo pictori de Florentia', who was entrusted to paint parts of the great hall on the first floor of the Palazzo Pretorio at Prato in 1336. The surviving fragments stylistically confirm this identification, and make the master one of the most important painters in Prato, corroborating the idea that he was a Florentine, well versed in the artistic novelty of his native city.
This painting can be dated to around the first half of the 1320s, and shows a true “Giottesque” style in the way the painter represents the three-dimensionality of the throne, on which the Madonna seems to be convincingly seated. Likewise, the figures are solidly modelled, again demonstrating the Master’s awareness of Giotto’s oeuvre.