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Lot Essay
Francesco Traini was the most accomplished painter and illuminator active in Pisa in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. This panel, which has recently been dated by Linda Pisani to circa 1340 (op. cit.), once formed part of a pentaptych, the central element of which is the slightly larger Madonna and Child in the Musée du Louvre, Abu Dhabi (fig. 1). Both panels share an arched top and a raised trefoil-shaped pastiglia surround within which the figures are contained.
Much like the Abu Dhabi painting, here Traini employed decorative details like the incised hatching on both sides of the ornamental borders of the garments that would subsequently become a hallmark of Pisan painting. The extraordinary beauty and remarkably refined technique that is a characteristic of Traini’s paintings – and, indeed, his miniatures – is evident here in details like the subtle rendering of the lamb’s fleece, the tenderly naturalistic way in which Saint Agnes holds the animal’s legs, and the saint’s robe embellished with a repeating pattern of birds set amid delicate scrolling vinework and foliate arabesques.
We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.
Much like the Abu Dhabi painting, here Traini employed decorative details like the incised hatching on both sides of the ornamental borders of the garments that would subsequently become a hallmark of Pisan painting. The extraordinary beauty and remarkably refined technique that is a characteristic of Traini’s paintings – and, indeed, his miniatures – is evident here in details like the subtle rendering of the lamb’s fleece, the tenderly naturalistic way in which Saint Agnes holds the animal’s legs, and the saint’s robe embellished with a repeating pattern of birds set amid delicate scrolling vinework and foliate arabesques.
We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.