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Lot Essay
Benedetto de Bindo may have been a pupil of Paolo di Giovanni Fei. He was also influenced by Taddeo di Bartolo, especially in his early works, and even more so by Simone Martini. He is recorded active in Siena in 1409, where he worked with Gualtieri di Giovanni, Niccolo di Naldo and Giovanni di Bindino on the decoration of the sacristy of Siena Cathedral. In 1415-6 he painted the now damaged frescoes in the chapel of SS Catherine and Peter Martyr in San Domenico, Perugia.
This panel was published by Stefan Weppelmann (op. cit.), who recognised that it belonged to an altarpiece dated to the early phase of his short career, circa 1410. The circumstances of the commission are not known but it was likely that it was dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, given that one of the predella panels, exhibited in 2005, shows Saint Margaret and Olybrius (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). Other known elements of the polyptych are dispersed: a predella showing the Crucifixion is in Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest; the left wing showing Saint Anthony Abbot and the right Saint Margaret are unlocated; and two small full-length saints, of the same dimensions of the present lot, are in the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. In Weppelmann’s reconstruction, this panel is placed as a pilaster, above one of the Utrecht saints, to the right of the wing showing Saint Margaret.
Keith Christiansen and Laurence B. Kanter also independently suggested the attribution in 2005
This panel was published by Stefan Weppelmann (op. cit.), who recognised that it belonged to an altarpiece dated to the early phase of his short career, circa 1410. The circumstances of the commission are not known but it was likely that it was dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, given that one of the predella panels, exhibited in 2005, shows Saint Margaret and Olybrius (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). Other known elements of the polyptych are dispersed: a predella showing the Crucifixion is in Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest; the left wing showing Saint Anthony Abbot and the right Saint Margaret are unlocated; and two small full-length saints, of the same dimensions of the present lot, are in the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht. In Weppelmann’s reconstruction, this panel is placed as a pilaster, above one of the Utrecht saints, to the right of the wing showing Saint Margaret.
Keith Christiansen and Laurence B. Kanter also independently suggested the attribution in 2005