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Lot Essay
These panels originally constituted two of the five sections of the predella of Bernardo Daddi's S. Giorgio a Ruballa polyptych of 1348, now in the Courtauld Institute of Art, Gambier Parry Collection, London (fig. 1). Daddi was the most lyrical and refined of the early followers of Giotto, memorable as a colourist and for the consistent delicacy of his forms. He was arguably the dominant artistic personality in Florence in the last two decades of his life, dying on or about 18 August 1348, soon after the altarpiece, which is his last signed and dated work, was completed. That the altarpiece was by Daddi himself was accepted unanimously by early scholars, including Fry, Suida, Sireén, Venturi, Schubring, van Marle and Berenson. Offner in 1947 gave it to his 'Assistant of Daddi', but subsequently regarded it as from Daddi's studio, but others, including Antal, Steinweg, Degenhart and Schmitt, Bellosi, Fremantle and Zeri have regarded it as substantially autograph, a view championed most recently by Miklós Boskovits.
In 1935, van Marle correctly associated these panels of saints with one of Saints Margaret and Agnes at Strasbourg. Offner in 1958 identified a panel of the Madonna and Child with four Angels, then in the possession of Miss R. Lawrence Jones as the central element of the predella, and recognized that all four panels were components of the S. Giorgio a Ruballa polytych: the missing panel, with Saints Gregory and an Evangelist, then in the Stanley Simon collection, New York, was identified by Zeri in 1971. The Saint Lucy and Saint Catherine of Alexandria was the left-hand element of the predella, while the Saint John the Evangelist and the Saint Nicholas of Bari (?), which, as the borders indicate were originally parts of a single panel, was, taken from the left, the fourth of the five sections of this.
Offner persuasively points to the way in which the paired saints of the four lateral sections of the predella echo those of the four panels of pairs of full-length saints flanking the central compartment of the altarpiece, the Crucifixion. In the main tier Daddi uses profiles and near profiles to almost architectural effect, linking the various elements of the design and bridging the obvious differences in scale between the main panel and those at either side. The intelligence that lay behind the overall design is demonstrated by the way the heads in these panels and their companions from the predella are seen at angles echoing those of the lateral saints of the main tier. But above all it is in his use of colour that Daddi united the components of the altarpiece. Blue, the most expensive pigment of the time, has a dominant role: six of the eight full-length saints are dressed at least in part in blue, sometimes of course for proper iconographic reasons; and the colour is also used for some of the soldiers in the Crucifixion. Saint Catherine's position as a princess is emphasized by the elegant brocade of her dress. This echoes the brocaded mantles of Saints Bartholomew and Stephen in the upper tier and, as the artist and his patrons would have been well aware, was of a type manufactured in and imported from the Near East.
After the Stoclet collection, the one formed by Michel van Gelder was among the most ambitious assemblage of early pictures and works of art formed in Belgium in the early twentieth century. In the Château Zeeerabbe, the Dining Room contained Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century pictures, but two rooms were dedicated to early Italian pictures, a third, the 'salle gothique' to early Netherlandish pictures, and a fourth to the seventeenth-century Dutch masters.
In 1935, van Marle correctly associated these panels of saints with one of Saints Margaret and Agnes at Strasbourg. Offner in 1958 identified a panel of the Madonna and Child with four Angels, then in the possession of Miss R. Lawrence Jones as the central element of the predella, and recognized that all four panels were components of the S. Giorgio a Ruballa polytych: the missing panel, with Saints Gregory and an Evangelist, then in the Stanley Simon collection, New York, was identified by Zeri in 1971. The Saint Lucy and Saint Catherine of Alexandria was the left-hand element of the predella, while the Saint John the Evangelist and the Saint Nicholas of Bari (?), which, as the borders indicate were originally parts of a single panel, was, taken from the left, the fourth of the five sections of this.
Offner persuasively points to the way in which the paired saints of the four lateral sections of the predella echo those of the four panels of pairs of full-length saints flanking the central compartment of the altarpiece, the Crucifixion. In the main tier Daddi uses profiles and near profiles to almost architectural effect, linking the various elements of the design and bridging the obvious differences in scale between the main panel and those at either side. The intelligence that lay behind the overall design is demonstrated by the way the heads in these panels and their companions from the predella are seen at angles echoing those of the lateral saints of the main tier. But above all it is in his use of colour that Daddi united the components of the altarpiece. Blue, the most expensive pigment of the time, has a dominant role: six of the eight full-length saints are dressed at least in part in blue, sometimes of course for proper iconographic reasons; and the colour is also used for some of the soldiers in the Crucifixion. Saint Catherine's position as a princess is emphasized by the elegant brocade of her dress. This echoes the brocaded mantles of Saints Bartholomew and Stephen in the upper tier and, as the artist and his patrons would have been well aware, was of a type manufactured in and imported from the Near East.
After the Stoclet collection, the one formed by Michel van Gelder was among the most ambitious assemblage of early pictures and works of art formed in Belgium in the early twentieth century. In the Château Zeeerabbe, the Dining Room contained Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century pictures, but two rooms were dedicated to early Italian pictures, a third, the 'salle gothique' to early Netherlandish pictures, and a fourth to the seventeenth-century Dutch masters.