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Lot Essay
In 1969, Luciano Bellosi demonstrated that a substantial group of cassoni, previously assigned to the Master of the Adimari Cassone (on the basis of a spalliera panel in the Accademia, Florence) or the Master of Fucecchio (after an altarpiece in the Museo Civico of that town), was painted by Giovanni di ser Giovanni, known as Lo Scheggia, the ‘splinter’, perhaps on account of his small stature, who was the younger brother of Masaccio. Unlike the latter, who died at the age of 26, Scheggia had a long career. While his religious productions can seem uncompromising to modern taste, he had a genuine gift for narrative, which he expressed in his secular panels. That he was chosen, presumably by Piero de’ Medici, to supply the desco da parto for the birth of Lorenzo de’ Medici (fig. 1; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) in 1449 indicates the esteem in which Scheggia’s work in the genre was held. Such details as the boys in the left hand scene imply a study of classical sculpture and no doubt an awareness of the cantorie of both Donatello and Luca della Robbia for the Cathedral at Florence.
Formerly incorrectly thought to represent the story of Lionora de’ Bardi and Ippolito Buondelmonti, which has been attributed to Alberti, the panel was identified by Fredericksen and Zeri as of the Justice of Trajan, more frequently referred to as Trajan and the Widow; the iconography is comprehensively considered by Klapish-Zuber and by Salvatore Settis (‘Traiano a Hearst Castle’, I Tatti Studies, 6, 1995, pp. 31-82). A second panel of the subject associable with the artist, in poor and repainted condition, was in the Brockhaus collection in Leipzig (Bellosi and Haynes, op. cit., p. 86).
The subject, widely known from Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend, which combined elements that have been current since at least the eighth century, was retold by Dante in Book 4 of the Purgatory of the Divine Comedy. As the Emperor Trajan prepared to leave for a campaign, a widow asked for justice for her son who had been killed by Trajan’s son; the emperor promised this on his return, but, after she pointed out that he might not come back, duly held a court. Rather unusually, the action in the panel is from the right. Trajan’s army has mustered outside Rome, and the horse from which his son has dismounted is held by two grooms. In the centre the emperor is enthroned in a classical pavilion, his son on his left, the widow in black opposite; behind her is a seated lawyer. Trajan determines that his son will marry the widow. On the left, in a small piazza within the city with a shrine, the widow approaches her house and invites Trajan’s son to enter this. Two boys gambol by the charger from which he has dismounted, and behind a woman bearing a bundle is followed by a servant, presumably assisted by another, weighed down by the gilded cassone he bears.
Formerly incorrectly thought to represent the story of Lionora de’ Bardi and Ippolito Buondelmonti, which has been attributed to Alberti, the panel was identified by Fredericksen and Zeri as of the Justice of Trajan, more frequently referred to as Trajan and the Widow; the iconography is comprehensively considered by Klapish-Zuber and by Salvatore Settis (‘Traiano a Hearst Castle’, I Tatti Studies, 6, 1995, pp. 31-82). A second panel of the subject associable with the artist, in poor and repainted condition, was in the Brockhaus collection in Leipzig (Bellosi and Haynes, op. cit., p. 86).
The subject, widely known from Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend, which combined elements that have been current since at least the eighth century, was retold by Dante in Book 4 of the Purgatory of the Divine Comedy. As the Emperor Trajan prepared to leave for a campaign, a widow asked for justice for her son who had been killed by Trajan’s son; the emperor promised this on his return, but, after she pointed out that he might not come back, duly held a court. Rather unusually, the action in the panel is from the right. Trajan’s army has mustered outside Rome, and the horse from which his son has dismounted is held by two grooms. In the centre the emperor is enthroned in a classical pavilion, his son on his left, the widow in black opposite; behind her is a seated lawyer. Trajan determines that his son will marry the widow. On the left, in a small piazza within the city with a shrine, the widow approaches her house and invites Trajan’s son to enter this. Two boys gambol by the charger from which he has dismounted, and behind a woman bearing a bundle is followed by a servant, presumably assisted by another, weighed down by the gilded cassone he bears.