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Lot Essay
The present panel originally decorated the reverse of a desco da parto, or birth tray. Immensely popular during the Renaissance, these ceremonial objects were both decorative and functional, as they were used to carry fruit, sweetmeats and wine to mothers after they had given birth. Though cherished, they were often damaged, particularly on the reverse, which typically became abraded due to repeated contact with surfaces. Accordingly, the present panel constitutes a remarkable survival from the mid-fifteenth century. Like many deschi from this period, it may have originally been twelve-sided. At some point in its history, the original moldings were removed and the panel was separated from its obverse.
Nude boys frequently appear on the reverses of birth trays as well as on cassone panels, and in many cases they are shown fighting one another in a manner similar to that seen on the present panel. A desco formerly in the Martin Le Roy collection (Callmann, op. cit., fig. 108), for instance, represents two boys fighting bare-handed beneath two coats of arms from the Ridolfi and Strozzi families. On that tray, the verso represents a Triumph of Love. Jacqueline Musacchio has observed that the universal nature of these images must have had a meaning that is no longer recognizable, perhaps relating to an adage (Musacchio, op. cit., p. 158). Undoubtedly, the scene represented here was imbued with symbolic significance, one that most likely related to fecundity. The two nude boys face one another in complementary poses on a verdant field. In their hands, they hold conical objects, which have been read by various scholars as either horns or poppies. Musacchio has argued that they are symbols of fertility and lineage, linking the present desco to another birthing tray representing two nude boys at play beneath three coats of arms, attributed to the workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni, (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh).
Previous attributions to Francesco di Antonio, Domenico di Michelino and to the Sienese fifteenth-century school are rightly rejected by Callmann. Noting the sophisticated understanding of anatomy and musculature, she instead suggests that this desco was painted at a 'comparatively late date despite the traditional flower meadow' (op. cit., p. 7). Stylistically, the panel is much closer to that of another reverse of a desco da parto in the Palazzo Davanzati, recently published as by Scheggia (A. Bayer, et al., Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London, 2008, pp. 157-158, no. 71). There, two nude boys stand on a similarly verdant field and wrestle each other, grabbing their opponent's hair and genitals.
The coats of arms were probably repainted before the Weinberger sale, as Callmann has noted. Those on the right, which are traditionally those of the bride's family, belong to the Masi family, who in 1386 moved from the Tuscan town of Montecatini to Florence, where they resided in the Via de' Ginori.
Nude boys frequently appear on the reverses of birth trays as well as on cassone panels, and in many cases they are shown fighting one another in a manner similar to that seen on the present panel. A desco formerly in the Martin Le Roy collection (Callmann, op. cit., fig. 108), for instance, represents two boys fighting bare-handed beneath two coats of arms from the Ridolfi and Strozzi families. On that tray, the verso represents a Triumph of Love. Jacqueline Musacchio has observed that the universal nature of these images must have had a meaning that is no longer recognizable, perhaps relating to an adage (Musacchio, op. cit., p. 158). Undoubtedly, the scene represented here was imbued with symbolic significance, one that most likely related to fecundity. The two nude boys face one another in complementary poses on a verdant field. In their hands, they hold conical objects, which have been read by various scholars as either horns or poppies. Musacchio has argued that they are symbols of fertility and lineage, linking the present desco to another birthing tray representing two nude boys at play beneath three coats of arms, attributed to the workshop of Apollonio di Giovanni, (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh).
Previous attributions to Francesco di Antonio, Domenico di Michelino and to the Sienese fifteenth-century school are rightly rejected by Callmann. Noting the sophisticated understanding of anatomy and musculature, she instead suggests that this desco was painted at a 'comparatively late date despite the traditional flower meadow' (op. cit., p. 7). Stylistically, the panel is much closer to that of another reverse of a desco da parto in the Palazzo Davanzati, recently published as by Scheggia (A. Bayer, et al., Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London, 2008, pp. 157-158, no. 71). There, two nude boys stand on a similarly verdant field and wrestle each other, grabbing their opponent's hair and genitals.
The coats of arms were probably repainted before the Weinberger sale, as Callmann has noted. Those on the right, which are traditionally those of the bride's family, belong to the Masi family, who in 1386 moved from the Tuscan town of Montecatini to Florence, where they resided in the Via de' Ginori.