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Lot Essay
Neri di Bicci was born in Florence in 1419, the son of Bicci di Lorenzo, who was also the son of a painter and who was himself a succesful artist. Neri was thus the third generation to enter the thriving family workshop that flourished for over a century in and around Florence. He joined the workshop in 1434, and quickly took a leading role in the day to day running of the business, meticulously recorded in a workshop diary from 1453-75, known as the Ricordanze, which is the single most extensive surviving document relating to a fifteenth-century Italian painter (see B. Santi ed., Neri di Bicci: Le Ricordanze (10 marzo 1453-24 aprile 1475), Pisa, 1976).
Neri's style was at first subsumed within that of the larger workshop, but by the late 1440s he began to achieve a certain autonomy, executing uncomplicated pictures in a simple, legible style that, while showing an awareness of Filippo Lippi and Domenico Veneziano, remained true to an earlier aesthetic, characterized by their bold colors and clear-cut outlines. As a result his work appealed to a range of patrons from elite families such as the Soderini and Rucellai to small shopkeepers and country parish priests. Neri di Bicci enjoyed a long career and over the years employed many assistants, of which twenty-two are named in the Ricordanze, among them Cosimo Rosselli and Francesco Botticini. Few, however, have survived as individual artistic identities. His skills were best displayed in the rendering of figures in architectural interiors and in his depiction of narrative scenes, such as can be seen in this pair of panels.
These two panels, which originally formed part of a predella for an unidentified altarpiece, both depict scenes featuring the divine intervention of the archangel Raphael (the subject was first identified by Van Os and Prakken, op. cit.). Scientific analysis has shown that they were originally joined together, with the two panels separated by the gilt-painted baluster. The first shows the archangel guiding two Dominicans on horseback across a river or lake. In the second, the archangel comes to the aid of a young man who was attempting suicide by hanging himself. Raphael cuts the robe from which the young man is hanging and, in a subsequent scene on the same panel, leads the rescued youth by the hand towards a church, presumably to confess his sins.
Two further panels, of almost identical size, format and style, probably from the same predella, have also been identified. The first by A. Parronchi (op. cit., 1965), from a private collection in Ferrara, depicts two scenes in which the archangel Raphael leads a woman from the entrance of a house, again through the streets of a Tuscan town. In spite of the traditional attribution to Neri, Parronchi advanced a new attribution for the three related panels, to a close follower of Uccello that he subsequently suggested might be Uccello's son Donato, for whom no documentary work survives (see A. Parronchi, Paolo Uccello, Bologna, 1974, pp. 63-4). This attribution has not found favor with other scholars and the current attribution to Neri di Bicci is now universally accepted. A fourth panel was later identified by Everett Fahy, (op. cit., in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. no. 2073). Here the archangel Raphael continues his good work by preventing a sword-wielding youth in a striped doublet from attacking another man wearing a green gown with a red mantle.
The Ricordanze lists two altarpieces painted by Neri that incorporated predellas devoted to the stories of the archangel Raphael, one for the Augustinian church of S. Spirito in Florence (see Santi, op. cit., pp. 177 and 372). Although it is tempting to identify the present panels with one of these two altarpieces, the presence of two Dominicans makes such an identification highly unlikely. They were probably part of a predella for a similar altarpiece, possibly commissioned by the Dominicans or the thriving Confraternity of Raphael around 1450.
Neri's style was at first subsumed within that of the larger workshop, but by the late 1440s he began to achieve a certain autonomy, executing uncomplicated pictures in a simple, legible style that, while showing an awareness of Filippo Lippi and Domenico Veneziano, remained true to an earlier aesthetic, characterized by their bold colors and clear-cut outlines. As a result his work appealed to a range of patrons from elite families such as the Soderini and Rucellai to small shopkeepers and country parish priests. Neri di Bicci enjoyed a long career and over the years employed many assistants, of which twenty-two are named in the Ricordanze, among them Cosimo Rosselli and Francesco Botticini. Few, however, have survived as individual artistic identities. His skills were best displayed in the rendering of figures in architectural interiors and in his depiction of narrative scenes, such as can be seen in this pair of panels.
These two panels, which originally formed part of a predella for an unidentified altarpiece, both depict scenes featuring the divine intervention of the archangel Raphael (the subject was first identified by Van Os and Prakken, op. cit.). Scientific analysis has shown that they were originally joined together, with the two panels separated by the gilt-painted baluster. The first shows the archangel guiding two Dominicans on horseback across a river or lake. In the second, the archangel comes to the aid of a young man who was attempting suicide by hanging himself. Raphael cuts the robe from which the young man is hanging and, in a subsequent scene on the same panel, leads the rescued youth by the hand towards a church, presumably to confess his sins.
Two further panels, of almost identical size, format and style, probably from the same predella, have also been identified. The first by A. Parronchi (op. cit., 1965), from a private collection in Ferrara, depicts two scenes in which the archangel Raphael leads a woman from the entrance of a house, again through the streets of a Tuscan town. In spite of the traditional attribution to Neri, Parronchi advanced a new attribution for the three related panels, to a close follower of Uccello that he subsequently suggested might be Uccello's son Donato, for whom no documentary work survives (see A. Parronchi, Paolo Uccello, Bologna, 1974, pp. 63-4). This attribution has not found favor with other scholars and the current attribution to Neri di Bicci is now universally accepted. A fourth panel was later identified by Everett Fahy, (op. cit., in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. no. 2073). Here the archangel Raphael continues his good work by preventing a sword-wielding youth in a striped doublet from attacking another man wearing a green gown with a red mantle.
The Ricordanze lists two altarpieces painted by Neri that incorporated predellas devoted to the stories of the archangel Raphael, one for the Augustinian church of S. Spirito in Florence (see Santi, op. cit., pp. 177 and 372). Although it is tempting to identify the present panels with one of these two altarpieces, the presence of two Dominicans makes such an identification highly unlikely. They were probably part of a predella for a similar altarpiece, possibly commissioned by the Dominicans or the thriving Confraternity of Raphael around 1450.