The Madonna and Child with Saints Anthony Abbot and Francis and four Angels

Niccolò di Tommaso, who collaborated with Nardo di Cione in the frescoes of the Strozzi Chappel at S. Maria Novella, was one of the most productive Florentine masters of the third quarter of the trecento. His substantial oeuvre was first considered by Richard Offner, whose list was significantly expanded by Miklós Boskovits (Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, Florence, 1978, p. 35, note 203). This panel was first assigned to the artist by the celebrated Italian art historian, Roberto Longhi. There are few dated works, and the fresco of 1360 in the Palazzo Communale at Pistoia which he completed had been begun by a Bolognese hand identified as 'Dalmasio' (Boskovits, p. 35). This picture is of 1359 and shows how refined an artist in the Florentine tradition Niccolò was. In 1371 he is recorded in Naples, and shortly thereafter he executed the monumental frescoes of the Convento del Tau at Pistoia. This cycle, generally recognised as Niccolò's masterpiece, had a considerable influence at Pistoia, which like the nearby town of Prato, although already under Florentine economic and political domination, remained a very active entity in its own right.