A female Saint in a landscape

This previously unrecorded panel is an addition of some interest to the oeuvre of Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli, whose work was ascribed to his considerably younger Sienese contemporary, Giacomo Pacchiarotto (1474-1540), until A. Angelini published two articles in 1982 (Prospettiva, no. 29, pp. 72-8; and no. 30, pp. 30-43), which clearly established Orioli's claims. Hitherto it had seemed that the hand in question was a retardataire follower of Matteo di Giovanni, and the chronology of what were evidently his earlier panels had seemed challenging, see, for example, F. Russell, 'The Evolution of a Sienese Painter: some early Madonnas by Pacchiarotto', The Burlington Magazine, CXV, December 1973, in which an unnecessarily concertinaed chronology was proposed. The series of early Madonnas in the mode of Matteo di Giovanni may date from the early 1480s, but this panel is a mature work, probably of the 1490s.

Orioli is known from documents to have been a particularly devout individual. The only known secular picture by him has been the Baltimore Sulpitia, which is part of a celebrated series of classical Heroes and Heroines painted in connotation with the Spannocchi wedding of 1493; this measures 108 by 47.5 cm. and has a particularly elaborate landscape. The present panel also implies an interest in landscape, with its accurately described pomegranate bush and, on the opposing side, the ruthlessly pruned trees - a contrast from which some spiritual inference may well be meant. The presentation suggests that the panel may have been intended for a specific context, and the inscription implies the artist's deep religious conviction, which the patron presumably shared.