.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This painting, which is datable to between 1460 and 1470, is comparable to a group of similar compositions published by Wolfgang Loseries in 2008 (W. Loseries in M. Boskovits et al., Maestri senesi e toscani nel Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg, Siena, 2008, pp. 135-137). The group includes a painting of the same subject in the Kress Collection at the National Gallery, Washington, another in the Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg and a third, which includes only two attendant angels, in the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton MA.
The iconography of this painting and the three published by Loseries is almost identical: Saint Jerome occupies the preferential position to the right of the Madonna, with Saint Bernardino to her left and two pairs of angels above them. Here, as in the Northampton panel, the Christ Child clutches an apple, while in the Washington painting He holds a goldfinch and in the Altenburg panel He grasps his mother’s mantle. The uppermost angels in the present painting wear crowns of laurel or perhaps olive leaves, while those below wear crowns composed of flowers. In each of the three panels in public collections, the Virgin’s halo is inscribed AVE GRATIA PLENA and the artist employed a leaf-shaped tool for the decoration of halos of Christ, the saints and the angels. While in this painting he used a six-petaled flower tool for the Virgin’s halo and a quatrefoil tool with a circular centre for that of the Christ Child.
Sano di Pietro was an entrepreneurial painter and, despite his prolific output, the quality of his work remained unvaryingly high. His employment by the commune of Siena was a constant in his career and he painted numerous frescoes for the Palazzo Pubblico between 1443 and 1460, as well as an Annunciation altarpiece in 1459 and the predella to another in the Cappella de’ Signori (K. Christiansen, L.B. Kanter and C.B. Strehlke, Paintings in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, New York, 1988, p. 138). In addition to his work for the city, Sano enjoyed substantial patronage from convents and confraternities of the Franciscan order across southern Tuscany. His obituary notice in the church of San Domenico, where the artist is buried, describes him as ‘Pictor famosius et homo totus deditus Deo’, (‘a famous painter and completely dedicated to God’), a reputation likely gained from the vast number of devotional paintings he produced for religious institutions throughout his long career.
Following the death of Saint Bernardino in 1444, Sano devised the saint’s iconography and proved to be a major proponent of the dissemination of images featuring him. He produced numerous representations of the Franciscan missionary preaching or performing miracles, such as those in the saint’s eponymous predella, now in a private collection (op. cit., pp. 164-166, nos. 24 a and b, illustrated p. 165). In 1448, still two years prior to Bernardino’s canonization, the saint’s friend, Giovanni da Capistrano, turned to Sano for a portrait of the late preacher. Saint Bernardino’s characteristically lean face, with sunken cheeks and thin lips, is a regular presence in Sano’s devotional paintings, appearing often, as is the case here, at the shoulder of the Madonna. In this painting, as well as the aforementioned versions in public collections, Saint Jerome is represented not in the red robes of a cardinal, as he is traditionally depicted, but in the grey-brown habit of the Gesuati. Miklós Boskovits proposed that this detail, along with the saint’s ‘prime’ position in the composition, might signify that these works were destined for patrons of the Gesuati, a lay fraternity of followers of Saint Jerome (op. cit., p. 136).
We are grateful to Wolfgang Loseries for endorsing the attribution and proposing a date between 1460 and 1470.
The iconography of this painting and the three published by Loseries is almost identical: Saint Jerome occupies the preferential position to the right of the Madonna, with Saint Bernardino to her left and two pairs of angels above them. Here, as in the Northampton panel, the Christ Child clutches an apple, while in the Washington painting He holds a goldfinch and in the Altenburg panel He grasps his mother’s mantle. The uppermost angels in the present painting wear crowns of laurel or perhaps olive leaves, while those below wear crowns composed of flowers. In each of the three panels in public collections, the Virgin’s halo is inscribed AVE GRATIA PLENA and the artist employed a leaf-shaped tool for the decoration of halos of Christ, the saints and the angels. While in this painting he used a six-petaled flower tool for the Virgin’s halo and a quatrefoil tool with a circular centre for that of the Christ Child.
Sano di Pietro was an entrepreneurial painter and, despite his prolific output, the quality of his work remained unvaryingly high. His employment by the commune of Siena was a constant in his career and he painted numerous frescoes for the Palazzo Pubblico between 1443 and 1460, as well as an Annunciation altarpiece in 1459 and the predella to another in the Cappella de’ Signori (K. Christiansen, L.B. Kanter and C.B. Strehlke, Paintings in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, New York, 1988, p. 138). In addition to his work for the city, Sano enjoyed substantial patronage from convents and confraternities of the Franciscan order across southern Tuscany. His obituary notice in the church of San Domenico, where the artist is buried, describes him as ‘Pictor famosius et homo totus deditus Deo’, (‘a famous painter and completely dedicated to God’), a reputation likely gained from the vast number of devotional paintings he produced for religious institutions throughout his long career.
Following the death of Saint Bernardino in 1444, Sano devised the saint’s iconography and proved to be a major proponent of the dissemination of images featuring him. He produced numerous representations of the Franciscan missionary preaching or performing miracles, such as those in the saint’s eponymous predella, now in a private collection (op. cit., pp. 164-166, nos. 24 a and b, illustrated p. 165). In 1448, still two years prior to Bernardino’s canonization, the saint’s friend, Giovanni da Capistrano, turned to Sano for a portrait of the late preacher. Saint Bernardino’s characteristically lean face, with sunken cheeks and thin lips, is a regular presence in Sano’s devotional paintings, appearing often, as is the case here, at the shoulder of the Madonna. In this painting, as well as the aforementioned versions in public collections, Saint Jerome is represented not in the red robes of a cardinal, as he is traditionally depicted, but in the grey-brown habit of the Gesuati. Miklós Boskovits proposed that this detail, along with the saint’s ‘prime’ position in the composition, might signify that these works were destined for patrons of the Gesuati, a lay fraternity of followers of Saint Jerome (op. cit., p. 136).
We are grateful to Wolfgang Loseries for endorsing the attribution and proposing a date between 1460 and 1470.