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拍品專文
Taddeo Gaddi’s Saint Matthew originally formed part of the uppermost register of a polyptych commissioned for the high altar of the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, Pistoia. Shortly after 1348, the Pistoian church’s operaii made their first payment for the altar to the Florentine painter, Alesso d’Andrea, but the artist disappeared from all records shortly thereafter, presumably having been claimed by the Black Death (A. Labriola, op. cit., p. 200). Seeking a new artist, the church drew up a list of the foremost painters in all of Florence and Siena. First among those listed was Taddeo Gaddi, who was swiftly engaged to execute the ambitious commission (A. Chiappelli, ‘Di una tavola dipinta da Taddeo Gaddi…’, Bullettino storico pistoiese, II, 1990, pp.1-6; U. Procacci, ‘Buonaccorso di Cino…’, Giotto e il suo tempo, Florence, 1971, pp. 360-66; A. Ladis, op. cit., p. 257). Payments to Gaddi are recorded until 1353, by which time it seems likely the altarpiece had been completed and installed.
Gaddi depicted Saint Matthew seated on a modest wooden stool, dressed in a shimmering, golden tunic and purple mantle that falls heavily over his knees, folding over at the shoulder to reveal a crimson lining and fine, golden trim. Before him kneels his attribute, the angel, upon whose outstretched wings rests the open book in which the saint writes. In his right hand he holds a pen and in his left a scraper for scratching errors from the parchment. Though his hands are poised as if mid-sentence, the saint looks up from his writing, presumably towards the Madonna and Christ Child in the central panel. The figure is set neatly within a trefoil arch, with a band of six-petalled rosettes on a granulated gold ground and rows of tiny round punches along its interior border. The shoulders of the panel, along with its pointed Gothic gable, are decorated with rows of small roundels with a circular punch in the centre and with delicate leaves, scrolling on a granulated ground. Erling S. Skaug notes that decoration of this kind on granulated ground is characteristic of works from Gaddi’s full maturity (op. cit.).
Modified from Alesso d’Andrea’s initial designs, Taddeo Gaddi’s finished altarpiece comprised a central Madonna and Child enthroned with cherubim, flanked at left by Saints James the Greater (patron of Pistoia) and John the Evangelist (the church’s eponymous saint) and at right by Saints Peter and John the Baptist. Atop the principal panels were two upper registers: above the central Madonna (which stands head and shoulders above the lateral panels) is an Annunciation which was in turn surmounted by a Crucifixion; immediately above the four lateral saints were double busts of the Apostles which in turn were surmounted by pinnacles depicting the four Evangelists. A predella made up of five panels then ran the length of the altarpiece beneath. The principal panels and their first upper register today remain in situ in the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas (fig. 1), but the predella and the uppermost gables – the present Saint Matthew included – were removed at some point and separated from the rest of the complex. The direction of the present subject’s gaze suggests the Matthew pinnacle would have surmounted the leftmost panel, sitting atop the full-length standing image of Saint James the Greater.
Richard Offner offered a first attempt at reconstructing the original altarpiece in 1921, identifying the Saint John the Evangelist, at that time in the Philip J. Gentner collection, Worcester, MA and now in an Italian private collection, as one of the missing pinnacles and dating the complex as a whole to 1350 (R. Offner, ‘Un San Giovanni Evangelista nella collezione Gentner’, L’Arte, XXIV, 1921, pp. 118-122). Saint John the Evangelist mirrors this Saint Matthew in composition, with the saint similarly using the outstretched wings of his attribute - in this case an eagle - as a lectern, and looking inward and down at the same angle, but facing left. The Saint John would in that case have surmounted the rightmost panel, directly above the full-length standing image of Saint John the Baptist. Unlike the present panel, however, Saint John the Evangelist is missing its original gabled framing element with its beautiful punch work.
In 1962, Offner reunited the present Saint Matthew, then in the Golovin collection, New York, with the rest of the altarpiece, and proposed that the central pinnacle might have been a God the Father or Trinity (op. cit.). In 1964, Klara Steinweg then proposed that two panels in the Fondazione Cini collection, Venice, representing Saint John the Evangelist and the poisoned chalice and Saint John the Evangelist taken up into heaven, may have formed the rightmost panels of the predella (op. cit.). While Andrew Ladis questioned the relationship of the Cini panels to the Pistoia polyptych, Offner and Steinweg’s partial reconstruction has been accepted by most scholars; Pier Paolo Donati, Monika Cämerer-George, Alessandro Conti, Federico Zeri, Mauro Natale and Sonia Chiodo among them (op. cit.). Returning to the polyptych’s reconstruction in 2001 (op. cit.), Chiodo identified a Crucifixion in a private collection as the missing pinnacle to the central panel of the complex. The gables depicting the Evangelists Mark and Luke and three panels of the predella remain unaccounted for and have yet to be identified.
Gaddi depicted Saint Matthew seated on a modest wooden stool, dressed in a shimmering, golden tunic and purple mantle that falls heavily over his knees, folding over at the shoulder to reveal a crimson lining and fine, golden trim. Before him kneels his attribute, the angel, upon whose outstretched wings rests the open book in which the saint writes. In his right hand he holds a pen and in his left a scraper for scratching errors from the parchment. Though his hands are poised as if mid-sentence, the saint looks up from his writing, presumably towards the Madonna and Christ Child in the central panel. The figure is set neatly within a trefoil arch, with a band of six-petalled rosettes on a granulated gold ground and rows of tiny round punches along its interior border. The shoulders of the panel, along with its pointed Gothic gable, are decorated with rows of small roundels with a circular punch in the centre and with delicate leaves, scrolling on a granulated ground. Erling S. Skaug notes that decoration of this kind on granulated ground is characteristic of works from Gaddi’s full maturity (op. cit.).
Modified from Alesso d’Andrea’s initial designs, Taddeo Gaddi’s finished altarpiece comprised a central Madonna and Child enthroned with cherubim, flanked at left by Saints James the Greater (patron of Pistoia) and John the Evangelist (the church’s eponymous saint) and at right by Saints Peter and John the Baptist. Atop the principal panels were two upper registers: above the central Madonna (which stands head and shoulders above the lateral panels) is an Annunciation which was in turn surmounted by a Crucifixion; immediately above the four lateral saints were double busts of the Apostles which in turn were surmounted by pinnacles depicting the four Evangelists. A predella made up of five panels then ran the length of the altarpiece beneath. The principal panels and their first upper register today remain in situ in the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas (fig. 1), but the predella and the uppermost gables – the present Saint Matthew included – were removed at some point and separated from the rest of the complex. The direction of the present subject’s gaze suggests the Matthew pinnacle would have surmounted the leftmost panel, sitting atop the full-length standing image of Saint James the Greater.
Richard Offner offered a first attempt at reconstructing the original altarpiece in 1921, identifying the Saint John the Evangelist, at that time in the Philip J. Gentner collection, Worcester, MA and now in an Italian private collection, as one of the missing pinnacles and dating the complex as a whole to 1350 (R. Offner, ‘Un San Giovanni Evangelista nella collezione Gentner’, L’Arte, XXIV, 1921, pp. 118-122). Saint John the Evangelist mirrors this Saint Matthew in composition, with the saint similarly using the outstretched wings of his attribute - in this case an eagle - as a lectern, and looking inward and down at the same angle, but facing left. The Saint John would in that case have surmounted the rightmost panel, directly above the full-length standing image of Saint John the Baptist. Unlike the present panel, however, Saint John the Evangelist is missing its original gabled framing element with its beautiful punch work.
In 1962, Offner reunited the present Saint Matthew, then in the Golovin collection, New York, with the rest of the altarpiece, and proposed that the central pinnacle might have been a God the Father or Trinity (op. cit.). In 1964, Klara Steinweg then proposed that two panels in the Fondazione Cini collection, Venice, representing Saint John the Evangelist and the poisoned chalice and Saint John the Evangelist taken up into heaven, may have formed the rightmost panels of the predella (op. cit.). While Andrew Ladis questioned the relationship of the Cini panels to the Pistoia polyptych, Offner and Steinweg’s partial reconstruction has been accepted by most scholars; Pier Paolo Donati, Monika Cämerer-George, Alessandro Conti, Federico Zeri, Mauro Natale and Sonia Chiodo among them (op. cit.). Returning to the polyptych’s reconstruction in 2001 (op. cit.), Chiodo identified a Crucifixion in a private collection as the missing pinnacle to the central panel of the complex. The gables depicting the Evangelists Mark and Luke and three panels of the predella remain unaccounted for and have yet to be identified.