Master of Città di Castello

Master of Città di Castello

Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist

tempera on panel, gold ground, with a shaped top

Provenance

Florence art trade;

Where acquired in the 1920s by Adolphe Stoclet (1871-1949), Brussels (as Ugolino Lorenzetti);

By inheritance to Philippe R. Stoclet;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby’s, 24 March 1965, lot 9, where acquired by Agnew’s for £16,000 (as Duccio di Buoninsegna);

With Thos. Agnews & Sons, Ltd., London;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

 

Literature

R. Van Marle, ‘Dipinti sconosciuti della scuola di Duccio’, in Rassegna d’arte senese, XIX, 1926, p. 4 (as Ugolino Lorenzetti);

C.H. Weigelt, Sienese Painting of the Trecento, Florence 1930, p. 70, under note 28 (as fairly near to Duccio’s workshop);

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, p. 294, (as an early work by Ugolino Lorenzetti);

C. Brandi, Duccio, Florence 1951, pp. 154-55, as (Ugolino Lorenzetti);

E. Carli, Dipinti senesi del contado e della Maremma, Milan 1955, pp. 57-58;

J. H. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, Princeton 1979, vol. I, p. 176, reproduced vol. II, fig, 434 (as Polyptych 39 Master, a follower of Ugolino di Nerio, after the Madonna and Child inv. no. 39 in the Siena Museum; with erroneous provenance of a further sale at Sotheby’s 11 June 1965);

L. Kanter, “Ugolino di Nerio; Saint Anne and the Virgin”, in National Gallery of Canada Bulletin, 5, 1981-82, pp. 9-28 (as Ugolino di Nerio, the pinnacle to the Madonna and Child in the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, inv. no. 16.65);

L. Kanter, Italian Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, vol. 1, Boston 1994, p. 80 (as the pinnacle to a painting in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena also by the Master of Città di Castello);

G. Mazzoni, Quadri antichi del Novecento, Vicenza 2001, pp. 104 - 106, reproduced p. 449, figs. 223 and 224 (as Follower of Duccio);

A. Bagnoli in Duccio, Alle origini della pittura senese, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2003, p. 292, under cat. no. 41.

Catalogue Note

This pinnacle panel is an extremely rare work by the so-called "Master of Città di Castello," one of the two most important painters active in Siena in the immediate wake of Duccio di Buoninsegna. An initial reconstruction of his oeuvre began in 1908, when Frederick Mason Perkins noted a physiognomic correlation between three Madonnas: that in the central panel of a polyptych now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (inv. no. 33); the Madonna and Child in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena; and the eponymous Madonna and Child Enthroned in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Città di Castello (inv. no. 3).1 The group of works attributed to this master grew to approximately seventeen pictures over the 20th century, though there remained much confusion as to their chronology, with some scholars believing his activity to have begun as early as the 1280s, while others dated his works to as late as the 1330s.2

 

It seems most credible, as Bagnoli argues, that the artist was active between the last years of the 13th century and the first two decades of the 14th century.3 This painting was first correctly attributed in 1988 by Laurence Kanter (see Literature) who believes it to be the pinnacle of a painting by the Master of Città di Castello in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena (fig. 1); the hypothesis however is yet to be tested by a firsthand examination.

The Master of Città di Castello was primarily influenced by Duccio; in fact his eponymous polyptych is believed to follow a now lost composition by that master, painted in 1302, for the Nove chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena.4 When the present painting was offered at Sotheby's London as Duccio in 1965 (see Provenance), the untreated area at the bottom of the panel (where it would have attached to a larger panel as its pinnacle) had been filled in and the folds of the Madonna's robe had been distinctively outlined with gilding in order to give the work a more "Duccesque" appearance. Despite his references to Duccio, however, the superb Master of Città di Castello was no mere derivative follower, but was a developed and individual painter who adhered to Byzantine and Sienese Gothic traditions whilst simultaneously displaying a profound knowledge of Giotto di Bondone's progressive style of painting.

 

The figure types in this painting are most closely related to those in the painted cross from the church of Madonna delle Grazie a Montecerboli in Pomerance (see A. Bagnoli under Literature, op. cit., cat. no. 41, reproduced p. 291). The figure of Christ is remarkably similar in both paintings, as the artist masterfully represents the weight of his body suspended from the cross through the tension of his musculature.5 The stance of the two lateral figures, and their placement marginally in front of the cross, create a convincing illusion of depth against the otherwise stark backdrop. As in the Montecerboli cross, the Master depicts the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist with extraordinary expressivity, and the detail of Saint John’s clasped fingers and brow, knitted in anguish, evokes profound emotion and pathos.

 

 

 

1. For the Madonna in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo see A. Bagnoli under Literature, op. cit., p. 296 - 298, cat. no. 42, reproduced; this paintnig forms the central panel of a polyptych, the flanking panels of which are now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (inv. nos. 29, 30, 31 and 32).

2. For a full list of works attributed to the Master of Città di Castello see A. Bagnoli under Literat ure, op. cit., p. 288.

3. Ibid.

4. C. Brandi, Duccio, Florence 1951, pp. 141 - 142.

5. A. Bagnoli, op. cit., p. 289.

Done