James Jackson Jarves (1818–1888), Florence, by 1859
The panel support, which retains its original thickness of 3.0 centimeters, comprises two vertical planks with a seam running on a slight diagonal approximately 24 centimeters from the right edge of the tabernacle. The engaged frame, including the predella, is original but has been entirely regilt and extended by the addition of returns along the base and acanthus crockets along the upper profile of the ogival arch. Four colonettes are missing: one pair in front of and one pair along the inner edge of the lateral pilasters at either side of the frame. Painted in black with a thick brush on the reverse is: “DI/GM/1856.”
The paint surface has been lightly abraded throughout and, at present, is dulled by a deteriorated synthetic varnish. Scattered flaking losses interrupt the red draperies of the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Nicholas, and, in the scene in the gable, the mourning Saint John the Evangelist, while larger losses occur in the areas of the Virgin’s chin and throat, the Baptist’s right arm, and the Evangelist’s face and left hand. The pavement and the architecture of the throne, including its cloth of honor, are well preserved. The gold ground is worn throughout. The seam joining the two planks of the panel is not visible on the front and has provoked no paint losses. The inscription and decoration of the predella have been renewed and may or may not follow traces of a damaged original.
This painting, conceived as an independent devotional image, shows the Virgin seated on a throne against a red cloth of honor, with the Christ Child standing on her lap. Her right hand points to the Child, who holds a bird—probably a goldfinch, symbol of the soul and of the Resurrection—in His right hand. Standing to the left of the Virgin’s throne are Saint Nicholas of Bari and a female saint wearing a crown and holding a cross in one hand and a book and martyr’s palm in the other; erroneously identified as Saint Reparata in the early catalogues of the Jarves Collection as well as by Charles Seymour, Jr., she is more likely Saint Margaret of Antioch.1 To the right of the throne are Saints John the Baptist and Dorothy. In the gable above the main scene is a Crucifixion with the mourning Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist and two flying angels.
The panel was listed in the Jarves collection catalogues with an attribution to Giottino, until William Rankin first observed that it recalled the style of Niccolò di Pietro Gerini.2 The proposition was indirectly taken up by Osvald Sirén, who initially suggested it might be an early work of Lorenzo di Niccolò, then thought to be Gerini’s son.3 Sirén subsequently revised his opinion, however, in favor of Jacopo di Cione.4 In the only extensive discussion of the painting to date, Sirén highlighted the “rather high quality” of the image, citing its Orcagnesque qualities and spatial concerns and describing its brilliant palette—since lost in subsequent interventions—as “vivid blue, cinnabar, amethyst, yellow and green.” The attribution to Jacopo di Cione, reiterated in Sirén’s 1916 catalogue of the Jarves pictures at Yale, was later dismissed by Richard Offner.5 The latter devoted scarce attention to the painting, beyond stating that it was “by some follower” of Gerini, while also listing it in his files as “school of Gerini.”6 For Bernard Berenson, the Yale panel belonged to the production of Mariotto di Nardo,7 while Seymour, echoing Sirén, tentatively ascribed it to the “shop of Jacopo di Cione,” with a date around 1380.8 Federico Zeri, on the other hand, returned to Offner’s opinion and referred to the Yale panel as “shop of Gerini,”9 while Miklós Boskovits included it in his expansive view of Gerini’s oeuvre, placing it among the artist’s mature efforts, between 1390 and 1395.10 Since then, the painting has been largely ignored by modern scholarship, although expert opinion has tended to concur with Boskovits in assigning the work to Gerini.11 The only exception is a tentative attribution to Cenni di Francesco, advanced by the present author.12
As in other instances outlined in this catalogue, some of the difficulties encountered in the assessment of this painting are undoubtedly the result of its current condition, unceremoniously summed up by Everett Fahy in his review of Seymour’s catalogue, where he referred to the impossibility of making any conclusions based on the “wretched quality and unimposing scale of the picture.”13 To be sure, missing from the panel is not just the coloristic brilliance described by Sirén but also most of the subtleties of execution that once characterized it. Despite its compromised state, a sense of the picture’s original qualities can be garnered from the sensitive treatment of the features and modulated flesh tones of the Christ Child, still visible in those areas of the painted surface left untouched by past interventions. Such passages, and the general handling of this figure as well as that of the Virgin, are what make the attribution to Gerini problematic. The slender, Orcagnesque proportions of the oval-faced Virgin and the delicate form of the Christ Child are incompatible with the strongly built, hard-edged physiognomic types with square jaws, more closely dependent on Giottesque models, that generally define Gerini’s output. If there is an analogy to Gerini’s work, it is confined to the more subsidiary parts of the composition, such as the Crucifixion and the lateral saints (most noticeably Saint Dorothy), which recall the artist’s manner around the time of the Coronation of the Virgin in the tabernacle of the Arte della Lana, in Florence.
Stylistically as well as compositionally, the Yale picture bears a strong resemblance to a small group of iconographically related devotional images of the Virgin and Child with attendant saints currently attributed to the Master of the Misericordia—a slightly older contemporary and sometimes collaborator of Gerini, who is thought by some scholars to have been possibly involved in a temporary association, akin to a compagnia, with Gerini in the 1370s and 1380s.14 Classified as representative of the Misericordia Master’s more “serial” production in the final period of his activity, between 1380 and 1385, the works in question include a painting formerly in the collection of Rita Bellesi, Florence (fig. 1), a panel at Hampton Court, London (fig. 2), and a tabernacle fragment in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, conceived as a nearly identical version of the one at Hampton Court.15 The Hampton Court and Accademia panels, which share many of the compositional features of the Yale painting, provide a close analogy for the type of Virgin and Christ Child, while the lateral saints in the ex-Bellesi Virgin—a work once attributed to Gerini—are especially close to the corresponding figures at Yale. Making allowances for the present condition of the Yale panel and taking into account the qualitative differences among all of these images, it is worth considering whether the Yale picture might be included in the same grouping, among those works produced by the Master of the Misericordia around the period of his presumed partnership with Gerini.16
Seymour’s supposition that the Yale painting could have been executed for the Duomo of Florence, based primarily on the author’s acceptance of the mistaken identification of the figure of Saint Margaret as Saint Reparata, needs to be discounted. Given the repetitive quality of the saints included in such serial production and the absence of the coats of arms that are often included in the frame, it is all but impossible to suggest a precise provenance or patron. —PP
Published References
Jarves, James Jackson. Descriptive Catalogue of “Old Masters” Collected by James J. Jarves to Illustrate the History of Painting from A.D. 1200 to the Best Periods of Italian Art. Cambridge, Mass.: H. O. Houghton, 1860., 46, no. 38; Sturgis, Russell, Jr. Manual of the Jarves Collection of Early Italian Pictures. New Haven: Yale College, 1868., 39, no. 31; W. F. Brown, Boston. Catalogue of the Jarves Collection of Early Italian Pictures. Sale cat. November 9, 1871., 16, no. 31; Rankin, William. “Some Early Italian Pictures in the Jarves Collection of the Yale School of Fine Arts at New Haven.” American Journal of Archaeology 10, no. 2 (April–June 1895): 137–51., 141; Rankin, William. Notes on the Collections of Old Masters at Yale University, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Museum of Harvard University. Wellesley, Mass.: Department of Art, Wellesley College, 1905., 9, no. 31; Sirén, Osvald. “Trecento Pictures in American Collections—II.” Burlington Magazine 14, no. 69 (December 1908): 188–94., 193–94, pl. 3 (left); Sirén, Osvald. “Trecento Pictures in American Collections—V.” Burlington Magazine 15, no. 75 (June 1909): 197., 197; Sirén, Osvald. “Pictures in America by Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea Orcagna, and His Brothers—II.” Art in America 2, no. 5 (August 1914): 325–36., 330, fig. 4; Sirén, Osvald. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the Jarves Collection Belonging to Yale University. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916., 43–44, no. 16; Sirén, Osvald. Giotto and Some of His Followers. Trans. Frederic Schenck. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1917., 1:277; Offner, Richard. Italian Primitives at Yale University: Comments and Revisions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927., 17–18; Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford: Clarendon, 1932., 332; Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places: The Florentine School. 2 vols. London: Phaidon, 1963., 1:132; Seymour, Charles, Jr. Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970., 47–48, 307, no. 29; Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972., 81, 599; Fahy, Everett. Review of Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XII–XV Century, by Fern Rusk Shapley; Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XV–XVI Century, by Fern Rusk Shapley; Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery, by Charles Seymour, Jr.; and Italian Primitives: The Case History of a Collection and Its Conservation, by Charles Seymour, Jr. Art Bulletin 56, no. 2 (June 1974): 283–85., 283; Boskovits, Miklós. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400. Florence: Edam, 1975., 411; Offner, Richard. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century. Supplement: A Legacy of Attributions. Ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis. New York: Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1981., 76; Skaug, Erling S. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting, with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430. 2 vols. Oslo: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works—Nordic Group, 1994., 1:265, 2: no. 8.3 (603); Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Vol. 1, Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes. Prague: Maxdorf, 1998., 529, no. Lb28; Chiodo, Sonia. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. 4, vol. 9, Painters in Florence after the “Black Death”: The Master of the Misericordia and Matteo di Pacino. Ed. Miklós Boskovits. Florence: Giunti, 2011., 82n236
Notes
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Seymour, Charles, Jr. Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970., 47–48, no. 29. Saint Reparata, a patron saint of Florence, is usually depicted as a princess martyr wearing a crown and holding the martyr’s palm, but her chief attribute is a white banner with a red cross. The cross held by the saint in the Yale painting, though a typical attribute of Margaret of Antioch, is not exclusive to her and is also included in some representations of Saints Agatha and Juliana (who also both wear crowns), making a definitive identification impossible. See Kaftal, George. Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting. Florence: Le Lettere, 1986., 692, fig. 4. ↩︎
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Jarves, James Jackson. Descriptive Catalogue of “Old Masters” Collected by James J. Jarves to Illustrate the History of Painting from A.D. 1200 to the Best Periods of Italian Art. Cambridge, Mass.: H. O. Houghton, 1860., 46, no. 38; Sturgis, Russell, Jr. Manual of the Jarves Collection of Early Italian Pictures. New Haven: Yale College, 1868., 39, no. 31; W. F. Brown, Boston. Catalogue of the Jarves Collection of Early Italian Pictures. Sale cat. November 9, 1871., 16, no. 31; and Rankin, William. Notes on the Collections of Old Masters at Yale University, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Museum of Harvard University. Wellesley, Mass.: Department of Art, Wellesley College, 1905., 9, no. 31. ↩︎
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Sirén, Osvald. “Trecento Pictures in American Collections—II.” Burlington Magazine 14, no. 69 (December 1908): 188–94., 193–94, pl. 3 (left). ↩︎
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Sirén, Osvald. “Pictures in America by Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, Andrea Orcagna, and His Brothers—II.” Art in America 2, no. 5 (August 1914): 325–36., 330, fig. 4. ↩︎
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Sirén, Osvald. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the Jarves Collection Belonging to Yale University. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916., 43–44; and Offner, Richard. Italian Primitives at Yale University: Comments and Revisions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927., 17–18. ↩︎
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Offner, Richard. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century. Supplement: A Legacy of Attributions. Ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis. New York: Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1981., 76. ↩︎
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Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford: Clarendon, 1932., 332; and Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places: The Florentine School. 2 vols. London: Phaidon, 1963., 1:132. ↩︎
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Seymour, Charles, Jr. Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970., 47–48, no. 29, fig. 29. ↩︎
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Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972., 81, 599. ↩︎
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Boskovits, Miklós. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400. Florence: Edam, 1975., 411. ↩︎
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Everett Fahy, Luciano Bellosi, and Carl Strehlke, curatorial files, Department of European Art, Yale University Art Gallery; and Chiodo, Sonia. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. 4, vol. 9, Painters in Florence after the “Black Death”: The Master of the Misericordia and Matteo di Pacino. Ed. Miklós Boskovits. Florence: Giunti, 2011., 82n236. ↩︎
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Curatorial files, Department of European Art, Yale University Art Gallery, January 12, 2004. ↩︎
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Fahy, Everett. Review of Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XII–XV Century, by Fern Rusk Shapley; Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XV–XVI Century, by Fern Rusk Shapley; Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery, by Charles Seymour, Jr.; and Italian Primitives: The Case History of a Collection and Its Conservation, by Charles Seymour, Jr. Art Bulletin 56, no. 2 (June 1974): 283–85., 283. ↩︎
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The possibility of a compagnia between the two painters was first advanced by Miklós Boskovits based on his identification of both hands in the execution of a triptych in the church of Sant’Andrea a Montespertoli in Florence, datable on circumstantial and iconographic evidence to after 1378; see Boskovits, Miklós. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400. Florence: Edam, 1975., 102–3. Boskovits’s hypothesis was accepted and elaborated upon by Sonia Chiodo in her study of the Master of the Misericordia, in which she identified a tabernacle in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, inv. no. 230, as another collaborative effort, executed between 1375 and 1380; see Chiodo, Sonia. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. 4, vol. 9, Painters in Florence after the “Black Death”: The Master of the Misericordia and Matteo di Pacino. Ed. Miklós Boskovits. Florence: Giunti, 2011., 58–66. ↩︎
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Chiodo, Sonia. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. 4, vol. 9, Painters in Florence after the “Black Death”: The Master of the Misericordia and Matteo di Pacino. Ed. Miklós Boskovits. Florence: Giunti, 2011., 81, 304–11, pls. 50–52. For a more in-depth discussion of the panel in the Accademia, inv. no. 1890 n. 9805, see also Chiodo, in Boskovits, Miklós, and Daniela Parenti, eds. Cataloghi della Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze: Dipinti. Vol. 2, Il tardo trecento. Florence: Giunti, 2010., 92–94, no. 16. ↩︎
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Technical considerations, the differences among the uniform tooling of these works, and the unusual freehand design in the haloes of the Yale saints—which recurs in the Arte della Lana Coronation—do not preclude the possibility that Gerini may have completed a work left unfinished by the Master of the Misericordia. The Yale panel is also distinguished by an unusual star-shaped punch in the decorative band that—as in the Hampton Court and Accademia versions—separates the main scene from the Crucifixion. This motif reportedly appears in only a handful of devotional works from the Cione workshop, as well as in the main panels of Jacopo di Cione’s 1383 polyptych in the church of Santi Apostoli in Florence—which includes a predella scene by Gerini—and in Gerini’s Burial of the Virgin in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma, inv. no. GN431, datable to ca. 1370–75. See Skaug, Erling S. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting, with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330–1430. 2 vols. Oslo: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works—Nordic Group, 1994., 2: no. 8.3 (603); and Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Vol. 1, Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes. Prague: Maxdorf, 1998., 529, no. Lb28. ↩︎