For more on this painting, see Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, Madonna of Humility, One of Three Panels from a Triptych.
The Six Saints and Annunciatory Angel are painted on a panel of a vertical wood grain, 1-centimeter thick with a 9-millimeter-thick engaged molding applied to the front and modern engaged moldings 4.5-millimeters thick applied to the reverse. A minor split has opened at the bottom of the panel, 11.5 centimeters from the right edge. Six nail heads aligned horizontally, approximately 14.5 centimeters from the bottom edge, indicate the placement of an original strap hinge, further evidence of which is hidden by the modern surface on the reverse of the panel. A single nail head in the center of the panel, 87 centimeters from the bottom edge, indicates the placement of the second hinge. The panel was “test-cleaned” (in the words of Charles Seymour, Jr.)1 by Andrew Petryn at an unknown date. Abrasions to the gold ground have exposed bolus and gesso layers along the prominent horizontal craquelure. The face of Saint Dorothy has been nearly effaced. Shadows in the faces of Saints Philip and James, in the beard of Saint Anthony, and in the robes of Saint James were more aggressively cleaned by Petryn, in places exposing gesso underlayers. The robes of Saint John the Baptist were only partially cleaned, leaving a gray residue of old varnish and overpaint, especially along the mordant gilding of the hem and in the red lining of the Baptist’s cloak. Saint Anthony’s habit also retains some broken passages of old overpaints and varnish. The modern gilding of the engaged moldings and of the spandrels was removed only on the left half of the panel.
Notes
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Seymour, Charles, Jr. Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1970., 53. Contrary to the claims advanced by Seymour, there is no evidence that “the wings have been shaved back radically in section” or that the engaged moldings on the obverse are modern. ↩︎