Lot 40: BARNABA DA MODENA

BARNABA DA MODENA BORN IN MODENA; ACTIVE IN GENOA AND PISA 1361 - 1383 THE MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED WITH TWO ANGELS; THE ARCHANGEL GABRIEL AND VIRGIN ANNUNCIATE IN ROUNDELS ABOVE; AND THE DEAD CHRIST FLANKED BY SAINTS MARY OF EGYPT, JOHN THE BAPTIST, THE VIRGIN, SAINTS JOHN THE EVANGELIST, ANTHONY ABBOT AND FRANCIS OF ASSISI IN THE PREDELLA BELOW signed, inscribed and indistinctly dated (partially strengthened) below the Madonna and Child: + . Barnaba[s] de mutina . pinx[i]t m... IIXXX. tempera on panel, gold ground, unframed 74.5 by 48.2 cm.; 29 3/8 by 19 in.

In the same collection in south-western France for over a century.

Born in Modena to a family of Milanese origin, Barnaba (or Barna) was active mainly in Genoa where he is documented from 1361 until 1383. In 1362 he is referred to as 'civis et habitator Janue' indicating that he was an established resident of Genoa by that date. Indeed the artist is first mentioned in documents in 1364, when he is recorded as decorating the Palazzo Ducale in that city.υ1 In 1379 Barnaba was summoned by the Opera del Duomo in Pisa to complete a cycle of frescoes left unfinished by Andrea da Firenze: he never began the task but he did paint a number of significant works in Pisa, including a Maestà for the Merchants' Guild, the signed central panel of which is in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, and is the largest known extant work by the artist.υ2 Many of Barnaba's dated works resemble each other in type for they show the Madonna and Child in half length, with the Madonna looking out, often attended by angels. It has been suggested that the rather anachronistic use of gold highlights to indicate folds on the Madonna's drapery may have been a key to the artist's success in Genoa, where Byzantine painting had previously been dominant.

This previously unknown panel of the Madonna and Child fits comfortably within the group of known Madonnas in the artist's oeuvre. The earliest of these is a signed and dated panel of 1367 in the Städel, Frankfurt, which shows the Christ Child scratching His left foot; a naturalistic detail that rather contrasts with the byzantine treatment of the Madonna's drapery.υ3 This is also evident here where the Madonna's drapery and rather static pose are offset by the Christ Child's tender gesture towards her. In both paintings, as well as in the large panel in Pisa mentioned above, Christ wears a coral mascot around His neck. Barnaba's other early Madonna and Child panels include a signed and dated painting of 1369 formerly in Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich Museum (since destroyed), and another of 1370 in Turin, Pinacoteca.υ4 The present panel is most closely related to Barnaba's signed painting of the Madonna and Child once in the church of San Francesco but now in the Museo Nazionale in Pisa.υ5 There the Madonna and Child are set before an elaborate patterned cloth, held up by four (instead of two) angels: the large buds or flowers on the cloth of honour are similar to those found in other works of the 1370s.υ6 The angel heads in both works are identical, as are the roundels with the Archangel Gabriel and Virgin Annunciate in the upper spandrels. Furthermore both panels are decorated with similar pastiglia work and internal framing elements. In the present panel Barnaba has included six half-length figures flanking the dead Christ in a sort of 'predella' beneath the main scene: this is of similar design to the row of busts of the Twelve Apostles at the foot of the panel in the National Gallery, London, which is signed and dated 1374.υ7 Christ is flanked by Saints Mary of Egypt, John the Baptist, the Virgin, Saints John the Evangelist, Anthony Abbot and Francis of Assisi. Like the painting of the Madonna and Child in Pisa, the panel works beautifully as an independent work of art but it was probably originally the central panel of a folding tabernacle; either a diptych or, more probably, the centre of a triptych.υ8


1. See R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, New York 1970, vol. IV, p. 370.
2. Reproduced in B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London 1968, vol. II, fig. 279. As well as Barnaba's signature along the bottom of the panel there are remains of an inscription which identify it as having been painted for the guild: 'cives et mercatores Pisani pro salute a...'.
3. See J. Sander & B. Brinkmann, Italian, French and Spanish Painting before 1800 at the Städel, Frankfurt/Main 1997, pp. 19-20, reproduced in colour plate 13.
4. For the Berlin panel see Berenson, op. cit., plate 271.
5. Reproduced in Van Marle, op. cit., p. 383, fig. 195.
6. See, for example, the cloth behind the Madonna in the lower left scene of the panel in the National Gallery, London (signed and dated 1374); on the robes of Saint Bartholomew and the supplicant bishop in the altarpiece for San Bartolomeo del Fossato, Genoa (circa 1377-1381); and the cloth of honour in the Saint Catherine altarpiece (dated by Longhi to circa 1375).
7. For which see M. Davies, ed. D. Gordon, National Gallery Catalogues. The Early Italian Schools before 1400, London 1988, pp. 7-9, reproduced plate 4.
8. The original panel does not appear to have been planed down (it measures 2.5 cm. in thickness), nor was it originally painted on the reverse. There is evidence of four old nails along both vertical sides, though it is not clear whether these are original. The painting may quite possibly have had wings not dissimilar to the National Gallery panel which were originally two vertical wing panels but have since been framed together.