Lot 22: - Luca di Tommé , Active in Siena 1356 - after 1389 St. Giovanni Gualberto; Spandrels : The Prophets Habakkuk and Jonah tempera on panel, gold ground

tempera on panel, gold ground

measurements note 114 by 47.2 cm.; 44 7/8 by 18 1/2 in.

B. Berenson, The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, New York and London 1909, p. 141 (as Bartolo di Fredi);
M. Meiss, "Notes on Three Linked Sienese Styles," in Art Bulletin, XLV, 1, March 1963, p. 48, note 12 (as by the so-called "Sienese Master of the Magdalen Legend," a follower of Luca di Tommè);
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, vol. I, London and New York 1968, p. 30 (as Bartolo di Fredi);
C. De Benedictis, La pittura senese, 1330-1370, Florence 1979, p. 67, note 80;
S. D'Argenio in M. Gregori, ed., La Fondazione Roberto Longhi a Firenze, Milan 1980, p. 242, cited under no. 22;
G. Chelazzi Dini, in Il Gotico a Siena, exhibition catalogue, Siena 1982, p. 278, cited under no. 103;
C. Volpe, Early Italian Paintings and Works of Art, 1300-1480, exhibition catalogue (Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd), London 1983, p. 29;
S.A. Fehm, Jr., Luca di Tommè: A Sienese Fourteenth-Century Painter, Carbondale, Illinois 1986, pp. 26, 35, note 21 (as 'Workshop of Luca di Tommè');
G. Freuler, "L'Eredità di Pietro Lorenzetti verso il 1350: novità per Biagio di Goro, Niccolò di Ser Sozzo e Luca di Tommè," in Nuovi studi, 4, 1997, pp. 20, 23-26, 31, notes 41, 47-48, 56, reproduced figs. 30 (reconstruction of altarpiece), 31, 32, 34;
P. Palladino, in Art and Devotion in Siena after 1350: Luca di Tommè and Niccolò di Buonaccorso, exhibition catalogue, 1997-1998, pp. 40/43, 46, reproduced p. 42, figs. 39-41.

Probably commissioned by the Arte della Lana, or Wool Merchants Guild, for the Vallombrosan Church of San Michele in Siena;
Henri Chalandon, La Grange Blanche, Parcieux, near Trévoux, by 1907;
Chalandon family, from whom acquired directly by the present owners probably in the mid 1950s.

The dowel marks located on the right hand side of this panel indicate that it would have originally occupied a position on the extreme left hand side of the central register of the San Michele polyptych, with the panel depicting Saint Michael the Archangel (lot 20 in this sale) , whose own dowel marks correspond, to its right. Saint John or Giovanni Gualberto (985/95 - 1073) was the founder of the Vallombrosan Order, for whose Church of San Michele in Siena the polyptych to which this panel originally belonged was painted. A member of the noble Florentine Visdomini family, he was entering Florence on Good Friday when he came upon a man who had killed his brother. Together with his armed followers he was about to murder the man in revenge when his intended victim fell to his knees with his arms outstretched inthe shape of the Cross and begged for mercy in the name of Christ, who had been crucified that same day. Giovanni forgave him and entered the Benedictine Church at San Miniato al Monte to pray, whereupon the crucifix upon the altar is said to have bowed its head to him in recognition of his piety. He subsequently entered the monastery at San Miniato as a Benedictine monk. Unwilling to forgive or compromise with his Abbot, Oberto, or the Bishop of Florence, Pietro Mezzabarba, whom he believed to be guilty of simony, he left the monastery. After staying with the monks at Camaldoli, he settled at Vallombrosa, where he founded his monastery and its Order sometime around 1038. He was canonised by Pope Celestine III in 1193 and died on 12 July 1073 in Passignano sul Trasimeno near Perugia. Read full article