Lot 137: Saint Nicholas of Bari

Attributed to Francesco Fiorentino, Maestro del Cristo Docente (active Florence c.1380-c.1400) Saint Nicholas of Bari tempera on gold ground panel, unvarnished, in a later engaged frame 36 ¼ x 20 5/8 in. (92.1 x 52.5 cm.)

92.1 x 52.5 cm.

Corsi collection, Florence. John Rushout, 2nd Lord Northwick (1770-1859), Thirlestane House, Cheltenham; his sale (†), Phillips, on the premises, 24 August 1859, lot 1851, as 'Giotto, Saint Ambrose' (to the following), Sir Thomas Phillips, 1st Bt. (1792-1872), of Middle Hill, near Broadway, Worcestershire.

This panel, which has not been varnished or attended to in recent times, was, on the basis of a photograph, attributed to Francesco Fiorentino by the late Miklòs Boskovits in a letter of 29 April 2005. This hand was first identified by Federico Zeri, who assigned a homogenous group of Tuscan panels to his Maestro del Cristo Docente. The 2nd Lord Northwick was an exceptional collector and assembled what became one of the largest groups of early Italian pictures in England. In 1859 part of the collection was bought in for his successor and returned to Northwick, from where it was dispersed in a series of sales at Christie's in 1966. Sir Thomas Phillips, 1st Bt. (1792-1872), whose estate of Middle Hill, near Broadway, not far from Cheltenham, was the outstanding manuscript collector of his generation and acquired a number of pictures at the Northwick sale.