Lot 221: SANO DI PIETRO

SANO DI PIETRO SIENA 1405-1481 MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS tempera on panel, engaged frame 17 1/8 by 12 5/8 in.; 43.5 by 32 cm.

Sano di Pietro, whose real name was Ansono di Pietro di Mencio, is an artist on whose life, unusually for 15th century artists, we have an abundance of documentary facts. His year of birth is usually listed as 1406, but according to a now lost register of baptisms, he was christened on 2 December 1405.(1 )Sano di Pietro spent his entire career in Siena, and in 1428 he was registered there as a painter in the Guild. A large number of his major commissions up to and during the 1440's are recorded and in 1445, the year after Saint Bernardino died, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Saint for the confraternity of Santa Maria degli Angeli (a fine portrait head of the saint formerly in the Palmieri Nuti collection, Siena, may provide us with some point of reference for this commission; see. R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, New York 1970, vol. IX, p. 488, fig. 309).

It was presumably during the latter half of the 1440s and particularly around 1450, the year in which Saint Bernardino was canonised, that Sano di Pietro was commissioned to paint numerous images of the patron saint of Siena. These historical events explain the large number of small devotional panels depicting the Madonna and Child, often times flanked by Saint Bernardino, while in other instances flanked simply by angels, as is the case here. The present work is a fine example of this type of picture, and is also notable in that it retains its original frame. It utilizes many of the motifs which are entirely typical of Sano di Pietro's output. For example, the angels' heads are placed directly above the Madonna and Child and positioned in such a way which defies spatial dimension, yet serves the purpose of framing the figures below. The angels are wreathed with garlands of flowers, another typical device, and they, along with the Madonna and Child are rendered with a care and delicacy which leaves no mystery as to why images such as this have been highly sought after since the artist's time.

1. See G. Vasari, Le vite de'più ecclenti pittori, scultori ed architettori italiani, Florence 1850, vol. VI, p. 183.