Lot 2: The Madonna and Child enthroned with four saints

Spinello Aretino Arezzo 1350/52-1410
The Madonna and Child enthroned with four saints
tempera and gold on panel, arched top
31 1/8 x 19¼ in. 79 x 49 cm.

Florence, 16a Biennale di Palazzo Strozzi , 23 September 1989.

THE PROPERTY OF THE SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI FOUNDATION (INC. NEW YORK STATE)

No sales tax is due on the purchase price of this lot if it is picked up or delivered in the State of New York.
This richly decorated devotional panel is a characteristic work from Spinello Aretino's maturity. Spinello was a preeminent painter active in Tuscany in the last half of the fourteenth century. As his name suggests, he was born in Arezzo where he trained under Andrea di Nerio (doc. 1331-1369). Throughout his career Spinello painted fresco cycles, notably those in San Miniato, Florence and in the Camposanto, Pisa, as well as altarpieces and smaller devotional panels such as the present work. In each case he perfected a narrative clarity and a monumentality that makes him the last true Florentine exponent of the Giottesque tradition. He worked on the Duomo in Florence and in important churches such as S. Felicita. He also paainted altarpieces in the north-western Tuscan cities of Pisa and Lucca.

This painting may be compared to a triptych painted for Sant'Andrea in Lucca, dated 1391. Spinello was working in Pisa at the same time and, as Weppelman notes, there are parallels between the facial types in both the Pisan frescoes and the Madonna in the triptych and this panel. Its size and shape suggests that it was intended as an independent devotional work. The mandorla type arrangement of the saints and angels around the enthroned Madonna, who seems to float in celestial space, was a device favored by both Spinello and his contemporary Jacopo di Cione, whose Madonna and Child with Saints (Academy of Arts, Honolulu) painted the same year has a similar composition.

Spinello is recorded as having painted two other triptychs for churches in Lucca, one for S. Ponziano (dispersed), and the other commissioned by the Benedictine Order of Monte Oliveto (now mainly in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena). The small standing figures of St. Agnes and an Apostle that once decorated its piers were sold in 2005 (Christie's, New York, 26 January 2005, lot 2). All three Lucchese altarpieces are characterized by a Giottesque solemnity of composition leavened with a brilliance of color and decorative detail. Tartuferi ( op. cit. ) notes that while in Lucca, Spinello was working with a master gilder, Gabriello Saracini, and a creator of pastiglia decoration, Simone Cini. This panel is enriched with the highly ornate gilding and pastiglia work that is so notable a feature of the Lucchese altarpieces. Compositionally it may be compared to a Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Anthony Abbot and angels (Kamler collection, Kitzingen, ill. M. Boskovits, Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento , fig. 514).

We are grateful to Professor Miklos Boskovits for confirming the attribution to Spinello Aretino (written communication, 21 February 2008).