98
I GENTILE DA FABRIANO
The motifs of the rose h edge or rose garden and of the crown which supplements the Madonn a's halo are of German origin , a part of those Go thic ideas which in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries came down th rough Venice and Verona into the Italian Marches. The conversion of the hedge into a formal grille is peculiar. The personality of Gentile da Fabriano ha s gone to mould the types and to curl into a scroll the h em of the Madonna's robe. But the painting contrasts strongly w ith that of the other picture influenced b y him (above) in its refined character, in the daintiness of scale and detail and in the bright colouring the hair of Madonna and Ch ild is orange and the seat is of the same hue, gaily opposed to the light crimson lining of her man tle and the green of her robe. By now this particular follower of Gentile has been recogni sed as the author of a group of pictures. A similar composition in a similar frame in the collection of the Marchese Viscon ti Venosta in Rome was attributed b y Carlo Gamba to a fo llower of Gentile from Umbria or the March es. 1 More recently the sa me hand h as been observed by Federico Zeri in an altarpiece at Lonigo, near V icenza, The Madonna with 55. Anthony Abbot and Jerome, and Two Angels, and in another, No. 5 in the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne, The Madonna of Humility. The painter h as been dubbed by Serena Padovani " The Master of Lonigo," and she ha s ga th ered under this name not only the Gardner pictu re and all th ose already mentioned but o thers of The Madonna of Humility in three Milanese priva te collection s and in a four th private collection in Berlin .3 P15m2 1
Ga mb a in Dedalo, I (1920), p. 517.
2 Zeri
in a letter from Rome, 30 January 1950.
3 Padovani
Simone and wi th Jacopo di Cione for the Florentine Mint a nd no w in the Uffizi Gallery. In 1383 at Volterra h e collaborated with Jacopo di Cione in the large fr esco triptych The Annunciation, with Sain ts which survives in a ruinous condition in the Palazzo dei Priori there. In 1399 h e contracted, together with his son Lorenzo and with Spinello Aretino, to supply an altarpiece for the h igh altar of S. Felicita, no w in the Floren ce Accad emia. His earliest and bes t preserved frescoes are those covering on e wall of the sacristy of S. Croce at Florence. These still sh ow the influence of Taddeo Gaddi. In 1391 h e was working with Taddeo's son Agnolo at Prato, and the date 1392 was once to be read on the n ow half-ruin ed frescoes which Niccolo painted in the chapter house of S. Francesco a t Pisa. H e painted the 5. Nicho las on a pillar of Or San Michele at Florence 1408-09 . In 1408 and in 1411 h e was again a t Prato . There are some fre scoes there by him and h is assis tants in the chapter house of S. Francesco. The easy collabora tion wi th o ther painters is charac teristic of the vast quantity of painting produced in Floren ce in the later fourteenth century, in which the painters are to b e distinguished rather by their manner than b y their ideas. Niccolo was on e of the most prolific. His execution, though coarse, is firm and careful ; and he thus occupies a foremo st place am on g the painters who succeeded Orcagna. In his h an ds already dry conceptions took on a ponderou s formality which h e maintained for nearly fifty years. His h eavy fi gures, with their simple, sculpturesque outlines, a nd hi s rigid formality of composi tion stand as a kind of bulwark agai nst the Go thic airs and graces affected by his son Lorenzo and th e youn ger generation . The picture below is among the finest of his panels.
in a let ter from Florence, 11 Jul y 1973.
S. ANTHO NY ABBOT, WITH FOUR ANGELS Early Italian Room
Niccolo di Pietro Gerini Active in Floren ce 1368; died b efore February 1416. He ma y well have learned to paint in the studio of T addeo Gaddi, who in flu en ced his earlier works. T addeo died before 1366, and in 1368 Niccolo m at riculated in the Gu ild of Physicia n s and Pharm acis ts in Florence. He joined the circle of Orcagna. H e is probably the Niccolaio wh o collab orated in th e painting of several pictures in the style of Orcagna after hi s death in 1370 : such as the large altarpiece with The Coronation of the Virgin from S. Pietro Maggiore, Florence, now in London (Nos. 569-78, under Orcagna), and another Coronation, undertaken three yea rs late r wi th a painter called
Gold and temp era on wood, Gothic-arched, 3.075 x 1.272. The original Gothic frame, con siderably restored, h as, in a trefoil above, a fi gure of Th e R edeemer in h alf len gth . The condition of the painting is good. From the rigid symm etry of his setting S. Anthony stares square and solemn. The background is of gold, th e h anging of black and gold and scarlet, and the black and the icy grey of his habit and the scarlet of his book are in tune with Niccolo's h ard and abrup t outlines . T ypical also is the yellow, sh o t wi th dull purple, which colours part of the robes of each Angel. The stolid composition is a good example of that phase of Florentine painting