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Piero di Giovanni Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, Illuminator, b. 1365 - d. 1424

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    • PIERO DI GIOVANNI, CALLED LORENZO MONACO (FLORENCE C. 1370-C. 1425) Piera d
      Jun. 09, 2022

      PIERO DI GIOVANNI, CALLED LORENZO MONACO (FLORENCE C. 1370-C. 1425) Piera d

      Est: $500,000 - $700,000

      PIERO DI GIOVANNI, CALLED LORENZO MONACO (FLORENCE C. 1370-C. 1425) Piera degli Albizzi and her daughters tempera on gold ground panel, a fragment, unframed 10 7/8 x 8 1/2 in (27.5 x 21.8 cm.)

      Christie's
    • Lorenzo Monaco (Florence 1370/75-c.1425/30) The Prophet Isaiah tempera and
      May. 01, 2019

      Lorenzo Monaco (Florence 1370/75-c.1425/30) The Prophet Isaiah tempera and

      Est: $1,500,000 - $2,500,000

      Lorenzo Monaco (Florence 1370/75-c.1425/30) The Prophet Isaiah tempera and gold on panel 7 ¾ in. diameter (19.7 cm. diameter)

      Christie's
    • f - LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1389 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)
      Jul. 05, 2006

      f - LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1389 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)

      Est: £400,000 - £600,000

      PROPERTY SOLD WITHOUT RESERVE THE MADONNA OF HUMILITY measurements note 106.4 by 62 cm.; 41 7/8 by 24 3/8 in. tempera on panel, gold ground, pointed top PROVENANCE Cini collection (Fondazione Giorgio Cini), Venice; Private collection. LITERATURE M. Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento 1370-1400, Florence 1975, p. 355 (as by Lorenzo Monaco, datable to circa 1405-10); M. Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, Princeton 1989, p. 206, reproduced fig. 284 (as by an Imitator of Lorenzo Monaco); L. Kanter, in Painting and illumination in early Renaissance Florence 1300-1450, exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17 November 1994 - 26 February 1995, p. 304, reproduced fig. 119 (as by Lorenzo Monaco). NOTE The attribution to Lorenzo Monaco has been independently endorsed by Everett Fahy, Laurence Kanter and Miklos Boskovits, the last of these publishing it for the first time in 1975 (see Literature). Lorenzo Monaco was born Piero di Giovanni and only assumed his monastic name after taking his vows in 1391 and entering the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. He was ordained a subdeacon in 1392 and a deacon in 1396 but some time after this date he opened up a workshop outside of the monastery, becoming a successful painter and manuscript illuminator and one of the most influential artists working in Florence in the early Quattrocento. His paintings combine a highly refined sense of colour with a great elegance of form that have been described as "paralleling in two dimensions the accomplishments of Lorenzo Ghiberti in relief sculpture."1 The iconography of The Madonna of Humility, in which the Madonna is shown seated on a pillow holding the Christ Child in her arms, was popular in early Renaissance Florence and Lorenzo Monaco painted the subject on a number of occasions. The spirit of the iconography is a reflection on Mary's virtues, thus justifying her place alongside the Holy Trinity: as Freuler has observed, "the virtue of humility is considered the basis, or requirement, for the Virgin's Maternity and hence her acceptance into the Holy Family as the Mother of the Son of God."2 Lorenzo Monco's examples, which vary in both quality and date of execution, tend to fall into two categories: the first in which the Christ Child blesses with His right hand and the second in which the Christ Child embraces the Madonna (as here).3 These panels were intended for private devotion and Lorenzo Monaco's output of such paintings was prolific, in all probability to meet his clients' demand. Kanter has described how Lorenzo Monaco developed the motif in the early 1390s from an earlier tradition of showing the Madonna and Child seated upon clouds, to its final solution in which the Madonna and Child are seated on a pillow and placed on a decorated or marble ledge. The present work may have once formed part of a triptych or polyptych, constituting the central panel of a larger altarpiece. The Madonna and Child group is placed centrally within the picture space and the setting, much like that in other variants of the same subject, is kept to an absolute minimum. The horizon line in all adaptations of the theme is low and the ledge on which the Madonna sits runs along the foreground of the entire picture space, only partially interrupted by the occasional curl of the Madonna's robe spilling over the edge. In this particular rendition the unadorned marble pavement, with its painted horizontal lines, is very similar to that in each of Lorenzo Monaco's Four Patriarchs, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.4 Those panels have been dated to circa 1405-10 and a similar date of execution seems likely for this Madonna, although Kanter believes the panel to have been painted a little earlier, in circa 1400 (verbal communication). 1. Kanter, under Literature, p. 221. 2. G. Freuler, in Lorenzo Monaco. A bridge from Giotto's heritage to the Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Galleria dell' Accademia, 9 May - 24 September 2006, pp. 100-101, under cat. no. 2. 3. Examples of the former, with the Christ Child blessing, include the paintings in The Brooklyn Museum Collection, New York (inv. 34.842), dated by Kanter to circa 1420-22, in The Toledo Museum of Art (inv. 1945.30), and in The John G. Johnson collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. J10), datable to circa 1420. Examples of the latter, in which the Christ Child embraces the Madonna, include the paintings of 1404 in the Museo della Collegiata, Empoli (inv. 2), that of 1407 in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (inv. 2773) and the present work. 4. Kanter, op. cit., pp. 253ff., cat. no. 32a, all reproduced in colour pp. 254-57.

      Sotheby's
    • LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1389 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)
      Dec. 07, 2005

      LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1389 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)

      Est: £600,000 - £800,000

      LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1389 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?) THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR SAINT JEROME IN THE WILDERNESS measurements note 23 by 36 cm.; 9 by 14 1/8 in. tempera on poplar panel, gold ground PROVENANCE Probably from the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence; From the Convent of Saint Agatha, Via San Gallo, Florence (according to a 19th-century inscription on the reverse); The Reverend Walter Davenport Bromley sale, London, Christie's, 13 June 1863, lot 100 (as Pietro Lorenzetti); Geheimrat Josef Cremer, Dortmund, by 1914, no. 939 (as close to Pietro Lorenzetti); His sale, Berlin, Wertheim, 29 May 1929, lot 128 (as style of Lorenzo Monaco), where acquired by a member of the Cremer family; Thence by descent until sold (anonymously), London, Sotheby's, 6 July 1988, lot 8, for £340,000 to Colnaghi; Bought by the present owner shortly after. LITERATURE H. Voss ed., Collection Geh. Kommerzienrat Cremer, Dortmund, 1914, p. 5, no. 939 (as close to Pietro Lorenzetti); H. Voss, Sammlung Geheimrat Josef Cremer, Dortmund, Berlin 1929, p. 176, no. 128, reproduced on facing page (as style of Lorenzo Monaco); M.J. Eisenberg, The origins and development of the early style of Lorenzo Monaco, Ph.D. Princeton, 1954, pp. 83-5, and p. 102, reproduced plate 17 (as Lorenzo Monaco, dated to 1390-95); F. Zeri, "Investigations into the early period of Lorenzo Monaco - II", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CVII, no. 742, January 1965, pp. 7-8 (as Lorenzo Monaco, dated to shortly after 1390); M. Meiss, "Scholarship and Penitence in the Early Renaissance: The Image of Saint Jerome", in Pantheon, no. 32, 1974, p. 135, reproduced fig. 2 (as Lorenzo Monaco?); M. Boskovits, Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento 1370-1400, Florence 1975, p. 339 (as Lorenzo Monaco, dated to 1395-1400); F. Zeri, Italian Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore 1976, vol. I, pp. 26-7 (as Lorenzo Monaco); The Toledo Museum of Art. European paintings, Toledo 1976, p. 99; M. Boskovits, Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Frühe Italienische Malerei, edited by E. Schleier, Berlin 1987, pp. 97-8, under cat. no. 37, reproduced plate 147 (as Lorenzo Monaco); M.J. Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, Princeton 1989, p. 183, under "II. Other works ascribed to Lorenzo Monaco", reproduced fig. 219, and pp. 186-8, under catalogue entry for panels in Accademia, Florence (as Lorenzo Monaco(?); an opinion he then revised on an unpaginated sheet at the end of his monograph in which he fully accepts all the Carmine panels as autograph works and dates them to the mid-1390s). NOTE Lorenzo Monaco was born Piero di Giovanni and only assumed his monastic name after entering the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence in 1391. He was one of the most influential artists of the early Quattrocento in Florence and, having set up his own workshop outside of the monastery, he became a successful painter and manuscript illuminator. His paintings generally display a decorative yet refined sense of colour and his figures, though painted in the late Gothic style, are extremely naturalistic. The scene depicted here is particularly moving for the dramatic outline of the rock in which St. Jerome's cave is set serves to emphasise the religious fervour with which the hermit beats his breast. This panel depicting St. Jerome in the wilderness, lost for over half a century until its last appearance on the market in 1988, was formerly in the collection of Josef Cremer in Dortmund, from which it was sold in Berlin in 1929. It is almost certainly to be identified with the Saint Jerome in the Davenport Bromley sale at Christie's in 1863, where it was sold as Pietro Lorenzetti; as attested to by an old inscription in English on the reverse of the panel ("Pietro Lore...tti/ from the Convent of St. Agatha/...San Gallo Florence). Another panel from the Davenport Bromley sale, likewise catalogued as Pietro Lorenzetti but now also given to Lorenzo Monaco, shows St. John the Baptist departing for the wilderness and is today in Leicestershire Museums and Art Galleries, Leicester. Federico Zeri (see Literature, 1965) was the first to associate these two predella panels with three others and to suggest a reconstruction of the altarpiece to which they once belonged; a scheme also supported by Miklos Boskovits (see Literature). The reconstruction clearly displays the paintings' original arrangement (see Fig. 1): the present panel once stood at the left end of the predella, beneath the full-length figure of St. Jerome (Accademia, Florence, inv. 8705; for which see Eisenberg, under Literature, 1989, pp. 186-8, reproduced fig. 215); then came the aforementioned predella of St. John the Baptist departing for the wilderness (Leicestershire Museums and Art Galleries, Leicester, inv. 33A 1959; Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 196, reproduced fig. 220), beneath the corresponding figure of St. John the Baptist (Accademia, Florence, inv. 8708; ibid., pp. 186-8, fig. 215); the central predella scene showing the Nativity (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin-Dahlem, inv. 1113; ibid., p. 181, reproduced fig. 221) suitably sat beneath a panel of The Madonna and Child enthroned (Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo (Ohio), inv. 76.22; ibid., p. 206, reproduced fig. 217); the fourth predella showing The Martyrdom of St. Peter (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, inv. 37.688; ibid., p. 180, reproduced fig. 222) was located under the corresponding full-length figure of St. Peter (Accademia, Florence, inv. 8709; ibid., pp. 186-8, reproduced fig. 218); and the final predella showing The Beheading of St. Paul (Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, inv. 36-23; ibid., pp. 201-2, reproduced fig. 223) was beneath the standing figure of St. Paul (Accademia, Florence, inv. 8704; ibid., pp. 186-8, reproduced fig. 218). The four standing saints now in the Accademia were found in 1810 in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, and the polyptych can therefore be presumed to have come from that church. The five predella panels are clearly by the same hand: not only are the figures extremely similar in style but the same rocky landscape occurs in all but two of them. Each predella is enclosed in an octagonal border made with the same punchwork tooling, though this is only partially visible (in the upper corners) on the present work and no longer visible on the painting in Leicester. The tooling on the gold of the figures' haloes in the predella panels seems to fall into two designs: the larger circles visible on St. Jerome's halo in the present work are the same as those in the Holy Family's haloes in the Berlin Nativity; the smaller circles on St. John the Baptist's halo in the Leicester panel are the same as those used on St. Peter and St. Paul in the Baltimore and Princeton predellas respectively. Although these differences might only illustrate the use of two sets of tools within the same workshop, it is interesting to note that Eisenberg, although initially doubtful of a full attribution to Lorenzo Monaco for the various panels from the polyptych, states that the present predella and that of the Nativity (which, coincidentally, share the same punchwork tooling) "are the most accomplished of the series and most clearly invite an attribution to Lorenzo Monaco" (ibid., p. 188). Eisenberg revised his opinion of the Carmine panels and, in an unpaginated sheet at the end of his monograph, stated the autograph status of all of them, including the present work. Subsequent scholars, namely Federico Zeri and Miklos Boskovits, found no reason to doubt the authenticity of the panels and both published them as fully autograph works by Lorenzo Monaco; the first dating them to 1390, or shortly afterwards, and the second to 1395-1400. We are grateful to Laurence Kanter for confirming that he too believes this and other related panels from the Carmine altarpiece to be autograph works by Lorenzo Monaco, datable to just before 1396. Please note that this panel has been requested for the exhibition Lorenzo Monaco (1370-1425), to be held in Florence, Galleria dell'Accademia, 8 May - 24 September 2006, at which the Carmine altarpiece panels will be re-united for the first time.

      Sotheby's
    • THE PROPERTY OF A BAVARIAN NOBLE FAMILY LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1399 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)
      Jul. 07, 2005

      THE PROPERTY OF A BAVARIAN NOBLE FAMILY LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1399 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?)

      Est: £200,000 - £300,000

      THE PROPERTY OF A BAVARIAN NOBLE FAMILY LORENZO MONACO ACTIVE 1399 - 1423 OR 1424 FLORENCE(?) SAINT PETER SEATED ON A BENCH, HOLDING A BOOK AND KEY tempera on poplar panel, gold ground, pointed top PROVENANCE Bought by an ancestor of the present owner in Italy in the first half of the 19th century (see note above); Thence by descent. EXHIBITED Munich, Alte Pinakothek, on loan from the present owner's family from the 1950s until 2005 (inv. no. L970). LITERATURE AND REFERENCES B. Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, New York and London 1896, p. 119 (as Lorenzo Monaco); O. Sirén, Don Lorenzo Monaco. Zur Kunstgeschichte des Auslandes, vol. XXXIII, Strasbourg 1905, pp. 43-44 (as Lorenzo Monaco, datable to circa 1403-5); B. Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, New York and London 1909, p. 153 (as Lorenzo Monaco, an early work; omitted from the 1932 and 1963 editions); R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. vol. 9, The Hague 1927, p. 168, footnote 3 (as Lorenzo Monaco); W. Suida, "Lorenzo Monaco", in U. Thieme & F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, vol. 23, Leipzig 1929, p. 392 (as Lorenzo Monaco); G. Pudelko, "The Stylistic Development of Lorenzo Monaco", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. LXXIII, no. 429, December 1938, p. 238, footnote 13 (as Lorenzo Monaco, datable to after 1405); M. Meiss, "Four Panels by Lorenzo Monaco", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. C, no. 663, June 1958, pp. 192, and 195-6 (as Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco, and less sure about the connection with the Metropolitan panels); G.-P. de Montebello, "Four Prophets by Lorenzo Monaco", in Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 25, no. 4, 1966, p. 167 (as possibly by Lorenzo Monaco); F. Zeri, in Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School, New York 1971, pp. 62-6 (as slightly inferior to the Metropolitan panels which could be due to it being partly by the workshop or due to its condition); M. Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370-1400, Florence 1975, p. 349 (as Lorenzo Monaco, datable to 1405-10); R. Kultzen, Alte Pinakothek München, Katalog V: Italienische Malerei, Munich 1975, p. 66, no. L970 (as Lorenzo Monaco, from the same series as the Metropolitan panels, datable to circa 1610); Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen: Alte Pinakothek, Munich 1983, pp. 299-300; M. Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco, Princeton 1989, pp. 148-9, and pp. 152-3, reproduced fig. 172 (as Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco, datable to circa 1408-10 but not necessarily related to the Metropolitan panels); L. Kanter, in Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence 1300-1450, exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17 November 1994 - 26 February 1995, p. 259 (as Lorenzo Monaco, datable to before 1404 and not belonging to the same complex as the Metropolitan panels); R. an der Heiden, Die Alte Pinakothek. Sammlunsgeschichte Bau und Bilder, Munich 1998, p. 524, reproduced. CATALOGUE NOTE This panel almost certainly once formed part of a larger complex or polyptych. It relates, in both scale and iconography, to Lorenzo Monaco's four panels depicting Abraham, Noah, Moses and David in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and this has led scholars to assume that their similarity in design indicates a common origin (inv. nos. 65.14.1-4; see Eisenberg, under Literature, pp. 151-3, reproduced figs. 40-43). Zeri and Eisenberg, for example (see Literature), believe that the five panels belonged to the same altarpiece though their original arrangement and function is unclear. The positioning of Saint Peter, seated frontally on a bench rather like the ones in the Metropolitan panels, led them to suppose that this painting once held a central position in the complex, flanked by the Metropolitan panels in pairs on either side. The fact that there is an area of damage on the Saint Peter, almost certainly as a result of being repeatedly placed over a burning candle, might substantiate an argument for placing this panel centrally. Eisenberg favours Meiss' suggestion that the Metropolitan panels were arranged in pairs on two different registers: he bases his hypothesis on the fact that the colouring of the floors, the fall of light on the figures, and the viewpoint of the benches would all suggest a natural 'pairing'. Eisenberg makes a further suggestion that they may have been inserted into the doors of a custodia, enclosing either a painting or a piece of sculpture, though this is unlikely as the panels would have constituted the wings or doors themselves and there are no hinge marks to lead to such a conclusion. More recently, Kanter has rejected the possibility that the five panels once belonged to the same polyptych, arguing that the similarity in shape and size between the Saint Peter and the Metropolitan panels is nothing more than coincidental. Kanter believes the Metropolitan panels may have belonged to an intermediary tier of the altarpiece painted by Lorenzo Monaco in 1407-9 for the Camaldolese monastery of San Benedetto fuori della Porta Pinti in Florence, other panels of which are in the National Gallery in London; a theory not sustained by Dillian Gordon (inv. NG 215, 216, 1897, 2862, 4062, and L2; see D. Gordon, National Gallery Catalogues. The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, vol. I, London 2003, pp. 162-87). The halo patterns of the four Metropolitan patriarchs match those on the San Benedetto altarpiece and this at least argues for a similar date of execution. Given that the tooling on Saint Peter's halo is different from that in the Metropolitan panels, it seems unlikely that this too belonged to the same complex and Kanter has dated the present work to 1400-04, that is a few years earlier than the Metropolitan patriarchs (dated by Kanter and Gordon to 1407-9, and by Eisenberg to circa 1408-10). It is not unusual for Lorenzo Monaco to repeat iconographical motifs or compositions years later: the detail of Saint Peter's foot pointing downwards, for example, recurs in the figure of John the Evangelist in Lorenzo Monaco's Crucifix in the church of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri, Florence, dated by Eisenberg to circa 1415 (reproduced as a detail in Eisenberg, op. cit., fig. 76). This picture was one of a number of Italian paintings bought in Italy in the first half of the 19th century by Karl Ludwig, Freiherr von Lotzbeck (1786-1873). Although his taste in pictures was gregarious, and he bought works from the 14th to the 19th century, Baron von Lotzbeck was nonetheless one of the first generation of German collectors to buy Italian primitives in the wake of Crown Prince Ludwig's purchases in the early years of the century. We are grateful to Dr. Laurence Kanter and Everett Fahy for independently confirming that they believe this painting to be a fully autograph work by Lorenzo Monaco.

      Sotheby's
    • *BARTOLOMEO DI FRUOSINO (1366-1441)
      Jan. 24, 2002

      *BARTOLOMEO DI FRUOSINO (1366-1441)

      Est: $80,000 - $120,000

      bodycolour and gold on vellum, the lower border missing and the corner sections of the vertical friezes attached slightly higher (approx. 22mm.) the verso extensively inscribed with text taken from the Common of Saints, and datable to circa 1420 Bartolomeo di Fruosino was a pupil and follower of Agnolo Gaddi, with whom he worked on the frescoes in the Cappella del Sacro Cingolo (Chapel of the Holy Girdle) in Prato, though almost certainly he only contributed to the decorative details. Like a number of other artists of his generation, Bartolomeo di Fruosino was not just an illuminator (`dipintore') but he also executed paintings and frescoes: in his tax declarations he described himself as both a painter and an illuminator, and a crucifix of 1411, painted for Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, survives (see M. Levi d'Ancona, Literature below, illus. fig. 60). After Gaddi's death in 1396, Bartolomeo di Fruosino collaborated with Lorenzo Monaco; to whose circle this manuscript was once ascribed. In fact the overall composition of the Crucifixion is entirely typical of Lorenzo Monaco and his school, and the geometric borders reappear on another manuscript leaf designed by Lorenzo and executed by Bartolomeo (The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, exhibition catalogue, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, cat. no. 74, illus.). That and the present sheet both originated from a choir-book from Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. Most of the choir-books, except for a number of missing and/or stolen leaves, are held today at the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence. This particular leaf belonged to Corale 7 (folio 45) and since the Corale is dated 1406, Bartolomeo's contribution to this sheet in particular can be dated to the same period (though the writing on the verso appears to date from circa 1420). Bartolomeo di Fruosino is first recorded at Santa Maria Nuova on July 12, 1402, for having painted some images of crutches (`segnali della gruccia'), symbols of the Hospital. Towards the end of the second decade of the 15th century Bartolomeo was employed, illuminating the Antiphonaries of Santa Maria Nuova, and payments continued throughout the 1420s and '30s, until June 30, 1437. Bartolomeo evidently lived well on the salary provided by his craft, so much so that he gave 200 gold fiorini to the church in 1422. The figures on this leaf are typical of Bartolomeo and are closely comparable to other figures in his securely attributable works: see, for example, two miniatures in Florence - one in the Arcispedale di Santa Maria Nuova and the other in the Museo di San Marco - in which the figures have the same angular heads and triangular noses. A characteristic of Bartolomeo's figures which has already been noted is the wish to show as much of their features as possible, even when their faces are shown in three-quarter profile. Mirelli Levi D'Ancona (see Literature below, p. 61) observes, `Of all the artists we have considered so far, Bartolomeo di Fruosino is the one who grapples the most with Renaissance problems of light, space, and composition, although these elements are not fully integrated together, so that the overall effect of his illuminations is not yet fully of the Renaissance. However, we do see its origins'. The four figures in the lower corners and halfway up each vertical side are probably the four Evangelists though they are not accompanied by their symbols and may, therefore, be merely angels. The sun and moon in the upper corners allude to a line in the synoptic gospels, relating that on the day of the Crucifixion darkness fell over the Earth from noon until three, and they may also refer to Saint Augustine's interpretation of the sun and moon as the New and the Old Testaments respectively: the Old (moon) can only be understood by the light shed upon it by the New (sun). The pelican upper center is a familiar symbol of the sacrifice exemplified by the crucified Christ, and is seen in many forms of art from the thirteenth century onwards. Its symbolism derived from a belief that the female pelican smothered her young with excessive love, and that the male restored them to life, forfeiting his own in the process, by stabbing his breast with his beak and giving them his own blood. This act of sacrifice served as a parallel to Christ dying on the Cross to redeem mankind.

      Sotheby's
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