Lot 32: BARTOLO DI FREDI SIENA 1330 (?) - 1410

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

HEAD OF AN ANGEL

measurements note
14 1/4 by 11 3/4 in.; 36.5 by 30 cm.

tempera on panel, gold ground

PROVENANCE

August Lederer, Vienna, by inheritance to,
Serena Lederer, Vienna,
From whom confiscated in circa 1938, and later restituted to the family,
Erich Lederer, Genf;
From whose collection sold posthumously ('Property from the collection of the late Eric Lederer'), London, Sotheby's, July 3, 1997, lot 58, where acquired by the present collector.

NOTE

Although the painting was unknown to Dr. Gaudenz Freuler at the time of writing his monograph, the traditional attribution to Bartolo di Fredi was endorsed by Everett Fahy when the painting first appeared on the market in 1997 (see Provenance).

The facial type of the angel is characteristic of Bartolo di Fredi's figures. The angel's stylised hair is very like that of the angel leading Saint John in the wilderness in the panel of 1382, today in the Museo Civico, Montalcino.υ1 A similar face of an angel, seen frontally and with slightly more broadly depicted features, appears on the fresco in the choir chapel of the church of Sant' Agostino in Montalcino.υ2

The function of this painting is not entirely clear. The presence of lilies in the angel's hair would suggest that he is the Archangel Gabriel and perhaps he would originally have formed part of a diptypch, the other panel representing the Virgin Annunciate.

1 See G. Freuler, Bartolo di Fredi Cini, Verlag 1994, cat. no. 37, reproduced on p. 170, fig. 164.
2 Freuler, op. cit., cat. no. 71, reproduced p. 254, fig. 233.