Lot 65: Jacopo di Cione , Florence 1320-30 - after May 2, 1398 and before 1400 Florence Mary Magdalene in the desert with two donors tempera on panel, gold ground, pointed top

tempera on panel, gold ground, pointed top

measurements note 206 by 88.8 cm.; 81 7/8 by 35 in.

M.P. Mannini, "La diffusione del culto in Toscana: lazzaretti, conventi, case delle Convertite e Malmaritate", in La Maddalena tra sacro e profano. Da Giotto a De Chirico, ed. N. Mosco, Florence 1986, pp. 60-61, reproduced fig. 1(as Niccolò di Pietro Gerini).

P. Durrieu sale, Paris, Nouveau Drouot, 15 December 1980, lot 26 (as Studio of Ambrogio Giotto);
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1987, lot 1 (as Niccolò di Pietro Gerini).

THE PROPERTY OF A FOUNDATION
Though traditionally attributed to Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, both in the 1987 Sotheby's sale and in Mannini's publication of the previous year, this painting is by Jacopo di Cione. We are grateful to Prof. Miklós Boskovits who, knowing the painting from photographs even before its first appearance at auction in 1980, has proposed the attribution to Jacopo di Cione and has suggested a date of execution circa 1365-70. We are also grateful to Everett Fahy for independently endorsing the attribution to Jacopo di Cione on the basis of photographs. Jacopo was the youngest of three brothers, the other two being Andrea (called Orcagna) and Nardo, both of whom were also painters. Very few documented works by Jacopo survive and those that have are often the fruit of collaboration with other painters, making a clear identification of his style problematic. His earliest documented commission is the Saint Matthew triptych in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, which was painted for the Arte del Cambio and was destined for Orsanmichele: on 25 August 1368 Jacopo was entrusted with the completion of the work due to his brother Andrea's ill health. Jacopo is also known to have collaborated with Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, to whom this painting was formerly attributed: they worked together on frescoes (now lost) for the guild hall of the Judges and Notaries in Florence (1366); on the large polyptych for the high altar of San Pier Maggiore in Florence, most of which is today in the National Gallery, London (circa 1370-71);υ1 on the Coronation of the Virgin painted for the Zecca (mint) of Florence, now in the Accademia (1372-73); and as late as 1383 they received the commission to paint a fresco of the Annunciation for the council chamber in the Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra. Mary Magdalene is shown in a rocky landscape which is intended to represent the mountain retreat near Sainte-Baume where she spent thirty years fasting and in penance. Her representation is both sensual and spiritual: her long red hair covers her entire body and her hands are drawn together in prayer. She lived her years of penance and ecstatic contemplation in imitation of Mary of Egypt, who is often also represented with long hair covering her body, though the latter is more often shown as elderly and haggard. The male and female donors, together with their coat-of-arms, remain unidentified.

1. M. Davies, National Gallery Catalogues. The Early Italian Schools before 1400, revised by D. Gordon, London 1988, pp. 45-54, cat. nos. 569-78, reproduced plates 34-44.