Lot 136: Madonna and Child enthroned with Saint John the Baptist, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Francis of Assisi

Giovanni del Biondo (active Florence, 1356-1399) Madonna and Child enthroned with Saint John the Baptist, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Francis of Assisi inscribed 'Io / credo / nella / santa / chiesa / catto / lica / n..' (centre left, on the book) on gold ground panel, arched top, unframed 32 7/8 x 21 1/8 in. (83.5 x 53.7 cm.)

83.5 x 53.7 cm.

Giovanni del Biondo was one of the most prolific and durable figures of later trecento Florentine painting. The first documentary evidence of his life notes his arrival in Florence, where he was granted citizenship in 1356. There, he most likely trained in the shop of Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna, the dominant artist of the time in the city; not long after his arrival he assisted Nardo di Cione on frescoes for the Strozzi chapel in Santa Maria Novella. The influence of Orcagna would be felt throughout the first phases of his career, though he soon developed his own idiom. While few of his works are documented, a good number of dated pictures from different years have, rather happily, survived, including The Presentation in the Temple of 1364 (Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia), and The Coronation of the Virgin of 1375 for the parish church of San Donato in Poggio, and the polyptych of 1379 for the Rinuccini chapel in Santa Croce, Florence. This newly discovered, unpublished panel can be dated to his maturity, when he was known to have collaborated particularly closely with Jacopo di Cione. Indeed, the influence of Jacopo is strongly felt here; the Madonna and Child are comparable to the Madonna of Humility, formerly in the Sacerdoti Collection in Milan, which is given to Jacopo by Miklós Boskovits (see M. Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del rinascimento, Florence, 1975, p. 327, pl. 93). Saint Peter, who appears lower right in the present panel, can be compared to a figure of the same saint that features in another mature period work by Giovanni del Biondo in San Pietro in Romena, Arezzo.