Lot 32: s - BICCI DI LORENZO FLORENCE 1373 - 1452

SAINTS FRANCIS OF ASSISI, LOUIS OF TOULOUSE AND ANTHONY OF PADUA

SAINTS FRANCIS OF ASSISI, LOUIS OF TOULOUSE AND ANTHONY OF PADUA

measurements note
10 5/8 by 6 3/4 in.; 27 by 17.2 cm.

gold ground, tempera on panel, with a shaped top

PROVENANCE

Count Carlo Lasinio (from a label on the reverse).

NOTE

The present charming and well preserved panel is a typical work of the artist, dateable to the late 1420's. It must be related to a panel depicting the Stigmatisation of Saint Francis, formerly with Matthiesen Fine Art, London (as first suggested by Everett Fahy, oral communiction; see Gold Backs, exhibition catalogue, Turin 1996, pp.105-108, cat. no. 14). Both paintings share the same size and format, and indeed the same technique; the scalloped punchmark design along the arched top of the painting is evident in both. Clearly they must have been part of a group of paintings dedicated to various saints of the Franciscan order, either as a small triptych for personal devotion, or as part of a more elaborate complex.

Also compelling is the shared provenance of this painting and the ex-Matthiesen . The reverse of the present panel bears a label in an 18th or early 19th Century hand "[P]einture provenant de Pise/... du cabinet de M. Carlo Lasinio/ conservateur du Campo Santo." The former Matthiessen picture bears Lasinio's seal and label on the reverse. Both must have been in France by the early 19th Century as suggested by the label on the present painting and the provenance of other, which was formerly in the Libert-Coster collection, Paris.