Bartolo di Fredi

Saint John the Baptist; Saint John the Evangelist

VAT reduced rateUK: Greenford Park Warehouse

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a Private Collector

Bartolo di Fredi

Siena c. 1330–1410

Saint John the Baptist;

Saint John the Evangelist

a pair, the former inscribed on the scroll: ECCE AGNUS DEI ECCE QUI TO[LLIT PECATUM MUNDI]; the latter on the Gospel book: IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM ET VERBUM ERAT APPU[D] [sic] DEUM ET DEUS [ERAT VERBUM]

both tempera on panel, gold ground, integral frames with shaped tops, the reverses with unidentified inventory numbers ‘32’ and ‘33’

each: 170.4 x 52.5 cm.; 67⅛ x 20⅝ in.

(2)

Possibly painted in 1374 for the altarpiece of the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist in the Church of San Domenico in San Gimignano, and seen there in situ by Ettore Romagnoli in 1801;

Later moved to the cloister of the Dominican Convent of SS. Annunziata, San Gimignano;

Possibly Albin Chalandon (1809–1885), Lyons;

Thence by descent at the Château de la Grange Blanche, Parcieux, near Bourg-en-Bresse, France, until at least 1936;

Private collection, New York;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s, 9 July 2003, lot 77;

There acquired by the present owner.

Possibly L. Demonts, ‘Une Collection française de Primitifs’, in Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne, LXX, 1936, pp. 247–50 (according to Labriola 2009 below);

Possibly J.-F. Garmier, ‘Le goût de moyen âge chez les collectionneurs lyonnais du XIXe siècle’, in Revue de l’Art, 37, 1980, p. 58;

G. Freuler, in Or et Azur: autour d’une œuvre de Bartolo di Fredi, exh. cat., Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon 1993, pp. 86–87;

G. Freuler, Bartolo di Fredi Cini: ein Beitrag zur sienisischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts, Disentis 1994, pp. 105–14, 443 and 444–45, no. 15, reproduced in colour p. 109;

G. Freuler, ‘Bartolo di Fredi Cini’, in Grove Dictionary of Art, London 1996, vol. VII, p. 329;

L. Kanter, ‘Andrea di Bartolo’, in Gold Backs 1250–1480, P. Matthiesen (ed.), exh. cat., Matthiesen Gallery, London 1996, p. 124, no. 4 (as Andrea di Bartolo);

W. Loseries, ‘Bartolo di Fredi riabilitato: nuove ricerche e due monografie’, in La Diana, 2, 1996, pp. 465 and 466–67;

A. Labriola, in The Alana Collection: Volume 1, Italian Paintings from the 13th to 15th Century, M. Boskovits (ed.), Florence 2009, pp. 38–42, reproduced in colour pp. 39 and 41;

W. Loseries, ‘Altarpieces of the Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds by Bartolo di Fredi’, in Bartolo di Fredi: The Adoration of the Magi, a Masterpiece Reconstructed, B. Boucher and F. Fiorani (eds), exh. cat., University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville 2012, pp. 60–61.