Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, c. 1345

The painting, which formed the central panel of a portable triptychTriptych
 A picture consisting of three parts. The term denotes both the object itself and its compositional form. As an object, the triptych may vary in size and material, but usually consists of a central panel flanked by wings (or shutters), which may be hinged; as a compositional form it is a tripartite structure, often with an emphasized central element. Although its imagery was, until the 19th century at least, predominantly religious, the object as such was not tied to a specific function. —Victor M. Schmidt, Grove Art © Oxford University Press for domestic devotion,[1]  [1]
The edges of the wooden support and of the engaged frame have been scraped and smoothed down. Following this operation practically no trace of the hinges that fastened the shutters to the central panel remain, although as Laurence Kanter kindly pointed out to me, the concave channels on the sides of the frame housed rotating columns that secured the wings of the triptych, as in the Seilern triptych by Bernardo Daddi in the Courtauld collection in London; see Richard Offner, Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 8, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following (Florence, 1958), 19 – ​21. Not only the proportions but also the composition and the ornamental decoration suggest that the panel was the centerpiece of a portable triptych very similar in form and composition to that in the Courtauld Gallery, which has images of the Nativity and the Crucifixion in its side panels. Presumably, both panels being discussed here and the central panel of the triptych in London were topped by a triangular gable bearing the image of the Blessing Christ. Another panel by Bernardo Daddi, very similar to this one in the National Gallery of Art, must also have originally been the centerpiece of a triptych: namely, the Madonna and Child now in the Nelson-­Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, no. 61.61; see Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 297 – ​300. According to Eliot W. Rowlands, the latter should be reconstructed along the lines of the exemplar in London. Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-­Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300 – ​1800 (Kansas City, MO, 1996), 51 – 52. Evidently, Daddi’s shop produced several related versions. Madonna and Child with Angels and Saints in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena (no. 73) seems, both in iconography and in the arrangement of the figures, almost a facsimile of the example in Washington. See Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 443 – ​446. Further evidence of the success of this composition is Pietro Nelli’s replication of it in a panel whose whereabouts are now unknown; it too was formerly the centerpiece of a portable triptych, for which see Miklós Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370 – ​1400 (Florence, 1975), 417. represents the Madonna and Child, in larger proportions than the other figures in the composition, seated on a raised throne. The throne is in the form of a tabernacleTabernacle
 A built-up surround for an image that provides an architectural dimension like a niche; also the ornamental receptacle used to contain the Host during Mass. —Grove Art © Oxford University Press or ciborium;[2]  [2]
In the works by Daddi that can be securely dated to 1338 (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, no. 904) and 1339 (Minneapolis Institute of Art, no. 34.20), the Madonna is sitting on a throne with a tall, gabled but flat backrest. Yet in the same year as the Edinburgh Madonna (1338), the throne of the Seilern triptych in the Courtauld Art Gallery, London, is transformed into a gabled and vaulted ciborium, forming a kind of tabernacle around the Son of God and his mother. The images of the Madonna sitting on a simpler tabernacle-shaped throne in a private collection in Germany and in the National Gallery in Prague could be slightly earlier in date; see Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 214 – ​215, 377 – ​380. The tabernacle throne, however, can be assumed to be an innovative feature of the second half of the 1330s. its crocketed triangular gable is framed by the inner trefoil arch of the panel, and its inner canopy is decorated with an azure star-studded “sky.” Mary supports her child with both hands. The Christ child is holding a fruit, perhaps a pomegranate,[3]  [3]
The pomegranate is a well-known symbol of the Church, and also of the sacrifice and Resurrection of Christ: see Mirella Levi D’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence, 1977), 312–318. in his left hand and is stretching out his right to take the small bird perched on a finger of the angel closest to him.[4]  [4]
According to Herbert Friedmann, in paintings of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, small birds in the hand of the Christ child may symbolize the soul, the Resurrection, the Passion of Christ, or death. Herbert Friedmann, The Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art (Washington, DC, 1946), 7 – ​35. The throne is flanked on both sides by a red seraph and an azure cherub [5]  [5]
On these representatives of the highest rank of the hierarchies of angels, see Barbara Bruderer Eichberg, Les neufs choeurs angéliques: Origine et évolution du thème dans l’art du Moyen âge (Poitiers, 1998), 62 – ​67.
and, below these, by two pairs of angels, of which the one to the far left plays a shawm — ​​the medieval precursor of the oboe — ​​and that on the opposite side a psaltery; the concert of angels is completed by the portative organ and the viol played by two angels kneeling in the foreground.[6]  [6]
Howard Mayer Brown and Joan L. Lascelle, Musical Iconography: A Manual for Cataloguing Musical Subjects in Western Art before 1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1972). Of the four saints to the sides of the throne we can identify, to the left, Apollonia, with a tooth in her hand,[7]  [7]
The customary iconography of Saint Apollonia is to show her with her symbol of martyrdom: pincers holding an extracted tooth; see George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 97–98. and, more doubtfully, Catherine of Alexandria to the far right,[8]  [8]
Offner identified the two crowned female saints to the right as Margaret and Catherine, but the attributes of the crown and the processional cross in the hand of the former could equally well be adapted to other royal saints, such as Agatha. Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 8, Workshop of Bernardo Daddi (New York, 1958), 16. The identification of the other female saint as Catherine, the learned saint par excellence, is suggested by the book she bears in her hand; cf. George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 225 – ​234. while the six saints in the foreground are Lucy, John the Baptist, Andrew, Paul, Peter, and Agnes.[9]  [9]
For the iconography of these saints, cf. respectively George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art, vol. 1, Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting (Florence, 1952), 644 – ​650, 549 – ​560, 35 – ​46, 799 – ​816, 7 – ​12.

The painting has always been recognized as an autograph work by Bernardo Daddi, to whom Richard Offner (as cited in Sinibaldi and Brunetti 1943) was the first to attribute it.[10]  [10]
Giulia Sinibaldi and Giulia Brunetti, eds., Pittura italiana del Duecento e Trecento: Catalogo della mostra giottesca di Firenze del 1937 (Florence, 1943), 499, no. 157.
Subsequently, however, the same scholar (1958) conjectured the hand of assistants in its execution, but this proposal has found little or no support in the more recent literature.[11]  [11]
Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 8, Workshop of Bernardo Daddi (New York, 1958), 15–17. Indeed, the only interventions alien to Daddi in the execution are those of modern restorers. Stylistic affinities have been observed between the panel in the National Gallery of Art and the triptych dated 1338 [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Bernardo Daddi, Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, and God in an Attitude of Benediction, 1338, tempera and gold leaf on panel, Courtauld Institute of Art, The Courtauld Gallery, London. © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London now in the Seilern collection of the Courtauld Institute Gallery in London,[12]  [12]
Fern Rusk Shapley observed these affinities, and Eliot W. Rowlands confirmed them. Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII – ​XV Century (London, 1966), 26; Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:154; Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-­Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300 – ​1800 (Kansas City, MO, 1996), 53. For the Seilern triptych, see Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 8, Workshop of Bernardo Daddi (New York, 1958), 19 – ​21, pls. IV, IVa; Courtauld Institute of Art, The Princes Gate Collection (London, 1981), 10 – ​12; Courtauld Institute of Art, The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House (London, 1998), 26 – ​27. and there are also various shared features of ornamentation. Thus, some of the motifs punched in the gold groundGround
 The layer or layers used to prepare the support to hold the paint. of the Washington painting are present both in the Seilern triptych and in other dated works by Daddi of the following year.[13]  [13]
Mojmir S. Frinta (1998) identified punches in the panel in the National Gallery of Art that recur in various paintings by Daddi, including the two triptychs dated 1338 and 1339, respectively (cf. note 10) and the Crucifixion in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, dated 1343. Mojmir Svatopluk Frinta, Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting (Prague, 1998), 382, 411, 444 – ​445. According to Erling S. Skaug, the painting in the Gallery would be datable “in the mid-forties” on the basis of its punches. Erling S. Skaug, Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330 – ​1430, 2 vols. (Oslo, 1994), 1:114 n. 186. Similar, too, are the decoration of the cloth of honor [14]  [14]
Brigitte Klesse found the decorative motifs of fabrics in the panel being discussed here in paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh, and the Galleria Sabauda in Turin; see Brigitte Klesse, Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1967), 454; and Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), 84 – ​86, 233 – ​238, 293 – ​296. These are all undated works, but on stylistic grounds should be placed in the period 1330 – ​1335 and beyond. and some aspects of the garments.[15]  [15]
Useful clues for the dating are the garments of the young female saints with their striking décollété and wide manicottoli — ​​the tight-fitting sleeves of their dresses, which widen considerably at the elbows and hang down to their thighs. On the basis of these fashionable elements of court dress of the period, Luciano Bellosi suggested a dating of the panel being discussed here to the late 1330s or slightly beyond. Luciano Bellosi, “Moda e cronologia: A) gli affreschi della Basilica Inferiore di Assisi,” Prospettiva 10 (1977): 21 – ​31; Luciano Bellosi, “Moda e cronologia: B) per la pittura di primo Trecento,” Prospettiva 11 (1977): 12 – ​27.

The details in question suggest for our panel a date either close to or probably slightly after 1340. In this phase the artist tended to add more spaciousness to his compositions, while his figures gain in grandeur thanks both to their expanded forms and the amplitude of the mantles that envelop them. At the same time, however, they become more relaxed in posture, more spontaneous in gesture [fig. 2]   [fig. 2] Detail, Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, c. 1340, tempera on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection. Not only spectators but participants in the action, they confer a certain air of naturalness on the scene. Typical examples of this interpretive approach are the female saint in our panel, who with a friendly, caressing gesture rests one hand on Mary’s throne;[16]  [16]
By the thirteenth century, and hence also in works by Giotto and other masters of the early Trecento, the angels often lay one hand with a gesture of familiarity on Mary’s throne, or grasp it, giving the impression that they have just brought it before the onlooker or are about to take it away. Bernardo Daddi, on the other hand, emphasized the emotional contact between the sacred group and the saints and angels who surround it. One of the group rests his hand on the throne (as in the small panels in the Museo Horne in Florence, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Museum in Kansas City, etc.), while some of the angels enter in a playful rapport with the child. See Richard Offner and Miklós Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: The Fourteenth Century, sec. 3, vol. 4, Bernardo Daddi, His Shop and Following, new ed. (Florence, 1991), pls. I, III, XXXIX. the Christ child, who twists impulsively away from his mother to grasp the small bird that the angel, smiling, is offering to him;[17]  [17]
Though expressed with great discretion, the motion of the slightly parted lips and the slight contraction of the muscles around the eyes seem deliberately to confer a joyful, smiling expression on the personages, abandoning the formula of serene but regal composure that hitherto had almost always seemed to be considered appropriate to images of the Madonna and saints in Florence. On the theme of the smile in religious painting of the period, a little investigated aspect, cf. Jan Svanberg, “The Gothic Smile,” in Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des xxviii. Inter­nationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, July 15 – ​20, 1992, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Berlin, 1993), 2:357 – ​370. and the two female saints portrayed below this angel and the two angels on the other side of the throne, who exchange glances, commenting in silent complicity on the child’s joyful reaction. Other characteristic aspects of this phase in Daddi’s art are a tendency toward simplification of the drawing: for example, the mantle of Saint Agnes that falls in an unbroken perpendicular line from head to ground; the preference for faces drawn in profile; and the clarity of the compositional structure. The modeling, too, is softer than in Daddi’s previous works, dated before c. 1335, anticipating developments that would be expressed more powerfully in the last years of the artist’s life.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016