Piero della Francesca, 'Saint Michael', completed 1469
About the work
Overview
The Archangel Michael led an army of angels to battle against the devil and cast him down from heaven (Revelation 12: 9). Piero shows him as a beautiful, youthful soldier. He clutches the severed head of the devil, represented as a snake with pointy ears.
The panel was part of a polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) made for the church of Sant‘Agostino in Piero’s hometown of Borgo Sansepolcro. It was placed to the immediate left of the central panel, now lost, which depicted the Virgin and Child. The lower right corner of the panel includes part of the step of the Virgin’s throne and part of her cloth of gold cloak. The other side panels are in collections around the world.
Michael may have been included to honour the patron, Angelo di Giovanni. The archangel was very popular with the citizens of Sansepolcro, who made pilgrimages to Monte Sant’ Angelo in southern Italy, where he was thought to have appeared miraculously.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Saint Michael
- Artist
- Piero della Francesca
- Artist dates
- about 1415/20 - 1492
- Date made
- completed 1469
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 133 × 59.5 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1867
- Inventory number
- NG769
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
- Frame
- 20th-century Replica Frame
Provenance
No. 769 is reasonably considered to be part of the high-altarpiece of S. Agostino at Sansepolcro, which Piero della Francesca contracted to paint in 1454 and had apparently completed by 1469. This high-altarpiece is mentioned by Vasari in 1550. The Augustinians of Sansepolcro were turned out of their church in 1555; the church passed to the Clarissans, who reconstructed it and reconsecrated it in 1557. The Augustinians removed to the Pieve di S. Maria at Sansepolcro, which became commonly known as S. Agostino. The new church of S. Agostino was demolished in 1771 and reconstructed by Venanzio Righi in 1773; this Augustinian community was suppressed in 1808. It is not known if Piero’s high-altarpiece for the old S. Agostino (S. Chiara) remained somewhere in that church after 1555, nor if it was removed to the new S. Agostino (Pieve di S. Maria). No. 769 is first surely recorded as a single panel, with a false Mantegna signature, at Fidanza’s, Milan, in 1861. Bought, most probably at that time, by Sir Charles Eastlake. Purchased from Lady Eastlake, at the price Sir Charles Eastlake had paid for it, 1867.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
-
2011Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500The National Gallery (London)6 July 2011 - 2 October 2011
-
2018Piero della FrancescaThe State Hermitage Museum7 December 2018 - 10 March 2019
-
2024Piero della Francesca. The Augustinian Polyptych reunitedMuseo Poldi Pezzoli20 March 2024 - 24 June 2024
Bibliography
-
1878G. Vasari, Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878
-
1882G. Frizzoni, 'Das neue Museum Poldi-Pezzoli in Mailand', Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, XVII, 1882, pp. 43-50, 116-23
-
1903J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. R.L. Douglas, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London 1903
-
1916T. Borenius, 'Professor Venturi on Quattrocento Painting', The Burlington Magazine, XXIX/160, 1916, pp. 161-4
-
1936'Art Treasure for New York: 15th Century Panel', Daily Telegraph, 1936
-
1941M. Meiss, 'A Documented Altarpiece by Piero della Francesca', Art Bulletin, XXIII, 1941, pp. 53-68
-
1947K. Clark, 'Piero della Francesca's St Augustine Altarpiece', The Burlington Magazine, LXXXIX/533, 1947, pp. 204-9
-
1951Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
-
1951K. Clark, Piero della Francesca, London 1951
-
1953D.S. Robertson, 'The Inscription on Piero della Francesca's "St Michael"', The Burlington Magazine, XCV/602, 1953
-
1955M.L. D'Ancona, The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue of the Works of Art in the Collection of Henry Clay Frick, New York 1955
-
1961M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
-
1967M. Davies, 'Some Notes on Piero della Francesca's "St Michael"', The Burlington Magazine, CIX/766, 1967, pp. 28-31
-
1968C. Gilbert, Change in Piero della Francesca, New York 1968
-
1968P. Hendy, Piero della Francesca and the Early Renaissance, London 1968
-
1979M. Salmi, La pittura di Piero della Francesca, Novara 1979
-
1980R. Longhi, Piero della Francesca: 1927 Con aggiunte fino al 1962, Florence 1980
-
1982M. Natale, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, dipinti, Milan 1982
-
1985J. Anderson, 'Otto Mündler and his Travel Diary', The Walpole Society, LI, 1985, pp. 7-59
-
1985A. Parronchi, 'Per la ricostruzione del politico di Sant'Agostino', in O. Calabrese (ed.), Piero: Teorico dell'arte, Rome 1985, pp. 37-48
-
1986Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
-
1987J.R. Banker, 'Piero della Francesca's S. Agostino Altar-Piece: Some New Documents', The Burlington Magazine, CXXIX/1015, 1987, pp. 645-51
-
1989A. Paolucci, Piero della Francesca. Notizie sulla conservazione di Margherita Moriondo Lenzini, Florence 1989
-
1990F. Polcri, Due ritrovamenti d'archivio a Sansepolcro, Sansepolcro 1990
-
1991B. Cole, Piero della Francesca: Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Art, New York 1991
-
1991J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
-
1991M.B. Hall, Colour and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge 1991
-
1992E. Battisti, Piero della Francesca, Milan 1992
-
1992C. Bertelli, Piero della Francesca, New Haven 1992
-
1992R. Lightbown, Piero della Francesca, New York 1992
-
1994L. Cheles, 'Piero della Francesca in Nineteenth-Century Britain', The Italianist, XIV, 1994, pp. 231-8
-
1994A. Zanni, 'L'attività informatica del Museo Poldi Pezzoli', Bollettino d'informazioni: Centro di Ricerche Informatiche per i Beni Culturali, IV/1, 1994, pp. 155-7
-
1995M. Boskovits, 'Il San Nicola da Tolentino di Piero della Francesca restaurato', Arte Cristiana, LXXXIII/768, 1995, pp. 227-30
-
1995J.V. Field, 'A Mathematician's Art', Studies in the History of Art, XLVIII, 1995, pp. 176-97
-
1995B.W. Meijer, 'Piero and the North', Studies in the History of Art, XLVIII, 1995, pp. 142-59
-
1995C. Smith, 'Piero's Painted Architecture: Analysis of His Vocabulary', Studies in the History of Art, XLVIII, 1995, pp. 222-53
-
1996A. di Lorenzo, Il polittico agostiniano di Piero della Francesca (exh. cat. Museo Poldi Pezzoli, 1996), Turin 1996
-
1996L. Cheles, 'Piero della Francesca e i Vittoriani', in M. Dalai Emiliani and V. Curzis (eds), Piero della Francesca tra arte e scienza: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Arezzo, Sansepolchro, 1992, Venice 1996, pp. 569-92
-
1999C. Gardner von Teuffel, 'Niccolò di Segna, Sassetta, Piero della Francesca and Perugino: Cult and Continuity at Sansepolcro', Städel-Jahrbuch, XVII, 1999, pp. 163-208
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
-
2001J.R. Banker, 'Piero della Francesca, the Carpentered Altarpiece of San Francesco, His Sant'Agostino Polyptych, and Quattrocento High Altarpieces in Borgo San Sepolcro', Arte cristiana, DCCCIV, 2001, pp. 210-8
-
2002D. Bomford et al., Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 30 October 2002 - 16 February 2003), London 2002
-
2003J.R. Banker, The Culture of San Sepolcro During the Youth of Piero Della Francesca, Ann Arbor 2003
-
2003M. Carminati, Piero della Francesca, Milan 2003
-
2003M. Minardi, 'Pittori camerinesi di metà quattrocento e oltre: Bilancio di un'esperienza pierfrancescana', in A. Marchi and P.L. Falaschis (eds), I Da Varano e le arti: Atti del convegno internazionale, Ripatransone 2003, pp. 325-51
-
2004G.R. Vairo, 'Un restauro inedito sul Sant'Agostino di Piero della Francesca nel Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga di Lisbona', Ricerche di storia dell'arte, 84, 2004, pp. 85-97
-
2005J.V. Field, Piero Della Francesca: A Mathematician's Art, New Haven 2005
-
2005M. O'Malley, The Business of Art: Contracts and the Commissioning Process in Renaissance Italy, New Haven 2005
-
2006W. Partridge, 'Philosophies and Tastes in Nineteenth-Century Paintings Conservation', in M. Perry et al., Studying and Conserving Paintings: Occasional Papers on the Samuel H. Kress Collection, London 2006, pp. 19-23
-
2008F. Dabell, 'Piero della Francesca e i pittori prospettici', in L. Fornasari et al., Arte in terra d'Arezzo: Il Quattrocento, Florence 2008, pp. 107-30
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
More works by Piero della Francesca
Piero was the first artist to write a treatise on perspective – that is, creating an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. Here, he has painted objects in proportion, so that they appear as we see them in real life. This emphasises the depth of the landscape, but also the harmony...
Not on display
Virgin kneels in adoration of her new-born son before a ramshackle shed, emphasising Christ’s humble birth. She is accompanied by her husband Joseph and two shepherds, one of whom points to the divine light falling on the shed’s stone wall through a hole in its roof. Music-making angels provide a...
Not on display