The Virgin and Child with Two Angels

Expand abbreviations

See page numbers

Hide links

Catalogue entry

Cimabue (Cenni di Pepo) documented 1272; died 1302
NG 6583
The Virgin and Child with Two Angels

Dillian Gordon, 2011

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Italian Paintings Before 1400 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2011).

Fragment

c. 1280–5

Egg tempera on wood, 25.6 × 20.8 cm

The Virgin is seated on a wooden turned throne set at an oblique angle with a three‐step footstool, placed on a raised wooden platform. She sits on a blue cushion draped with a transparent cloth with black embroidered patterns and a fringe. The back of the throne is hung with a red cloth of honour. On her raised left knee she holds the Child dressed in a white transparent shift worn over a pink dress; he steadies himself by grasping her hand. On either side of the throne are two angels (probably intended to be the two archangels Michael and Gabriel – see below), with pink dalmatics and imperial ‘loroi’ of brown squares with pearl‐studded black borders and black dots in the centre, wrapped around with pale plum‐coloured cloaks. Their brown and blue wings reach almost to the ground; the tips of their fingers curl over the back of the throne; each wears red hose, black shoes, and a red headband: that of the left angel is decorated with small white stripes, that of the right angel is damaged.

Technical Notes

Panel structure and condition

The panel is formed of a single poplar board, with a vertical grain, 25.6 × 20.8 cm (top), 20.5 cm (bottom). Painted surface, including red borders, 25.0 × 20.1 cm. The panel has been trimmed on all sides. It has been thinned to 1.2 cm, exposing some worm channels, and has developed a slight convex warp. Subsequent to the planing, a nail was inserted [page 33][page 34] into the back, c. 2.8 cm above the bottom edge, which is now bent back and lying flat against the wood; its purpose is difficult to explain.

**Fig. 1**
Cimabue, *The Flagellation*. Tempera on wood, 25.2 × 20.3 cm. New York, The Frick Collection. © Copyright The Frick Collection, New York

A barb from the removal of an engaged frame remains at the top and left edges, and the remains of a red border at the right and bottom edges. At the left and top the removal of the frame has left exposed strips of wood c. 0.5 cm wide at the left edge, less at the top.

On the back is a rectangular paper label (fig. 2) which has £6.15.4¹ written in ink, and in pencil Top left of small cabinet, and in white chalk 42.

**Fig. 2**
Detail of the label on the back of NG 6583. © The National Gallery, London

Painting condition and technique²

X‐radiography confirms that canvas was adhered to the panel before the ground (presumably gesso) was applied.

Infrared photography and reflectography (fig. 3) reveal a simple linear underdrawing in a liquid medium, probably done with a brush, with hooks at the ends of folds but no hatching.³

The borders, and the edges of the red borders, have been ruled with incised lines. Some incised lines around the Virgin’s shoulders have been used to fix her position in relation to the throne, and, as was normal, the composition has been incised wherever the paint meets the gold. The front arch of the throne step has been incised freehand, the haloes with compasses.

The water gilding on the red bole of the background is in reasonable condition with some discrete losses. The border and haloes have been punched with a single dot punch, with a finer tool used to punch, rather than incise, a foliate pattern in the border, and a delicate pseudo‐kufic design in the haloes. The Child’s crossed nimbus has two small red glazed dots in each bar of the cross, which is outlined with white dots, now very difficult to see.

There is no trace of there ever having been any mordant gilding.

The painting is in generally good condition with only minor losses – the most significant being in the bottom corners – although disfigured by surface dirt, discoloured varnishes and retouchings covering original paint. Red lake used alone and in mixtures has faded to differing degrees. Very little remains of the Child’s white shift.

The palette is relatively restricted. The flesh paint has an underlayer of green earth, the flesh tones painted using varying mixtures of white, red lake, vermilion and some black. The only blue pigment found is ultramarine, used with varying amounts of white for the Virgin’s cloak, her cushion, and the blue parts of the angels’ wings. The cloth of honour is painted with vermilion, glazed with red lake. A circular pattern and vertical folds that were depicted using red lake are now largely obscured by dirt and discoloured varnish. Vermilion is also used for the angels’ stockings, and for the red borders at the bottom and right edges of the panel. The Virgin’s robe is painted using red lake mixed with a little white, while the Child’s dress and the pink robes of the angels have a higher proportion of white to red lake and have faded more. The plum‐coloured cloaks worn by the angels are painted with mixtures of ultramarine, red lake, and white. The brown of their wings, mixed with black, and the brown of the throne are impossible to identify without sampling.

Companion Panel

A small painting of the Flagellation (New York, Frick Collection; fig. 1) shares with NG 6583 approximately the same dimensions and is also a vertically grained poplar panel that has become worm‐damaged and has been thinned to the same thickness; its underdrawing is in the same style and the paint surface has the same craquelure; the halo of the now adult Christ has glazed red dots in the bars of the cross, like those in the Christ Child’s halo in the National Gallery panel. The Frick panel, which has also been cut on all sides, has a barb [page 35][page 36] at the bottom and right edges, and the remains of a red painted border at the left edge. Thus the Virgin and Child panel must come from the top left‐hand corner and the Flagellation from the bottom right‐hand corner of possibly the same panel, but certainly the same work (see below).⁴

**Fig. 3**
Infrared reflectogram of NG 6583. © The National Gallery, London

**Figs 4 a and b**
Details of angels in two of the roundels in the frame of the *Maestà* by Cimabue (Paris, Musée du Louvre; formerly Pisa, San Francesco). Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN, Paris/Photo Hervé Lewandowski

Musée du Louvre, Paris © RMN, Paris/Photo Hervé Lewandowski

Attribution and Date

The Frick Flagellation was in the past the subject of debate regarding its attribution to Cimabue, proposed by Roberto Longhi, and its attribution to Duccio, proposed by Millard Meiss.⁵ Longhi argued that he had made his attribution before the cleaning of the painting, and that it dated from between 1270 and 1280.⁶ Meiss insisted on his attribution to Duccio,⁷ but when he returned for a third time to the subject, this time concentrating on the iconography in order to refute Meyer Schapiro’s association of the painting with a flagellant confraternity,⁸ he admitted that he might have been wrong.⁹ Subsequent opinion continued to be divided, although neither John White nor James Stubblebine in their monographs on Duccio considered the Flagellation to be by him.¹⁰ Luciano Bellosi in his monograph on Cimabue in 1998 attributed it to Cimabue and related it to the roundels on Cimabue’s Maestà, originally from San Francesco, Pisa, and now in the Louvre, Paris.¹¹ Stylistically, NG 6583 (fig. 5) is also very close to the roundels of the Pisan Maestà (figs 4a and b). Although the quality of the National Gallery figures is considerably higher, Giovanna Ragionieri has noted that the roundels in the Pisan painting suffered the most in a nineteenth‐century cleaning.¹² Similar in both is the painting of the draperies with a delicate mesh of white highlights, and the spindly fingers of the angels. The certain attribution of NG 6583 to Cimabue, endorsed by both Miklós Boskovits¹³ and Luciano Bellosi,¹⁴ finally confirms that the Frick Flagellation is indeed by Cimabue.

The relative chronology of the large‐scale paintings of the Maestà by Cimabue and Duccio to which NG 6583 relates is not generally agreed. Most scholars now accept that Cimabue’s Maestà from San Francesco, Pisa, pre‐dates Duccio’s Maestà of 1285 – the Rucellai Madonna painted for Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and now in the Uffizi, Florence.¹⁵ A different view is taken by Hayden Maginnis.¹⁶ Recently, Mariagiulia Burresi and Antonino Caleca have suggested that since the church of San Francesco was under construction in 1264, Cimabue’s Maestà was painted in the late 1260s/1270s with a terminus ante quem of 1284.¹⁷ It is also generally accepted that Cimabue’s Pisan Maestà pre‐dates his Maestà from Santa Trinita, Florence, now in the Uffizi, Florence.¹⁸ Stylistically (and despite the difference in scale) NG 6583 provides a transition between the Pisan and Santa Trinita versions.

The Child in NG 6583, seated on the Virgin’s raised left knee and supported in the crook of her left arm, faces away from the spectator in a less hieratic image than in the Pisan Maestà, as befits a small devotional panel, and in a touchingly naturalistic gesture steadies himself by clinging to her wrist and finger.

Characteristic of Pisan painting is the palette of the angels’ wings, moving from brown through white to blue, as seen, for example, in the work of the Master of San Martino (sometimes identified as Ugolino di Tedice) and of Deodato Orlandi (active 1288–1308).¹⁹

NG 6583 also shares a number of stylistic and compositional features with Cimabue’s frescoes in San Francesco, Assisi, which are probably datable to 1277–80,²⁰ and the much repainted Maestà in the transept of the Lower Church, as well as the repainted version in Santa Maria dei Servi, Bologna.²¹

Symptomatic of the mutual interdependence of Cimabue and Duccio is the similarity of NG 6583 to the wall painting of Christ Enthroned with Two Angels in the Bardi chapel in Santa Maria Novella, attributed to Duccio by David Wilkins, Boskovits and Bellosi, in particular in the stance of the angels and the type of throne, which in the wall painting, judging from the arc behind Christ, was likewise curved.²² Despite the difference in scale, the comparison is telling.

[page 37]

**Fig. 5**
Detail of the left‐hand angel in NG 6583. © The National Gallery, London

Iconography

The overall iconography of the Virgin and Child enthroned with standing angels on either side probably derives from a Byzantine prototype, of the kind exemplified by the small icon in the monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai (fig. 6), which was said by James Stubblebine to be from Constantinople and datable to the mid‐thirteenth century.²³ In 1963 Kurt Weitzmann wrote of this icon: ‘If the flanking angels ever existed in Italian Dugento art (as seems quite possible, though no example is known to me) it surely would have to be explained as an adaptation from a Byzantine model.’²⁴ Very similar to NG 6583 are the tips of the angels’ fingers just visible along the top of the throne in the Byzantine icon: the angels carry staffs and are identified by inscriptions as the archangels Michael and Gabriel. Similarly clad angels wearing dalmatics and the imperial ‘loroi’ standing on either side of the throne are to be found in a late twelfth‐/early thirteenth‐century icon in the Archaeological Museum in Veroia in northern Greece (fig. 7).²⁵ Such garments occur again in Cimabue’s work, for example in the frescoes in the left transept of the Upper Church at San Francesco, Assisi.²⁶ The use of a red border in NG 6583 to divide scenes may also originate in Byzantine painting.²⁷

**Fig. 6**
Anonymous Byzantine painter, *The Virgin and Child with Two Angels*, thirteenth century. Tempera on wood, 35 × 26 cm. Sinai, Holy Monastery of St Catherine. © Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai: Photo Bruce White

**Fig. 7**
Anonymous Byzantine painter, *The Virgin and Child with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel*, late twelfth/early thirteenth century. Tempera on wood, 85 × 60 cm. Veroia (Greece), Archaeological Museum. © Veroia Archaeological Museum. Photo Sotiris Chaidemenos

[page 38]

The transparent cloth draped over the cushion, with delicately embroidered black borders and a fringe, is unusual and could be intended to refer to the transparent loincloth worn by Christ in the Flagellation, although this does not have an embroidered border.²⁸ It is more likely that it is intended to refer to an altar cloth of the kind seen, for example, in the Mass of Saint Martin (fig. 8) in Simone Martini’s fresco in the Lower Church of San Francesco, Assisi.²⁹ In some Byzantine and thirteenth‐century Italian paintings the Virgin’s seat has a white cloth (see p. 161, fig. 8). It is possible that this cloth is intended to underline the Eucharistic symbolism of the Virgin as representing an altar, holding the body of Christ.³⁰

Function and Context

The nature of the edges of both NG 6583 (barb at top and left edge, painted border at right and bottom edge) and the Flagellation (barb at bottom and right edge, painted border at left edge) would seem to exclude their being two wings of a diptych, and suggests rather that they are part of a larger complex with more narrative scenes, and consequently that the Flagellation is one of several Passion scenes and therefore a subsidiary scene, not a main one. This would then rule out any argument, based only on its inclusion, that it was painted for a flagellant confraternity.

Boskovits associated a panel showing the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels (formerly New York Historical Society, now Dallas, Jessie Price Collection) with seven scenes from the Passion of Christ (each panel approximately 30 × 21 cm) attributed to the Florentine Master of San Martino alla Palma, and reconstructed them as a diptych of c. 1320 (fig. 9).³¹ He has since suggested that the National Gallery and Frick panels come from the same type of diptych.³² This would mean that there are potentially six or more missing scenes.

**Fig. 8**
Simone Martini, *The Mass of Saint Martin*, c. 1312. Fresco. Assisi, San Francesco, Lower Church. © Assisi, Church of San Francesco. Photo Scala, Florence

The Virgin and Child Enthroned as a subsidiary scene in a small‐scale work is first found pairing Saint Anne Enthroned with the Virgin in a thirteenth‐century Umbrian triptych (Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria).³³ The same subject as a subsidiary scene, often divided by a red border from small‐scale narrative scenes, is quite common in Florentine diptychs and triptychs. Apart from the possible diptych by the Master of San Martino alla Palma reconstructed by Boskovits, it is found in a number of small‐scale Florentine paintings.³⁴ Significantly, a Sienese example is to be found in the context of Duccio and his workshop, namely in the left wing of the Crucifixion triptych in the Royal Collection (Buckingham Palace), where the image of Christ and the Virgin Enthroned appears to be dependent on Cimabue’s frescoes in the apse of the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi, and where the traditional red stripe has become a pink three‐dimensional border with the figures emerging in front of it.³⁵

Patron

The possibility that the National Gallery/Frick work was made for a Pisan patron, possibly a Franciscan or a Clare, cannot be ruled out. Cimabue painted many works for the mendicant orders in Pisa: in addition to the Maestà for San Francesco, there was a small painting with the Crucifixion (now lost) described by Vasari,³⁶ and in 1301 a documented altar piece for the Ospedale of Santa Chiara, also now lost, or possibly never painted.³⁷ It has been suggested by the present writer that NG 6583 corresponds to a tiny painting labelled ‘Madonna di Cimabue 1200’, or more likely ‘1290’, recorded in 1829 on a page of sketches of fourteen paintings (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce d.57, fol. 84) sent by Carlo Lasinio, Keeper of the Camposanto in Pisa from 1807, to the English collector Francis Douce (1757–1834) in 1830.³⁸ Italian scholars have recognised that the ink inscription on the back of the Flagellation, ‘Cimabue. No.17’, may be in Lasinio’s hand.³⁹ A possibly Pisan nineteenth‐century provenance does not, of course, necessarily entail a thirteenth‐century Pisan patron.⁴⁰

Exhibited

Pisa 2005, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Cimabue a Pisa. La pittura pisana del Duecento da Giunta a Giotto (77). London 2005–6, National Gallery, Reunions, 12 November–29 January. New York 2006, Frick Museum, Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting, 3 October–31 December.

Provenance

Possibly Douce Collection from 1830 to 1834(?) – see above; Gooch Collection, Benacre Hall, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, by 1933 (described as ‘Old Italian School’);⁴¹ accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Gallery, 2000.⁴²

[page 39]

**Fig. 9**
Reconstruction of panels by the Master of San Martino alla Palma as a diptych (courtesy of Miklós Boskovits). © The National Gallery, London

Notes

1. The numbers are not absolutely clear but seem to be £6.15.4 (i.e. six pounds, fifteen shillings and four pence) rather than £6.19.4, or £6.13.4 (see fig. 2). (Back to text.)

2. For a discussion of the technique see also Rachel Billinge in Flora 2006, pp. 40–3. (Back to text.)

3. The same style of underdrawing is to be found in the companion panel showing the Flagellation (for which see below), where there are slight differences between the drawing and the painting of the architecture. See Billinge in Flora 2006, p. 41. (Back to text.)

4. See Gordon 2003a, pp. 32–6. (Back to text.)

5. Meiss 1951a, pp. 95–103. (Back to text.)

6. Longhi 1951, pp. 8–13; reprinted 1974, VII, pp. 55–9. (Back to text.)

7. Meiss 1952, pp. 63–4. (Back to text.)

8. Schapiro 1956, pp. 29–53; reprinted 1980, pp. 355–79. (Back to text.)

9. Meiss 1956–7, p. 62. (Back to text.)

10. White 1979, p. 157, called the attribution to Duccio ‘a flight of scholarly fancy’; Stubblebine 1972a, pp. 3–10, and Stubblebine 1979, I, pp. 128–9, attributed it to the Saint Peter Master (i.e. Sienese). See further Davidson and Munhall 1968, pp. 262–5, with bibliography. (Back to text.)

11. Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 118, and p. 275, no. 4. (Back to text.)

12. Ragionieri in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 274. (Back to text.)

13. Miklós Boskovits in the exh. cat. Duecento 2000, p. 277. The Frick Flagellation had been attributed to Duccio by Boskovits in 1997 (Boskovits 1997, pp. 5–16, esp. p. 14). (Back to text.)

14. In a letter to Dillian Gordon of 26 May 2000 in the National Gallery archives Luciano Bellosi kindly confirmed his attribution of NG 6583 to Cimabue. See also Bellosi in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, p. 119. (Back to text.)

15. See in particular the comparison between the two made by Giovanna Ragionieri in Bagnoli, Bartalini, Bellosi and Laclotte 2003, pp. 152–6. (Back to text.)

16. Maginnis 1994, pp. 147–64. (Back to text.)

17. Mariagiulia Burresi and Antonino Caleca in the exh. cat. Cimabue a Pisa 2005, pp. 83–4, and Lorenzo Carletti and Cristiano Giacometti in ibid. , cat. 77, pp. 236–7. (Back to text.)

18. See Bellosi in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, pp. 249–56, and Ragionieri in ibid. , pp. 281–2, no. 12. (Back to text.)

19. See, for example, in the exh. cat. Cimabue a Pisa 2005, cat. 31, pp. 157–61, and cat. 90, pp. 260–1. (Back to text.)

20. See Bellosi in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, pp. 150–236; ill. in Bonsanti 2002, Basilica Superiore. Atlante, pp. 1099–117 and 1120–1. (Back to text.)

[page 40]

21. For the Assisi fresco see Bellosi in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, pp. 230–3; ill. in Bonsanti 2002, Basilica Inferiore. Atlante, pp. 556–7. The face of the Madonna in particular in the frescoed Maestà is very overpainted, but the essential composition is unaltered. For a comparison of NG 6583 with the Maestà in Bologna see the exh. cat. Duecento 2000, cat. 81, pp. 271–8. (Back to text.)

22. For the frescoes see Bellosi in the exh. cat. Duccio 2003, pp. 121–3, and pp. 124–6, figs 15–18, and p. 143, notes 30 and 31; Ragionieri in Bagnoli, Bartalini, Bellosi and Laclotte 2003, p. 138; and Wilkins 1978, pp. 141–74, esp. pp. 153–9; also Boskovits 1976, under cat. 49 (‘indubbia fattura duccesca’). It was attributed to Cimabue by, for example, Stubblebine 1973, pp. 15– 21, where the saint opposite Christ, enthroned between two acolytes, is identified as Saint Zenobius, although he is more likely to be Saint Gregory. The latter seems to be by a different and inferior hand, a difference in quality noted also by Stubblebine (p. 17). (Back to text.)

23. Stubblebine 1966, pp. 87–101, esp. p. 94, and fig. 14. In Sotiriou 1956, fig. 191 and p. 245, it is said to be thirteenth century. See further Elka Bakalova in the exh. cat. Byzantium. Faith and Power 2004, cat. 208, pp. 349–50, dating it to the late thirteenth century, but citing Vokotopoulos 1995, p. 205, as dating it to the first half of the thirteenth century. (Back to text.)

24. Weitzmann 1963, pp. 179–203, esp. p. 186, and fig. 8. (Back to text.)

25. See the exh. cat. Mother of God 2000, cat. 33, p. 342. It seems very likely that it was in Pisa that Cimabue came into contact with Byzantine icons (see pp. 344 and 410 of this catalogue). (Back to text.)

26. Bellosi in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 178; ill. in Bonsanti 2002, Basilica Superiore. Atlante, pp. 978–9. (Back to text.)

27. See, for example, the exh. cat. Mother of God 2000, pp. 157, 162, and 163; cat. 55, p. 391. (Back to text.)

28. See Derbes 1996, p. 30, for Christ’s transparent loincloth in Cimabue’s Santa Croce Crucifix, its possible Byzantine origins, and emphasis on Christ’s nudity and therefore poverty, particularly meaningful for the Franciscans. (Back to text.)

29. Illustrated in Martindale 1988, pl. 31; Leone De Castris 2003, p. 106. Other examples show this type of black embroidery on white cloth as standard for altar cloths. See, for example, the scenes from the life of Saint Catherine of Siena by Giovanni di Paolo (Christiansen, Kanter and Strehlke 1988, illustrations pp. 225, 231, 234); and the manuscript illumination of a priest saying Mass, in an antiphonary by Stefano di Tommaso of 1504 (Florence, Museo di San Marco, inv. 549, f. 43v), illustrated in Levi d’Ancona 1962, Tav. 36. (Back to text.)

30. For the Virgin as symbolic of an altar see Purtle 1982, pp. 14, 15 and 91. I owe this reference to Lisa Monnas. For a white cloth draped over the throne cushion see, for example, the thirteenth‐century apse mosaic in San Miniato al Monte, Florence (see Ferdinando Rossi in eds Gurrieri, Berti and Leonardi 1988, pp. 135–55 and fig. 24). (Back to text.)

31. Boskovits 1988, pp. 128–31, cat. 50, fig. 191, p. 362. The scenes are the Virgin and Child Enthroned (formerly New York Historical Society; sold Sotheby’s New York, 12 January 1995, lot 110; now Dallas, Texas, Jessie Price Collection) flanked by the Betrayal of Christ (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) with the Mocking of Christ (formerly Manchester, Barlow Collection) flanked by the Flagellation (Berea, Kentucky, Berea College) proposed for the left wing, and the Ascent to Calvary, Crucifixion, Entombment (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) and Last Judgement (formerly New York Historical Society, now Dallas, private collection) proposed for the right wing. Offner (Corpus, Section III, Vol. V, 1947, p. 17) had previously suggested that the panels were ‘either scenes from the wings of a tabernacle or the complementary leaves of a diptych’. See also Boskovits et al. , Corpus, Section III, Vol. V, 2001, p. 95, pl. III. Thirteenth‐century examples of simple diptychs with multiple scenes are illustrated in Garrison 1949, p. 97, no. 240, and p. 98, no. 246, both said by him to be Venetian. (Back to text.)

32. Miklós Boskovits, letter to Dillian Gordon of 7 April 2000 in the National Gallery archives. Other possibilities have been suggested by Flora 2006, pp. 25–8. (Back to text.)

33. Bon Valsassina and Garibaldi 1994, cat. 13, pp. 95–6. (Back to text.)

34. For example, in a triptych attributed to Pacino di Buonaguida (documented 1303) in the Lindenau Museum, Altenburg, with the Crucifixion at the centre, and the Virgin and Child Enthroned above Saint Christopher and a bishop saint in the left wing and the Nativity and Baptism in the right wing (see Ada Labriola in the exh. cat. Dipinti fiorentini del Lindenau‐Museum di Altenburg 2005, cat. 36, pp. 156–8); in a diptych (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Irma N. Straus, 1964) also attributed to Pacino di Buonaguida where the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saint Paul and Saint Francis is combined with Saint John on Patmos, the Dormition of the Virgin and the Crucifixion, the scenes bordered with a red stripe (see the exh. cat. Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence 1994, cat. 2, pp. 48–50); in the triptych in the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa (Offner, Corpus, Section III, Vol. I, 1931, p. 98, pl. XXXII), with the Crucifixion at the centre, the Virgin and Child Enthroned in the left wing, and in the right wing Saints Christopher and Dominic with Blessed Pietro Spagnoli (although identified as Saint Benedict by Offner, he is more likely to be Blessed Pietro, for whom see Kaftal 1965, no. 303); in a single panel attributed to the Master of the Dominican Effigies where the Virgin and Child Enthroned with a Bishop Saint and Saint Peter Martyr is combined with a miscellany of scenes, again bordered with a red stripe: the Last Judgement, the Crucifixion, the Glorification of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the Nativity, thought to be the central panel of a triptych, and evidently made for a Dominican patron (see the exh. cat. Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence 1994, no. 5, pp. 80–3). (Back to text.)

35. In the triptych in the Royal Collection (for which see Cannon and Pemberton Pigott 2002, pp. 10–18) attributable to Duccio’s workshop (see note 11 on p. 485 of this catalogue), the Virgin and Child Enthroned in the left wing is one of the scenes bordered with red and pink. (Back to text.)

36. The painting is described by Vasari as being ‘nel chiostro allato alla porta che entra in chiesa, in un cantone, una tavolina a tempera’, which Giovanna Ragionieri, in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 286, considers to have been a fresco. Vasari was working in Pisa between 1558 and 1568 (see Gardner von Teuffel 1977, p. 23, note 2). The painting was highly unusual in its iconography, and according to Vasari ‘capricciosa e nuova’ since it bore unusual inscriptions: ‘nella quale è un Cristo in croce, con alcuni Angeli attorno, i quali piangendo pigliano con le mani certe parole che sono scritte intorno alla testa di Cristo, e le mandano all’orrechie d’una Nostra Donna che a man [d]ritta sta piangendo, e dall’altro lato a San Giovanni Evangelista, che è tutto dolente a man sinistra; e sono le parole alla Vergine: Mulier, ecce filius tuus, e quelle a San Giovanni: Ecce Mater tua; e quelle che tiene in mano un altro Angelo appartato, dicono: Ex illa hora accepit eam discipulus in suam.’ (Vasari, Vite, ed. Milanesi 1878, I, p. 255; eds Bettarini and Barocchi, II, 1967, p. 41). For a remarkably similar and unusual panel with coloured bands directed from the body of Christ towards the figures below, bearing some of the identical inscriptions, see the Crucifixion by Bernardo Daddi illustrated in the exh. cat. Dipinti fiorentini del Lindenau‐Museum di Altenburg 2005, cat. 10, pp. 73–4). (Back to text.)

37. See Ragionieri in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 290. (Back to text.)

38. The paintings from Lasinio were sent from Livorno in two cases, presumably corresponding to the ‘Faciata prima’ and ‘Faciata seconda’ into which the sketches of the paintings are divided on the sheet. See Gordon 2003a, pp. 34–6. For the sketch see the exh. cat. The Douce Legacy. An exhibition to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the bequest of Francis Douce (1757–1834), Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1984, cat. 32, pp. 21–2. The painting is not identifiable among those listed in the Doucean Museum published by Meyrick 1836, pp. 245–53. However, the painting attributed to Cimabue in the Douce Collection was sold with nine other paintings from the collection said to have Lasinio’s seal in the Dawson Turner Sale, Christie and Manson, 14 May 1852, lot 8, where it is described as being by Cimabue: ‘The Virgin and Child – on gold ground – small’, and sold to ‘Fuller’ for £1.14s. 6d. (this does not accord with the price tag attached to the reverse of NG 6583). The identity of ‘Fuller’ is not certain. Nothing attributed to Cimabue features in the Fuller Russell Sale of 18 April 1885, nor in Waagen’s description of the Fuller Russell Collection (Waagen 1854, vol. II, pp. 461–3), nor in the Catalogue of Paintings at Stansted Hall 1872 (revised 1893) in the collection of William Fuller Maitland, nor in the sale of part of his collection on 10 May 1879, or 14 July 1922, although [page 41]according to a typescript of 1995 by Donald Lee in the National Gallery Library, William Fuller Maitland (1813–1876) sold paintings from his collection during his lifetime. If NG 6583 is in fact the Lasinio/Douce/Dawson Turner/‘Fuller’ painting, it would have to have been acquired by the Gooch family between 1852 and 1933 (see Provenance).

Another ‘Cimabue’ exported by Lasinio that was once in an English collection is the small painting formerly attributed to Cimabue showing the Virgin and Child with Saints John and Peter (Washington, National Gallery of Art), the attribution rightly rejected by Ragionieri in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 289. This once had a note attached to the back, written by Carlo Lasinio and lost when the painting was cradled, saying it came from the sacristy of San Francesco, Pisa. See Suida and Shapley 1956, p. 50, and Shapley 1979, I, p. 133. The possibility that this was the painting sent by Lasinio to Douce is almost certainly ruled out by the fact that it has been identified on the basis of the note on the back as The Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels sold from the collection of a Miss Fanshawe at a Christie’s sale, 21 March 1835, lot 80 (Lygon and Russell 1980, p. 116 and note 40). It was bought at a country sale at Patterdale Hall, Ullswater, on 8 August 1934, although by then it had lost its attribution to Cimabue and was labelled ‘Italian School’.

For Lasinio’s activities see Levi 1993, pp. 133–48. Although some of the attributions made by Lasinio have turned out to be wrong, he would have been familiar with Cimabue’s work at first hand since he records the removal of Cimabue’s Maestà from San Francesco, Pisa, on 2 August 1810, before its transport to Paris in 1812 (see Ragionieri in Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998, p. 274), which makes his attribution of the Washington picture to Cimabue all the more surprising, but it may have been commercially motivated. (Back to text.)

39. Donata Levi has kindly given her opinion that the handwriting may be that of Lasinio. (Back to text.)

40. Lasinio exported paintings from different parts of Tuscany. To the list of paintings gathered by Levi (1993, p. 147) may be added the angel pinnacle panel which almost certainly came from Duccio’s Maestà (now in Huis Bergh, ’s‐Heerenberg; see Israëls 2008, pp. 122–33). I am grateful to Machtelt Israëls for sending me an image of the two seals on the back of the panel, which can be identified as those of Lasinio and the Camposanto (see fig. 1 on p. 350 of this catalogue). See also note 31 on p. 355 of this catalogue. A Florentine painting from the end of the fourteenth/beginning of the fifteenth century showing three saints, belonging to Angus Neil, also has the remains of the Camposanto seal. (Back to text.)

41. It has also been suggested that it was acquired by Sir Edward Sherlock Gooch 6th Bart ( c. 1800–1856), who with his sister Georgina travelled to Italy around 1830 and spent six years in Florence (see Sotheby’s, Old Master Paintings, 6 July 2000, lot 76, pp. 184–5). Sir Edward was the cousin‐in‐law of the Revd Walter Davenport‐Bromley (1787–1863), a celebrated collector of early Italian paintings, for whom see Sutton 1985, pp. 84–95, esp. p. 88. However, the label on the back (see fig. 2 and note 1 above) suggests that it may have been acquired in England, and a provenance from the collection of Francis Douce has been suggested by the present compiler (see notes 4 and 38 above). The Flagellation came into the Frick Collection in 1950 from the dealer Knoedler & Co., Paris; during the nineteenth century it was in the collection of an unknown Italian family, then that of Signor G. Rolla, Paris, and then that of Monsieur E. Moratilla, Paris. See Davidson and Munhall 1968, pp. 262–5, and Holly Flora in the exh. cat. Cimabue a Pisa 2005, p. 237. (Back to text.)

42. Sotheby’s, Old Master Paintings, 6 July 2000, lot 76; withdrawn from sale. (Back to text.)

Curator’s Update

Dillian Gordon, 10 April 2024

In 2019 the auction house Actéon in Senlis (France) identified a small panel depicting the Mocking of Christ as by Cimabue and established that the wood grain was continuous with that of the Virgin and Child with Two Angels: it was therefore part of the same work, situated immediately below the Virgin and Child panel. The presence of barbs on the left side and along the base of the Mocking of Christ were consistent with barbs at the left side and top of the National Gallery panel, confirming that together they constituted the two left-hand scenes of a single work.⁴³

The discovery of the Mocking of Christ, now in the Louvre, Paris, has several implications. First, it confirms Boskovits’ reconstruction of a hypothetical diptych by the Master of San Martino alla Palma consisting of eight small panels now in different collections (see above and fig. 9) in which the Mocking of Christ was placed below the Virgin and Child and on the left of the Flagellation.

Conversely, the discovery confirms that the diptych reconstructed by Boskovits probably derived directly from the Cimabue diptych, and that five scenes are therefore missing from Cimabue’s work: the Betrayal, which would have been situated in the top right-hand corner of the left wing, to the right of the Virgin and Child, and the Ascent to Calvary, Crucifixion, Entombment and Last Judgement in the right wing.

The tight link of the Cimabue panels with the eight panels reconstructed by Boskovits further strengthens the likelihood of a Franciscan or Clare patron for the Cimabue work, given that Saints Clare and Francis are shown kneeling at the foot of the cross in the Crucifixion by the Master of San Martino alla Palma.

Further information is likely to emerge from the exhibition focussing on Cimabue to be held at the Louvre (20 January – 12 May 2025).

43. Donal Cooper, ‘A long-lost Cimabue has emerged – and the “first light” of painting now burns brighter than ever’, Apollo, 14 October 2019, https://www.apollo-magazine.com/cimabue-mocking-christ/. The panel was sold by Actéon, Senlis, 27 October 2019. (Back to text.)

List of archive references cited

Florence, Museo di San Marco, inv. 549, f. 43v: Stefano di Tommaso, antiphonary, 1504
London, National Gallery, Archive: Luciano Bellosi, letter to Dillian Gordon, 26 May 2000
London, National Gallery, Archive: Miklós Boskovits, letter to Dillian Gordon, 7 April 2000
London, National Gallery, Library: Donald Lee, typescript, 1995
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce d.57, fol. 84

List of references cited

Bagnoli, Bartalini, Bellosi and Laclotte 2003: Bagnoli, Alessandro, Roberto Bartalini, Luciano Bellosi and Michel Laclotte, eds, Duccio. Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, Siena 2003
Bakalova 2004: Bakalova, Elka, in Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. H.C. Evans (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 23 March–4 July 2004), New Haven and London 2004, cat. 208, 349–50
Bellosi 2003: Bellosi, Luciano, ‘Il percorso di Duccio’, in Duccio. Alle origini della pittura senese, eds A. Bagnoli, R. Bartalini, L. Bellosi and M. Laclotte (exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala and Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena, 4 October 2003–11 January 2004), Milan 2003, 118–45
Bellosi with Ragionieri 1998: Bellosi, Luciano and Giovanna Ragionieri, Cimabue, Milan 1998
Billinge 2006: Billinge, Rachel, ‘Technical examination of two panels by Cimabue’, in Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting, H. Flora (exh. cat. The Frick Collection), New York 2006, 40–3
Bon Valsassina and Garibaldi 1994: Bon Valsassina, Caterina and Vittoria Garibaldi, eds, Dipinti, sculture e ceramiche della Galleria Nazionale di Perugia. Studi e restauri, Florence 1994
Bonsanti 2002: Bonsanti, Giorgio, ed., La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi, 4 vols, Modena 2002
Boskovits 1976: Boskovits, Miklós, Cimabue e i precursori di Giotto: affreschi, mosaici e tavole, Florence 1976
Boskovits 1988: Boskovits, Miklós, Frühe italienische Malerei. Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Katalog der Gemälde, ed. Erich Schleier, Berlin 1988
Boskovits 1997: Boskovits, Miklós, ‘Jacopo Torriti: un tentativo di bilancio e qualche proposta’, in Scritti per l’Istituto Germanico di Storia dell’Arte di Firenze, eds C. Acidini Luchinat, L. Bellosi, M. Boskovits, P.P. Donati and B. Santi, Florence 1997, 5–16
Boskovits, Labriola and Rodio 2001: Boskovits, Miklós, assisted by Ada Labriola and Martina Ingendaay Rodio, The Fourteenth Century. Bernardo Daddi and his Circle, Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, V, with additional material, notes and bibliography, Florence 2001
Boskovits and Parenti 2005: Boskovits, M. and D. Parenti, eds, Da Bernardo Daddi al Beato Angelico a Botticelli. Dipinti fiorentini del Lindenau‐Museum di Altenburg (exh. cat. Museo di San Marco, Florence, 22 March–4 June 2005), Florence 2005
Burresi and Caleca 2005: Burresi, M. and A. Caleca, eds, Cimabue a Pisa. La pittura pisana del Duecento da Giunta a Giotto (exh. cat. Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, 25 March–25 June 2005), Pisa 2005
Cannon and Pemberton Pigott 2002: Cannon, Joanna and Viola Pemberton Pigott, ‘The Royal Collection Duccio: A triptych reconsidered’, The Royal Collection. A Golden Jubilee Celebration, eds J. Marsden and D. Ekserdjian (special volume published by Apollo), 2002, 10–18
Carletti and Giacometti 2005: Carletti, Lorenzo and Cristiano Giacometti, in Cimabue a Pisa. La pittura pisana del Duecento da Giunta a Giotto, eds M. Burresi and A. Caleca (exh. cat. Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, 25 March–25 June 2005), Pisa 2005, cat. 77, 236–7
Catalogue of Paintings at Stansted Hall 1872: Catalogue of Paintings at Stansted Hall, 1872 (revised, 1893)
Christiansen, Kanter and Strehlke 1988: Christiansen, Keith, Laurence B. Kanter and Carl Brandon Strehlke, Paintings in Renaissance Siena 1420–1500 (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York 1988
Cooper 2019: Cooper, Donal, ‘A long-lost Cimabue has emerged – and the “first light” of painting now burns brighter than ever’, Apollo, https://www.apollo-magazine.com/cimabue-mocking-christ/, accessed 12 April 2024, 14 October 2019
Davidson and Munhall 1968: Davidson, Bernice and Edgar Munhall, The Frick Collection. An Illustrated Catalogue, II, Paintings: French, Italian and Spanish, New York 1968
Derbes 1996: Derbes, Anne, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy. Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant, Cambridge 1996
Douce Legacy 1984: Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy. An exhibition to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the bequest of Francis Douce (1757–1834), Oxford 1984
Duecento 2000: Medica, M. and S. Tumidei, eds, Duecento. Forme e colori del Medioevo a Bologna (exh. cat. Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 15 April–16 July 2000), Venice 2000
Evans 2004: Evans, H.C., ed., Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261–1557) (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 23 March–4 July 2004), New Haven and London 2004
Flora 2006: Flora, Holly, Cimabue and Early Italian Devotional Painting (exh. cat. The Frick Collection, New York, 3 October–31 December 2006), New York 2006
Gardner von Teuffel 1977: Gardner von Teuffel, Christa, ‘Masaccio and the Pisa altar piece: A new approach’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 1977, 19, 23–68 (reprinted, Gardner von Teuffel, Christa, From Duccio’s Maestà to Raphael’s Transfiguration: Italian Altarpieces and their Settings, London 2005, 1–71)
Garrison 1949: Garrison, Edward B., Italian Romanesque Panel Painting. An illustrated index, Florence 1949 (New York 1976)
Gordon 2003a: Gordon, Dillian, ‘The Virgin and Child by Cimabue at the National Gallery’, Apollo, 2003, CLVII, 496, 32–6
Gurrieri, Berti and Leonardi 1988: Gurrieri, Francesco, Luciano Berti and Claudio Leonardi, eds, La Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, Florence 1988
Israëls 2008: Israëls, Machtelt, ‘An angel at Huis Bergh. Clues to the structure and function of Duccio’s Maestà’, in Voyages of discovery in the collections of Huis Bergh, ed. A. de Vries, ’s‐Heerenberg 2008, 122–33
Kaftal 1965: Kaftal, George, Iconography of the Saints in Central and South Italian Schools of Painting, Florence 1965 (1986)
Kanter et al. 1994: Kanter, L.B., B. Drake Boehm, C.B. Strehlke, G. Freuler, C.C. Mayer Thurman and P. Palladino, Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence 1300–1450 (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 November 1994–26 February 1995), New York 1994
Labriola 2005: Labriola, Ada, in Da Bernardo Daddi al Beato Angelico a Botticelli. Dipinti fiorentini del Lindenau‐Museum di Altenburg, eds M. Boskovits and D. Parenti (exh. cat. Museo di San Marco, Florence, 22 March–4 June 2005), Florence 2005, cat. 36, 156–8
Leone De Castris 2003: Leone De Castris, Pierluigi, Simone Martini, Milan 2003
Levi 1993: Levi, Donata, ‘Carlo Lasinio, curator, collector and dealer’, Burlington Magazine, 1993, 135, 1079, 133–48
Levi d’Ancona 1962: Levi d’Ancona, Mirella, Miniatura e miniatori a Firenze dal XIV al XVI secolo. Documenti per la Storia della Miniatura, Florence 1962
Longhi 1951: Longhi, Roberto, ‘Prima Cimabue, poi Duccio’, Paragone, Edizione delle Opere Complete di Roberto Longhi, 7, 1951, 2, 23, 8–13 (reprint, Giudizio sul Duecento e ricerche sul Trecento nell’Italia Centrale 1939–70, Florence 1974, 55–9)
Lygon and Russell 1980: Lygon, Dorothy and Francis Russell, ‘Tuscan Primitives in London Sales: 1801–1837’, Burlington Magazine, 1980, 122, 923, 112–17
Maginnis 1994: Maginnis, Hayden B.J., ‘Duccio’s Rucellai Madonna and the origins of Florentine painting’, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1994, 123, 147–64
Martindale 1988: Martindale, Andrew, Simone Martini. Complete Edition, Oxford 1988
Meiss 1951: Meiss, Millard, ‘A new early Duccio’, Art Bulletin, 1951, 33, 2, 95–103
Meiss 1952: Meiss, Millard, ‘Scusi, ma sempre Duccio’, Paragone, 1952, 3, 27, 63–4
Meiss 1956–7: Meiss, Millard, ‘The Case of the Frick Flagellation’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 1956–7, 19–20, 43–63
Meyrick 1836: Meyrick, Samuel R., ‘The Doucean Museum’, The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1836, 5, 245–53
Mother of God 2000: Vassilaki, M., ed., Mother of God. Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art (exh. cat. Benaki Museum, Athens, 20 October 2000–20 January 2001), Athens and Milan 2000
Offner 1931: Offner, Richard, The Fourteenth Century, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, I, New York 1931
Offner 1947: Offner, Richard, The Fourteenth Century, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, V, New York 1947
Padfield et al. 2002: Padfield, J., D. Saunders, J. Cupitt and R. Atkinson, ‘Improvements in the Acquisition and Processing of X‐ray Images of Paintings’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 2002, 23, 62–75
Purtle 1982: Purtle, Carol J., The Marian Paintings of Jan van Eyck, Princeton, New Jersey 1982
Saunders et al. 2006: Saunders, David, Rachel Billinge, John Cupitt, Nick Atkinson and Haida Liang, ‘A New Camera for High‐Resolution Infrared Imaging of Works of Art’, Studies in Conservation, 2006, 51, 277–90
Schapiro 1956: Schapiro, Meyer, ‘On an Italian painting of the Flagellation of Christ in the Frick Collection’, in Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in Onore di Lionello Venturi, ed. M. Salmi, Rome 1956, 29–53 (reprinted, Schapiro, M., Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art: Selected Papers, London 1980, 355–79)
Shapley 1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2 vols, Washington DC 1979
Skaug 1994: Skaug, Erling, Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico, Oslo 1994, 1 and 2
Sotiriou 1956: Sotiriou, George and Maria Sotiriou, Icônes du Mont Sinaï, Athens 1956, 1
Stubblebine 1966: Stubblebine, James H., ‘Byzantine influence in thirteenth‐century Italian panel painting’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 1966, 20, 87–101
Stubblebine 1972: Stubblebine, James H., ‘The Frick Flagellation Reconsidered’, Gesta, 1972, 11, 1, 3–10
Stubblebine 1973: Stubblebine, James H., ‘Cimabue and Duccio in Santa Maria Novella’, Pantheon, 1973, 31, 1, 15–21
Stubblebine 1979: Stubblebine, James H., Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School, Princeton, New Jersey 1979, 1 and 2
Suida and Shapley 1956: Suida, William E. and Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington 1956
Sutton 1985: Sutton, Denys, ‘From Ottley to Eastlake’, Apollo (Aspects of British Collecting, Part IV, no. XIV), 1985, 122, 282, 84–95
Vasari 1878–85: Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols, Florence 1878–85
Vasari 1967–71: Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, eds R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, Florence 1967 (I and II), 1971 (III)
Vokotopoulos 1995: Vokotopoulos, Panagiotes L., Vyzantines eikones, Athens 1995
Waagen 1854: Waagen, Gustav Friedrich, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings…, ed. and trans. Lady E. Eastlake, 3 vols, London 1854 (Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, supplement (vol. 4))
Weitzmann 1963: Weitzmann, Kurt, ‘Thirteenth Century Crusader Icons on Mount Sinai’, Art Bulletin, 1963, 45, 179–203
White 1979: White, John, Duccio. Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop, London 1979
Wilkins 1978: Wilkins, David, ‘Early Florentine Frescoes in Santa Maria Novella’, Art Quarterly, 1978, new series, 1, 3, 141–74

List of exhibitions cited

London 1989–90: London, National Gallery, Art in the Making. Italian Painting before 1400, 29 November 1989–28 February 1990
London 2005–6: London, National Gallery, Reunions, 12 November 2005–29 January 2006
Pisa 2005: Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Cimabue a Pisa. La pittura pisana del Duecento da Giunta a Giotto, 2005

The Organisation and Method of the Catalogue

Sequence

The artists are listed in alphabetical order. Paintings are catalogued in chronological order under the artist’s name. Some artists are identified only as the master of a particular work, such as the Master of the Borgo Crucifix; others are known only through their association with a particular area, such as Pisa, Venice or Umbria.

Attribution

A painting is discussed under the artist’s name where the authorship is not considered to be in doubt. ‘Attributed to’ implies a certain measure of doubt.

Dimensions

Dimensions are given in centimetres; height is preceded by width.

Technical information and method

The paintings listed here, except Segna di Buonaventura’s Crucifix (NG 567), Spinello Aretino’s fresco (NG 1216.1) and Jacopo di Cione’s Crucifixion (NG 1468), have been re‐examined for this catalogue in the conservation studios. The paintings have been remeasured and examined with X‐radiography and infrared reflectography wherever possible.

The X‐radiographs were made using conventional X‐ray sensitive film sheets (30 × 40 cm, Kodak Industrex AA400), which have been scanned to produce 16‐bit mono TIFF digital images and finally assembled using software to produce a mosaic.¹ A complete survey of the paintings in infrared was made using a Hamamatsu C2400 vidicon system, equipped with a N2606‐06 vidicon tube, which is sensitive between 500 and 2200 nm (radiation shorter than 900 nm was excluded using a Kodak 87A filter). Where features of interest were identified these were then recorded subsequently, when it became available, with SIRIS or OSIRIS, the Gallery’s digital infrared imaging systems, equipped with InGaAs detectors sensitive between 900 and 1700 nm.² The paintings were examined with a Wild M650 stereo‐binocular operating microscope at magnifications between 6× and 40×. Photomicrographs were taken using a Zeiss Axiocam HrC mounted on the Wild microscope.

Occasionally references are made to X‐radiographs and infrared images which are not illustrated; this is because once these images are reduced to page size the information they contain is often no longer decipherable.

Technique and condition are discussed together since the condition of a painting is often, among other factors, the result of the techniques employed in its making.

Support

Descriptions of construction and carpentry are based on direct physical examination, infrared images and X‐radiographs. The support is assumed to be poplar unless otherwise stated. Where the wood has been identified positively, this is noted.

Medium

The medium of the paint is assumed to be egg tempera unless otherwise stated. For some of the works, analysis of the binding medium in paint samples has been carried out using Fourier transform infrared microscopy (FTIR) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), usually during earlier examinations or in conjunction with conservation treatment. The results are described in the individual catalogue entries and, where published, the reference is given. Some further analysis of samples from a few of the paintings has been carried out specifically for this catalogue.

Gilding and tooling

Information on gilding is presented before that on painting, in keeping with the order of execution. Mordant gilding and silvering are included in the discussion on gilding, despite being applied in the later stages, so that all the techniques of metal leaf decoration could be discussed together. The individual punches are described, but the reader is also referred to Erling Skaug’s catalogue published in 1994. The particular gilding technique used by the artists has generally been identified from examination of the surface of the painting with a stereomicroscope. In some cases samples were available from previous examinations and were re‐examined, or occasionally a new sample was taken, particularly where analysis of the metal leaf or investigation of the composition of a mordant was of interest. Where metal leaf has been identified, this has been confirmed with energy dispersive X‐ray analysis in the scanning electron microscope (SEM‐EDX).

Punch mark illustrations

Unfortunately, when printed, some photomicrographs that show depressions in a paint surface appear to the reader reversed. This is particularly disturbing with some images of punch marks in gilding which may seem to show raised pastiglia. This phenomenon is a result of the way the human brain interprets visual signals; expecting a pattern of shadows and highlights to have been caused by raised areas (which would be more usual in normal life), this is the message sent to the reader by the brain.

[page xxiii]

Pigments

Descriptions of the pigments for many of the paintings were available from earlier research carried out during the preparation for the 1989 exhibition Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400. Information also existed from studies of new acquisitions or from analysis carried out in support of conservation treatment. The paint samples that existed from earlier examinations were re‐examined with optical microscopy, SEM‐EDX and occasionally Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microscopy. A limited number of new samples were taken to address specific questions that arose during the research for the catalogue. The surface of the paintings was examined under a stereomicroscope wherever possible at magnifications of up to 40×. At this magnification many pigments can be identified with a reasonable degree of reliability, and these examinations greatly extended the information on pigments and pigment mixtures in areas of the paintings that were not sampled, and enabled the observations from samples to be correlated with the appearance of the painting itself.

Comments

As full an account as possible is given with regard to authorship, companion panels – particularly relevant for altar pieces – subject matter, iconography, original location, date, patronage and so on. The compiler has tried to make this information accessible to the lay reader as well as to the art historian. Inevitably there is a certain amount of speculation, but it is made clear where an argument is hypothetical. For ease of reference the comments are given subheadings, but their sequence varies according to the requirements of the argument.

Notes and references

1. X‐radiography and the associated scanning of the plates and processing were carried out by the photographic departments of the National Gallery. For a full description of the process see J. Padfield, D. Saunders, J. Cupitt and R. Atkinson, ‘Improvements in the ~~Acquisition and Processing~~ acquisition and processing of X‐ray images of paintings’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 23, 2002, pp. 62–75. (Back to text.)

2. For more details on SIRIS see D. Saunders, R. Billinge, J. Cupitt, N. Atkinson and H. Liang, ‘A new camera for high‐resolution infrared imaging of works of art’, Studies in Conservation, 51, 2006, pp. 277–90. (Back to text.)

About this version

Version 1, generated from files DG_2011__16.xml dated 14/10/2024 and database__16.xml dated 16/10/2024 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 14/10/2024. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for NG2927, NG6583, NG1468, NG6599, NG1139-NG1140 & NG1330, NG1139, NG1140, NG1330, NG566, NG5360, NG579.6-NG579.8, NG752, NG1147, NG3897, NG564, NG6572-NG6573 and NG1109 prepared for publication; entry for NG6583 proofread and corrected.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/087K-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/086E-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style: Gordon, Dillian. "NG 6583, The Virgin and Child with Two Angels". 2011, online version 1, October 17, 2024. https://data.ng.ac.uk/087K-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style: Gordon, Dillian (2011) NG 6583, The Virgin and Child with Two Angels. Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2024. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/087K-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 21 November 2024).
MHRA style: Gordon, Dillian, NG 6583, The Virgin and Child with Two Angels (National Gallery, 2011; online version 1, 2024) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/087K-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 21 November 2024]