Francesco Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop, 'Saints Mamas and James', 1455-60

These saints come from a pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) which was chopped into pieces in the eighteenth century. It was later reassembled by the National Gallery – look closely and you can see the lines where the pieces are stuck together. The altarpiece shows the Trinity with saints, and once sat on the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity in Pistoia.

This fragment shows Saint James, at the back with his pilgrim’s staff, and Saint Mamas, an early Christian martyr, holding a feather-like martyr’s palm. Two lions nudge at the back of his legs; according to his legend, Mamas was thrown to the lions.

A confraternity of priests dedicated to the Trinity commissioned the altarpiece in September 1455, and the surviving minutes of their meetings tell us a lot about the decisions that went into making it and the progress of its production. The process was set in motion on 10 September by Jacopo Bellucci, head priest, and the confraternity quickly decided the work should show the Trinity with two saints on each side. Three saints were chosen – Zeno, Jerome and James, patron of Pistoia and patron saint of Jacopo Bellucci – but the fourth was more difficult. Eventually Per ser Landi, the treasurer who was in charge of the commission, suggested Mamas, to whom he was personally devoted.

The confraternity were closely involved in the developing design of the altarpiece. Landi made trips to Florence to get the contract signed and fetch drawings, some of which survive. A sketch of Saints Zeno and Mamas in the Uffizi, Florence, is thought to be a preliminary design by Pesellino to show the priests his proposal for the new work, though there are differences between this and the final version: Mamas’s gesture in the drawing is used for Zeno in the painting, for example. Landi carried on making regular trips to Florence up to Pesellino’s death in July 1457, presumably to oversee the progress of the painting – but perhaps also because he liked the city. By October that year he was in disgrace, for financial mismanagement and for visiting Florence too often.

The altarpiece was described as half-finished when Pesellino died, and work was halted for a year before a new artist was found. It was eventually given to Fra Filippo Lippi to finish off, and was finally delivered to the priests in 1460, five years after it was commissioned.

Like many artists, Pesellino borrowed ideas from other artists and reused figures in different contexts. The pose of Saint Mamas may be derived from Donatello’s statue of David, made for the Medici in the 1430s, and the organisation of the paired figures is very similar to that in a small panel of The Virgin and Child with Six Saints (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) attributed to Pesellino.