Madonna of Humility with St. Catherine and St. Christopher, The Annunciation, and the Crucifixion

Artist: Niccolò di Buonaccorso
Title: Madonna of Humility with St. Catherine and St. Christopher, The Annunciation, and the Crucifixion
Date: ca. 1370-75
Culture: Italian
Medium: Tempera on wood panel
Dimensions: 65.8 x 54.6 cm (25 7/8 x 21 1/2 in.)
Accession Number: 1967:002
Credit Line: Niccolò di Buonaccorso, Madonna of Humility with St. Catherine and St. Christopher, The Annunciation, and the Crucifixion, ca. 1370-75, tempera and gold on wood panel, 65.8 x 54.6 cm (25 7/8 x 21 1/2 in.) Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art.

Description

This work displays Niccolo di Buonaccorso's sophisticated and delicate technique, most notably in the complex modeling of the draperies, in the refined depiction of textile patterns and textures, in the detailed rendering of the still life behind the Virgin in the central panel, and the water and fish at the feet of Saint Christopher in the right panel. The center panel is unusual because it depicts the Virgin seated on the ground, surrounded by common domestic objects and furnishings. The triptych is a portable altarpiece, which may explain the inclusion of Saint Christopher, the protector of travelers, carrying the Christ Child who holds a globe, implying the weight of the world.

Related Information / Media

Provenance

Frederick Mont, New York (as Paolo di Giovanni Fei) T. S. Hyland, Greenwich, Connecticut; acquired by the Putnam Foundation, 1967

Exhibition

Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1962, The International Style, cat. by Philippe Verdier and Dorothy Miner, no. 25, pl. XV; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, :1965, An Exhibition of Italian Panels and Manuscripts from the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in Honor of Richard Offner, p. 28, no. 32.

Literature

K. Ames, "An Annunciation by Niccolò di Buonaccorso," Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin 2, no. 2 (1966): 24; Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, 3 vols. (London, 1968), 1:294; H. W. van Os, Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesische Malerei, 1300- 1450 (The Hague, 1969), p. 117, pl. 56; Agnes Mongan and Elizabeth Mongan, European Paintings in the Timken Art Gallery (San Diego, 1969), pp. 24-25, 108, no. 4, ill.; Burton Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-

Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 149, 291,302, 314, 381, 388, 632; Martin E. Petersen, "Three Centuries of European Paintings,1300-1600," Apollo 115 (June 1982):441, fig. 2;A.-M. Dore,"Niccolò di

Buonaccorso," in L'Art gothique siennois, exh. cat., Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais (Florence, 1983), pp. 261-62; Timken Art Gallery: European and American Works of Art in the Putnam Foundation Collection (San Diego, 1983), pp. 68-69,

1:22, no. 25,ill.; Marvin Eisenberg, Lorenzo Monaco (Princeton, 1989), p. 56 n.56; G.Freuler, Bartolo di Fredi Cini (Disentis, Switzerland, 1994), p. 494; Laurence B. Kanter, Italian

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Note

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