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Lot Essay
This and the following lot, depicting the Crucifixion, are components respectively of the right and left shutters of a diptych by the late thirteenth-century painter known as the Master of the Dotto Chapel after his now destroyed frescoes in the church of the Eremitani at Padua. The Master was one of the most distinguished artists active in the Veneto in the 1290s and it is understandable that when this panel surfaced in 1941 it and its then companions were attributed, albeit tentatively, to no less a painter than Cimabue.
The Last Judgement, with three companion panels, the Nativity (now Florence, Fondazione Longhi), the Last Supper (fig. 1; now New Orleans, Isaac Delgado Museum, Kress Collection) and the Arrest of Christ (fig. 2; now Portland, Oregon, Art Museum, Kress Collection) – the latter three all from the left shutter - were first recorded in the Amadeo collection in Rome about 1932. The panels were then divided into two pairs: the Last Judgement and the Nativity passing to Carlo Foresti, who sold the second to Roberto Longhi in 1935; while the others went to the dealer Conte Contini Bonacossi, from whom they were acquired by Samuel H. Kress. In the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Preliminary Catalogue of 1941 (pp. 41-2), the Kress panels were tentatively given to Cimabue, to whom Longhi (who published his opinion in 1948, dating the panels about 1270 and suggesting that these might have been painted for Pisa), Giuseppe Fiocco, William Suida and Adolfo Venturi had attributed them. Frederick Mason Perkins had suggested an anonymous contemporary of Cimabue, while Bernard Berenson thought they were by a ‘Greek artist active somewhat later than Cimabue’ (cf. Boskovits, 1990, p. 134). Richard Offner (op. cit., 1947) considered the panels ‘by every stroke and every feature typically Venetian’. John Pope-Hennessy (op. cit., 1948) rejected the attribution to Cimabue, while Edward Garrison (op. cit., 1949) followed Offner in recognising that these were Venetian, dating them 1315-35, and attributing them to his ‘Speaking Child Master’. That the panels are Venetian has been subsequently accepted by most scholars, including: Cesare Brandi (op. cit., 1951), who characterised these as ‘pre o para-cimabuesco’; Pietro Toesca (Il Trecento, Turin, 1951, p. 702), who saw an affinity with his ‘Maestro di S. Agata’; Rodolfo Pallucchini (op. cit., 1964), Pope-Hennessy (op. cit., 1983), who dated them about 1300; Federico Zeri ('Early Italian Pictures in the Kress Collection', Burlington Magazine, CX, 1967, p. 474, fig. 55, as ‘Venetian School’), who dated them to the 13th or 14th Century; and others. Ugo Galetti and Ettore Camesasca (op. cit., 1951) maintained the attribution to Cimabue as, with reservations, did Miklos Boskovits (op. cit., 1976 and 1979). Boskovits subsequently revised his opinion in 1990 (op. cit.), recognising that the compositions of the Last Supper, the Arrest, and the Crucifixion (the following lot in this sale; which Zeri correctly identified as an element in the series, op. cit., 1967), were all paralleled in Venetian painting. He argued that these and the animation of the forms ‘with almost impressionistic splashes of light and well defined compact areas of shadow’ adhered to Venetian patterns, recalling — as ‘the angular faces roughly blocked in also do’ — the frescoes in the Dotto Chapel, so tragically destroyed by bombing in the Second World War and now only known from photographs (see Boskovits, op. cit., 1990, p. 137, figs 2 and 3).
Two other panels, Crucifixions, respectively in the Fondazione Cagnola at Gazzada and formerly with Bellesi (Garrison, op. cit., no. 257), are also by the Master. Boskovits, noting that the ‘free and nervous execution’ and the ‘arbitrary (perhaps deliberate) disregard of perspective rules’ in the panels with the fact that these ‘borrow Palaeologan neo-Hellenistic motifs and formulae, and even some archaic iconography’, which is particularly evident in the Crucifixion (the following lot in this sale). For this shows Christ attached to the Cross by four nails, rather than three, an iconography which Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà established (La croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della Passione, Verona, 1929, p. 113ff) was little used after 1300. The evidence thus points to a date about 1290, more or less contemporary with miniatures in the Split Breviary of 1291 in the Museo Correr, Venice (Pallucchini, op. cit., 1964, figs. 12 and 14). Boskovits regarded the panels as works of the ‘earliest period’ of the Dotto Chapel Master (op. cit., 1990, p. 136). These indeed represent a key moment in the early development of Venetian painting and can be seen as forerunners to the achievements of Paolo and Lorenzo Veneziano in the fourteenth century.
Boskovits’ plausible reconstruction of the left wing of the altarpiece suggests that in the upper row a lost Annunciation was flanked by the Longhi Nativity; below these were the New Orleans Last Supper and the Portland Arrest of Christ; and below these a further Passion scene, most probably a Way to Calvary, also lost, and this Crucifixion. The Last Judgement is the only known component of the hypothetical right valve.
The Last Judgement, with three companion panels, the Nativity (now Florence, Fondazione Longhi), the Last Supper (fig. 1; now New Orleans, Isaac Delgado Museum, Kress Collection) and the Arrest of Christ (fig. 2; now Portland, Oregon, Art Museum, Kress Collection) – the latter three all from the left shutter - were first recorded in the Amadeo collection in Rome about 1932. The panels were then divided into two pairs: the Last Judgement and the Nativity passing to Carlo Foresti, who sold the second to Roberto Longhi in 1935; while the others went to the dealer Conte Contini Bonacossi, from whom they were acquired by Samuel H. Kress. In the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Preliminary Catalogue of 1941 (pp. 41-2), the Kress panels were tentatively given to Cimabue, to whom Longhi (who published his opinion in 1948, dating the panels about 1270 and suggesting that these might have been painted for Pisa), Giuseppe Fiocco, William Suida and Adolfo Venturi had attributed them. Frederick Mason Perkins had suggested an anonymous contemporary of Cimabue, while Bernard Berenson thought they were by a ‘Greek artist active somewhat later than Cimabue’ (cf. Boskovits, 1990, p. 134). Richard Offner (op. cit., 1947) considered the panels ‘by every stroke and every feature typically Venetian’. John Pope-Hennessy (op. cit., 1948) rejected the attribution to Cimabue, while Edward Garrison (op. cit., 1949) followed Offner in recognising that these were Venetian, dating them 1315-35, and attributing them to his ‘Speaking Child Master’. That the panels are Venetian has been subsequently accepted by most scholars, including: Cesare Brandi (op. cit., 1951), who characterised these as ‘pre o para-cimabuesco’; Pietro Toesca (Il Trecento, Turin, 1951, p. 702), who saw an affinity with his ‘Maestro di S. Agata’; Rodolfo Pallucchini (op. cit., 1964), Pope-Hennessy (op. cit., 1983), who dated them about 1300; Federico Zeri ('Early Italian Pictures in the Kress Collection', Burlington Magazine, CX, 1967, p. 474, fig. 55, as ‘Venetian School’), who dated them to the 13th or 14th Century; and others. Ugo Galetti and Ettore Camesasca (op. cit., 1951) maintained the attribution to Cimabue as, with reservations, did Miklos Boskovits (op. cit., 1976 and 1979). Boskovits subsequently revised his opinion in 1990 (op. cit.), recognising that the compositions of the Last Supper, the Arrest, and the Crucifixion (the following lot in this sale; which Zeri correctly identified as an element in the series, op. cit., 1967), were all paralleled in Venetian painting. He argued that these and the animation of the forms ‘with almost impressionistic splashes of light and well defined compact areas of shadow’ adhered to Venetian patterns, recalling — as ‘the angular faces roughly blocked in also do’ — the frescoes in the Dotto Chapel, so tragically destroyed by bombing in the Second World War and now only known from photographs (see Boskovits, op. cit., 1990, p. 137, figs 2 and 3).
Two other panels, Crucifixions, respectively in the Fondazione Cagnola at Gazzada and formerly with Bellesi (Garrison, op. cit., no. 257), are also by the Master. Boskovits, noting that the ‘free and nervous execution’ and the ‘arbitrary (perhaps deliberate) disregard of perspective rules’ in the panels with the fact that these ‘borrow Palaeologan neo-Hellenistic motifs and formulae, and even some archaic iconography’, which is particularly evident in the Crucifixion (the following lot in this sale). For this shows Christ attached to the Cross by four nails, rather than three, an iconography which Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà established (La croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della Passione, Verona, 1929, p. 113ff) was little used after 1300. The evidence thus points to a date about 1290, more or less contemporary with miniatures in the Split Breviary of 1291 in the Museo Correr, Venice (Pallucchini, op. cit., 1964, figs. 12 and 14). Boskovits regarded the panels as works of the ‘earliest period’ of the Dotto Chapel Master (op. cit., 1990, p. 136). These indeed represent a key moment in the early development of Venetian painting and can be seen as forerunners to the achievements of Paolo and Lorenzo Veneziano in the fourteenth century.
Boskovits’ plausible reconstruction of the left wing of the altarpiece suggests that in the upper row a lost Annunciation was flanked by the Longhi Nativity; below these were the New Orleans Last Supper and the Portland Arrest of Christ; and below these a further Passion scene, most probably a Way to Calvary, also lost, and this Crucifixion. The Last Judgement is the only known component of the hypothetical right valve.