.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This moving and sensitive depiction of the hermit Saint Anthony Abbot is an early work by one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, Fra Angelico. Upon taking his vows as a Dominican friar in the small town of Fiesole outside Florence, Guido di Pietro adopted the name Fra Giovanni da Fiesole. As a painter, the friar was unrivalled. Giorgio Vasari described him as having ‘a rare and perfect talent’ and his impact on Renaissance Florentine painting, and indeed the History of Art, cannot be overstated. His piety and modesty earned him the moniker ‘Fra Angelico’ or ‘Beato Angelico’ (‘Blessed Angelic One’) and in 1982, Pope John Paul II proclaimed his beatification, formally recognizing the painter’s dedication to God during his lifetime.
This Saint Anthony Abbot was initially published in 1976 by Miklòs Boskovits, who linked it with a small-scale panel representing the Saint Anthony Abbot Shunning the Mass of Gold in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (fig. 1; loc. cit.). Boskovits believed the two paintings to have come from the same, unidentified altarpiece, with the present painting placed as a lateral saint, flanking a central panel and the Houston picture as part of the predella beneath. Boskovits knew the present painting only through a black and white image in Bernard Berenson’s archive and noted that he was not the first to propose the attribution, as Berenson himself had categorized the photograph under Angelico (ibid.). The image listed the painting as having been owned by J. Paul Getty (1892–1976), acquired in 1955, but this appears to have been an error (private communication, 10 January 2024) and by the time of Boskovits’ writing it had disappeared without trace (ibid.).
Boskovits’ hypothesis linking this Saint Anthony with the Houston panel found validation in the findings of Carolyn Wilson, who in 1995 published an engraving with almost identical compositions, forming parts of a vita retable (fig. 2; loc. cit.). The engraving, preserved in the Museo Civico, Pavia, dates to circa 1460 and shows a central upright image of the saint, surrounded by eleven smaller images depicting scenes from his life. The central saint is almost certainly based on the present painting, showing the same figure but in reverse, holding a book and folds of his habit in his proper right hand and a staff in his left. The unidentified artist squared off the upper section of the image (which is arched in reality), added a decorative swag and included two wild boars and additional trees in the lower section. The Houston painting, meanwhile, can be seen in the upper left corner, in the second row from the top, also shown in reverse. Wilson tentatively suggested the engraving might be evidence of the painting’s original format, with the present panel at the center of a complex, surrounded by smaller narrative scenes (ibid., p. 739). She asserted that while the frontal facing figure would be consistent with the composition of a lateral panel of an altarpiece by Fra Angelico, the landscape setting would be somewhat unusual in this context (ibid.).
At the time of this painting’s exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2005 (loc. cit.), Laurence B. Kanter rejected the possibility that the Pavia engraving might document its original configuration and, moreover, questioned the idea that it may have come from the same complex as the Houston panel (loc. cit.). As Kanter writes, the images depicted in the engraving, ‘were probably derived from a variety of sources, rather than a single model’ and noted the measurements of the Houston painting are such that at least four scenes would have been required to match the central panel in height, while the engraving shows only three (ibid.). As to the relationship between the Houston and present panels, Kanter finds the two to differ considerably in terms of style and iconography. He cites the differences not only in treatment of the figure types in the respective panels, but also in the habits worn by the saint, variations that make it unlikely they belonged to a single complex. Kanter believes the Houston panel instead to have been painted by Angelico’s collaborator, Zanobi Strozzi and to be much later than the present upright saint, dating it to 1445, though this hypothesis has not found wider acceptance.
By contrast, the present Saint Anthony Abbot is certainly an autograph work by Fra Angelico and dates much earlier than the Houston panel. Arguing in favor of this earlier dating, Kanter writes, ‘The strong modelling of the saint’s head and, especially, of his beard; the subtle play of raking light across the folds of his cloak and habit; and the fall of those folds in a carefully described ellipse around his feet, or curling back from the fingers of his left hand, are typical of Angelico’s early interest in emulating Masaccio’s techniques for simulating plasticity and volume’ (ibid., p. 104). Parallels between the softly, rounded figure of Saint Anthony with those in the artist’s Parma tabernacle of 1427 suggest it was likely painted around the same date (ibid., pp. 104-105; for the tabernacle see ibid., pp. 107-111, nos. 21A-21D, illustrated and reconstructed in fig. 63).
This Saint Anthony Abbot was initially published in 1976 by Miklòs Boskovits, who linked it with a small-scale panel representing the Saint Anthony Abbot Shunning the Mass of Gold in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (fig. 1; loc. cit.). Boskovits believed the two paintings to have come from the same, unidentified altarpiece, with the present painting placed as a lateral saint, flanking a central panel and the Houston picture as part of the predella beneath. Boskovits knew the present painting only through a black and white image in Bernard Berenson’s archive and noted that he was not the first to propose the attribution, as Berenson himself had categorized the photograph under Angelico (ibid.). The image listed the painting as having been owned by J. Paul Getty (1892–1976), acquired in 1955, but this appears to have been an error (private communication, 10 January 2024) and by the time of Boskovits’ writing it had disappeared without trace (ibid.).
Boskovits’ hypothesis linking this Saint Anthony with the Houston panel found validation in the findings of Carolyn Wilson, who in 1995 published an engraving with almost identical compositions, forming parts of a vita retable (fig. 2; loc. cit.). The engraving, preserved in the Museo Civico, Pavia, dates to circa 1460 and shows a central upright image of the saint, surrounded by eleven smaller images depicting scenes from his life. The central saint is almost certainly based on the present painting, showing the same figure but in reverse, holding a book and folds of his habit in his proper right hand and a staff in his left. The unidentified artist squared off the upper section of the image (which is arched in reality), added a decorative swag and included two wild boars and additional trees in the lower section. The Houston painting, meanwhile, can be seen in the upper left corner, in the second row from the top, also shown in reverse. Wilson tentatively suggested the engraving might be evidence of the painting’s original format, with the present panel at the center of a complex, surrounded by smaller narrative scenes (ibid., p. 739). She asserted that while the frontal facing figure would be consistent with the composition of a lateral panel of an altarpiece by Fra Angelico, the landscape setting would be somewhat unusual in this context (ibid.).
At the time of this painting’s exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2005 (loc. cit.), Laurence B. Kanter rejected the possibility that the Pavia engraving might document its original configuration and, moreover, questioned the idea that it may have come from the same complex as the Houston panel (loc. cit.). As Kanter writes, the images depicted in the engraving, ‘were probably derived from a variety of sources, rather than a single model’ and noted the measurements of the Houston painting are such that at least four scenes would have been required to match the central panel in height, while the engraving shows only three (ibid.). As to the relationship between the Houston and present panels, Kanter finds the two to differ considerably in terms of style and iconography. He cites the differences not only in treatment of the figure types in the respective panels, but also in the habits worn by the saint, variations that make it unlikely they belonged to a single complex. Kanter believes the Houston panel instead to have been painted by Angelico’s collaborator, Zanobi Strozzi and to be much later than the present upright saint, dating it to 1445, though this hypothesis has not found wider acceptance.
By contrast, the present Saint Anthony Abbot is certainly an autograph work by Fra Angelico and dates much earlier than the Houston panel. Arguing in favor of this earlier dating, Kanter writes, ‘The strong modelling of the saint’s head and, especially, of his beard; the subtle play of raking light across the folds of his cloak and habit; and the fall of those folds in a carefully described ellipse around his feet, or curling back from the fingers of his left hand, are typical of Angelico’s early interest in emulating Masaccio’s techniques for simulating plasticity and volume’ (ibid., p. 104). Parallels between the softly, rounded figure of Saint Anthony with those in the artist’s Parma tabernacle of 1427 suggest it was likely painted around the same date (ibid., pp. 104-105; for the tabernacle see ibid., pp. 107-111, nos. 21A-21D, illustrated and reconstructed in fig. 63).