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Lot Essay
This cassone panel front was part of the renowned collection of Sir John Temple Leader (1810-1903) in the Castello di Vincigliata near Fiesole. He bought the castle in 1855, restoring it in neo-Gothic style and adorning it with pictures and furniture from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This panel is recorded in Vincigliata in 1870, when it was inserted into a later cassone, constructed in fourteenth-century style, as noted by van Marle when he visited the castle in around 1925.
Jerzy Miziołek and Lorenzo Sbaraglio later recognised the work, from photographs, as one of the most important surviving panels of the Master of Charles III of Durazzo, a master who developed in parallel with his contemporaries Mariotto di Nardo and Agnolo Gaddi, and was named after the cassone front of the Conquest of Naples in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 07.120.1). The fullest account of the artist is that of Everett Fahy (‘Florence and Naples: a Cassone Panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, Hommages à Michel Laclotte, Milan, 1994, pp. 231-43) who argues that the New York panel was ordered soon after September 1382, when Charles III, who had entered Naples on 28 June 1381, claimed the crown of Hungary: that panel is the earliest surviving datable cassone front.
Miziołek noted that this particular representation of the story of Lucretia is one of the oldest in Western art, certainly the first treatment of the subject by the Master of Charles III. The first of the painted scenes, each surrounded by the original fine pastiglia decoration, shows Lucretia, who was married to Collatinus, a relative of the tyrannical King Tarquinius of Rome, being visited by one of the princes, Sextus Tarquinius. She rejected his advances and was raped at knife point. Lucretia revealed the crime to her family and demanded vengeance. Then, as shown in the middle scene, wishing to expunge her dishonour, she drew a dagger and plunged it into her heart. Brutus, one of the witnesses to her suicide and a nephew of the king, vowed revenge against the Tarquinius. Along with Collatinus, he led an uprising that forced the king into exile, shown in the right-hand scene, thus ending the monarchy, and establishing the Roman Republic. From the Middle Ages onwards, Lucretia was seen as an exemplar of virtue because of her chastity, loyalty and self-sacrifice, and the story would acquire a certain political significance, where freedom and Republican virtues were celebrated in the face of tyranny. The figures themselves can be compared to others in the early phase of the master’s career, from the 1380s, such as decoration on the cassone in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, showing the Story of Saladin, and the aforementioned panel in the Metropolitan Museum.
Jerzy Miziołek and Lorenzo Sbaraglio later recognised the work, from photographs, as one of the most important surviving panels of the Master of Charles III of Durazzo, a master who developed in parallel with his contemporaries Mariotto di Nardo and Agnolo Gaddi, and was named after the cassone front of the Conquest of Naples in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 07.120.1). The fullest account of the artist is that of Everett Fahy (‘Florence and Naples: a Cassone Panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, Hommages à Michel Laclotte, Milan, 1994, pp. 231-43) who argues that the New York panel was ordered soon after September 1382, when Charles III, who had entered Naples on 28 June 1381, claimed the crown of Hungary: that panel is the earliest surviving datable cassone front.
Miziołek noted that this particular representation of the story of Lucretia is one of the oldest in Western art, certainly the first treatment of the subject by the Master of Charles III. The first of the painted scenes, each surrounded by the original fine pastiglia decoration, shows Lucretia, who was married to Collatinus, a relative of the tyrannical King Tarquinius of Rome, being visited by one of the princes, Sextus Tarquinius. She rejected his advances and was raped at knife point. Lucretia revealed the crime to her family and demanded vengeance. Then, as shown in the middle scene, wishing to expunge her dishonour, she drew a dagger and plunged it into her heart. Brutus, one of the witnesses to her suicide and a nephew of the king, vowed revenge against the Tarquinius. Along with Collatinus, he led an uprising that forced the king into exile, shown in the right-hand scene, thus ending the monarchy, and establishing the Roman Republic. From the Middle Ages onwards, Lucretia was seen as an exemplar of virtue because of her chastity, loyalty and self-sacrifice, and the story would acquire a certain political significance, where freedom and Republican virtues were celebrated in the face of tyranny. The figures themselves can be compared to others in the early phase of the master’s career, from the 1380s, such as decoration on the cassone in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, showing the Story of Saladin, and the aforementioned panel in the Metropolitan Museum.