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Bernardo Daddi (Florence, active circa 1312 - 1348)
'Saint J…
Bernardo Daddi (Florence, active circa 1312 - 1348)
'Saint J…
Lot no. 5
Description
Bernardo Daddi (Florence, active circa 1312 - 1348)
'Saint John the Evangelist'
Tempera and gold on panel.
66 x 34 x 3,1 cm.
With a certificate signed in Rome, on 13/03/2020 by Dr. Alessandro Tomei, Professor of History of Medieval Art at the University ‘G. D'Annunzio’ University of Chieti - Pescara, who was the curator of the exhibition “Giotto e il Trecento”, Rome (2009), the most extensive exhibition dedicated to Giotto since the one held at the Uffizi in Florence in 1937.
A stratigraphic study of a micro-sample taken from the panel painting, realised by Arte-Lab S.L. from Madrid on 14 November 2019, is attached.
The following is a transcription of this certificate, in which the doctor indicates the work is from Bernardo Daddi, stating that it was probably executed in the final phase of his career, and compares it to Daddi's ‘Saint John the Evangelist’ in the Bandini Museum in Fiesole. He also excludes the possibility that the artist collaborated with another painter on the execution of this artwork, as the high quality of the painting leads him to affirm that it is a work executed by the Master himself.
‘The panel depicts Saint John the Evangelist attempting to write in a codex, following the typical medieval iconography of the Evangelists. [...]
The painting must have been a side door of a polyptych of considerable size, which can be assumed from the present size, which is certainly smaller than the original, as part of the lower area is missing.
The saint is wrapped in a cloak of different shades of red, from carmine to white, with a very precise chiaroscuro rendering, which marks a well-structured volume, especially in the folds of the drapery on the right arm.
The dress under the cape is dark in colour, with simple decorative motifs on the wrists and neckline. The cover of the codex is decorated with a central rhomboid motif with fine spirals on the sides.
The stylistic particularities of the panel are reminiscent of Florentine painting of the first half of the 14th century and very convincing comparisons with Bernardo Daddi´s style can be found.
In this case, the Saint John is very similar to another Saint John in the Bandini Museum in Fiesole (Florence), traditionally attributed to Bernardo Daddi. The physical features, the type of drapery and, last but not least, the decoration on the cover of the codex, are so closely related that it is possible to hypothesise about the identity of the author; the pattern of perforation on the halo is also similar in the two paintings.
The first painting, signed by Bernardo Daddi, as Bernardus de Florentia, is dated 1328; it is a triptych kept in Florence in the Uffizi Museum, which is followed by a large attributive corpus, formed through the studies of Richard Offner and Miklòs Boskovits (R. Offner, The Works of Bernardo Daddi, M. Boskovits ed., Florence 1989).
[Bernardo Daddi] was, together with Taddeo Gaddi and Maso di Banco, one of the most interesting personalities of the Florentine pictorial scene of the first half of the 14th century, interpreting the lessons of Giotto with greater linear fluidity. He must have been a member of Giotto´s workshop, according to ancient sources. It is precisely this more marked linear quality that marks Bernardo Daddi as a painter who diverged in part from Giotto's orthodoxy and in a certain way oriented himself towards the contemporary masters of Siena, in particular Pietro Lorenzetti. It is interesting to recall that it was precisely because of Daddi's peculiarities in form that Richard Offner coined the expression “Miniaturist Tendency” to describe a trend in Florentine painting in the first half of the 14th century.
The Saint John in question seems to date from the final phase of Bernardo Daddi's career, when his distancing from Giotto's teachings seems to have broadened’.
Bernardo Daddi was an important Florentine painter, active in the late 13th and early 14th century. Following Giotto's death, Daddi became the most prominent painter in Florence, according to the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. His early work reveals the influence of Giotto's models, as can be seen in the frescoes in the Pulci-Berardi chapel in the church of Santa Croce in Florence. By the 1330s Daddi had a prosperous workshop with many assistants and produced numerous small works for private use. During this period the influence of the Lorenzetti brothers was present in his work.
Some of his most notable work includes the portable Triptych in the Loggia del Bigallo, dated around 1333, the ‘Triptych with the Virgin and Child, with Saint Matthew the Evangelist and Saint Nicholas of Bari’ (1328) (inv. 1890 n. 3073), now in the Uffizi Gallery, and the famous ‘Polyptych of Saint Pancrazio’, 1330-1338 (inv. 1890, no. 8345), also in the Uffizi Gallery, with three panels being on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Provenance: Private collection. Spain.
Reference bibliography:
- Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. (s.f.). 'Bernardo Daddi'. https://www.museothyssen.org/coleccion/artistas/daddi-bernardo
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