DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0186
148
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
[1406-
ling of the heads and hands, and graceful women-
figures and architectural accessories are introduced
in the background with a highly decorative effect.
The original drawing for this sweet, mournful Virgin-
face is in the Dreyfus collection in Paris, and is said
to be a portrait of the fair novice Lucrezia Buti who
afterwards became Fra Lippo’s wife. The picture
evidently belongs to the friar’s maturer years, and
was probably painted when he was at Prato. To
an earlier date we must ascribe the Madonna and
Angels in the Louvre, which was ordered by the
Captain of Or’ San Michele for a chapel in S. Spirito,
in 1336, and which Lippi complained would cost him
five years of incessant toil!
The large Coronation of the Virgin, in the Accademia,
was ordered in 1441, by the Prior of S. Ambrogio, but
only completed six years later, when the painter
received the sum of 1200 lire. Here the painter’s
conception of the scene is strikingly original. Three
rows of angels crowned with roses, and holding tall
white lilies, stand around the throne; saints and
bishops, monks and nuns mingle with little children
in the crowd of worshippers below; and in the right
hand, conspicuous among these splendid robes and
wealth of ornament by his shaven head and Carmelite
habit, is Fra Lippo himself, clasping his hands de-
voutly, while a laughing Angel holds up a scroll
with the words Iste perfecit opus. In the same year
that he finished this important work, he received
another forty florins from the Signory of Florence
for the small Vision of St. Bernard, in the National
Gallery, which originally hung in a hall of the
Palazzo Pubblico. But in spite of increasing fame
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
[1406-
ling of the heads and hands, and graceful women-
figures and architectural accessories are introduced
in the background with a highly decorative effect.
The original drawing for this sweet, mournful Virgin-
face is in the Dreyfus collection in Paris, and is said
to be a portrait of the fair novice Lucrezia Buti who
afterwards became Fra Lippo’s wife. The picture
evidently belongs to the friar’s maturer years, and
was probably painted when he was at Prato. To
an earlier date we must ascribe the Madonna and
Angels in the Louvre, which was ordered by the
Captain of Or’ San Michele for a chapel in S. Spirito,
in 1336, and which Lippi complained would cost him
five years of incessant toil!
The large Coronation of the Virgin, in the Accademia,
was ordered in 1441, by the Prior of S. Ambrogio, but
only completed six years later, when the painter
received the sum of 1200 lire. Here the painter’s
conception of the scene is strikingly original. Three
rows of angels crowned with roses, and holding tall
white lilies, stand around the throne; saints and
bishops, monks and nuns mingle with little children
in the crowd of worshippers below; and in the right
hand, conspicuous among these splendid robes and
wealth of ornament by his shaven head and Carmelite
habit, is Fra Lippo himself, clasping his hands de-
voutly, while a laughing Angel holds up a scroll
with the words Iste perfecit opus. In the same year
that he finished this important work, he received
another forty florins from the Signory of Florence
for the small Vision of St. Bernard, in the National
Gallery, which originally hung in a hall of the
Palazzo Pubblico. But in spite of increasing fame