DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22424#0236
222
THE PRINCE CONSORT'S COLLECTION. Letter IV.
Lower still is the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.
Lower Compartment to the Right. The Birth of the Virgin.
Beneath this. The Marriage of the Virgin.
An admirable production in conception and execution, and
most delicately finished. The date 1367 is on the pedestal, and
on the back is inscribed " Justus pinxit in Archa." The word
"Archa" most probably means Arqua, famous as Petrarch's
dwelling-place. This picture is the only example I know which
exhibits this admirable master as a tempera painter. In point of
composition, beauty, and truth of some highly dramatic motives,
noble style of drapery, and delicate completion, he represents the
highest artistic development of his time. In all these respects,
too, he shows so close an affinity with Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's
principal scholar—witness the frescoes by Taddeo in the Baron-
celli and Bandini Chapels in the Church of S. Croce, at Florence,
—as to induce the belief of his having been a scholar of that
master.* Only in his pale flesh tones do we remark a decided
difference. He is particularly important in the history of art as
assisting to throw light on Aldighiero da Zevio and Jacobo
d'Avanzo, the admirable Paduan painters, whose frescoes have
been illustrated in a work by Ernst Forster.
16. Sano di Pietro.—Virgin and Child. On wood. 1 ft. 10 in.
by 1 ft. 3 in. A picture attractive in motive, and pleasing in the
heads of the Child and the Angels. The works of this generally-
speaking mediocre master are rightly cited as specimens of the
decline of the Sienese school, which, having attained great excel-
lence in the 13th and 14th centuries, was outstripped by the Flo-
rentine school in the 15th; a circumstance which agrees also with
the decline of the political importance of Siena at that time.
Umbeian School, and School of Romagna.
17. Niccolo Alunno.—Virgin and Child. Niccolo Alunno,
an excellent master of the Umbrian school, was first suggested by
Rumohr as the probable teacher of Pietro Perugino. Judging
* This conclusion gains in probability from a notice by Zani reporting him to be
a Florentine by birth, and a son of Gio. Menabuoi, and that he received the name of
Padovano merely from his long residence in Padua. (See ' Menabuoi,' Zani's Ency-
clopedia, parte lma, vol. xiii.; also the ' Annotazioni' in the same vol., p. 470, No. 45.)
Vasari attributes to him all the frescoes in the chapel of St. John the Baptist, in
the chapel of St. Luke, in the church of St. Antonio, and also those in the chapel
degli Eremitani, all in Padua. See the Piorence edition of 1832-38, part 1, p. 429.
THE PRINCE CONSORT'S COLLECTION. Letter IV.
Lower still is the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.
Lower Compartment to the Right. The Birth of the Virgin.
Beneath this. The Marriage of the Virgin.
An admirable production in conception and execution, and
most delicately finished. The date 1367 is on the pedestal, and
on the back is inscribed " Justus pinxit in Archa." The word
"Archa" most probably means Arqua, famous as Petrarch's
dwelling-place. This picture is the only example I know which
exhibits this admirable master as a tempera painter. In point of
composition, beauty, and truth of some highly dramatic motives,
noble style of drapery, and delicate completion, he represents the
highest artistic development of his time. In all these respects,
too, he shows so close an affinity with Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto's
principal scholar—witness the frescoes by Taddeo in the Baron-
celli and Bandini Chapels in the Church of S. Croce, at Florence,
—as to induce the belief of his having been a scholar of that
master.* Only in his pale flesh tones do we remark a decided
difference. He is particularly important in the history of art as
assisting to throw light on Aldighiero da Zevio and Jacobo
d'Avanzo, the admirable Paduan painters, whose frescoes have
been illustrated in a work by Ernst Forster.
16. Sano di Pietro.—Virgin and Child. On wood. 1 ft. 10 in.
by 1 ft. 3 in. A picture attractive in motive, and pleasing in the
heads of the Child and the Angels. The works of this generally-
speaking mediocre master are rightly cited as specimens of the
decline of the Sienese school, which, having attained great excel-
lence in the 13th and 14th centuries, was outstripped by the Flo-
rentine school in the 15th; a circumstance which agrees also with
the decline of the political importance of Siena at that time.
Umbeian School, and School of Romagna.
17. Niccolo Alunno.—Virgin and Child. Niccolo Alunno,
an excellent master of the Umbrian school, was first suggested by
Rumohr as the probable teacher of Pietro Perugino. Judging
* This conclusion gains in probability from a notice by Zani reporting him to be
a Florentine by birth, and a son of Gio. Menabuoi, and that he received the name of
Padovano merely from his long residence in Padua. (See ' Menabuoi,' Zani's Ency-
clopedia, parte lma, vol. xiii.; also the ' Annotazioni' in the same vol., p. 470, No. 45.)
Vasari attributes to him all the frescoes in the chapel of St. John the Baptist, in
the chapel of St. Luke, in the church of St. Antonio, and also those in the chapel
degli Eremitani, all in Padua. See the Piorence edition of 1832-38, part 1, p. 429.