The Master of San Jacopo a Mucciana

(active Florence, circa 1400)

The Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist, Catherine of Alexandria, Anthony Abbott and James the Greater

Footnotes

Provenance
The Collection of Sir Thomas and Lady Merton, Berkshire
With Agnews, London
Where purchased by the present owner's mother in the late 1960s

Literature
A. Scharf, Supplement to the Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings from the Collection of Sir Thomas Merton, London, 1950, ill.

Richard Offner was the first to identify the group of paintings given to 'The Master of San Jacopo a Mucciana' in the sale catalogue of Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York (the Property of Henry P. McIlhenny, Philadelphia, and Mrs John Wintersteen, Germantown, Pa., 5-7 June, 1946, lot 149). In his note on the lot, Offner places the artist in Florence circa 1400 and described him as following 'in the main stream of Florentine evolution and specifically in the wake of the great school of Orcagna'. The group has since been added to by Federico Zeri (see 'La mostra 'Arte in Valdelsa' a Certaldo', in Bolletino d'Arte, Vol. XLVIII, p. 247) and Miklos Boskovits (see Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370-1400, Florence 1975, p. 238, under note 164).

The two principal works on which this master's oeuvre has been constructed both have very distinctive punchwork and decoration in both the costume and background. The eponymous altarpiece, previously in the church of San Jacopo in Mucciana and now in the church of San Martino in Argiano, shows similar elaborate punchwork in the haloes and the floral motif used on the Virgin's throne is very close to that used in the lower foreground of the present painting. The coronet decoration of the Virgin's robes also appears in many works by the same hand including that offered in New York in 1946, when Offner first identified the group of works by the master. The distinctive features of the Virgin, with her long face, straight nose and narrow mouth, along with those of the Christ child further serve to place this beautifully preserved picture firmly within the oeuvre of the artist.

The attribution to the Master of San Jacopo a Mucciana was confirmed by Everett Fahy when the painting was bought from Agnews by the present owner's mother.