Stefano di Giovanni detto ‘Il Sassetta’
Angelo annunziante (Ange de l’Annonciation)
Tempéra et or sur panneau,
Provenance :
Massa Marittima, Museo d’Arte Sacra di San Pietro all’Orto.
Il s’agit de l’une des deux cuspides subsistant d’un polyptyque de Sassetta longtemps considéré comme celui de la Compagnie de l’Arte della Lana de Sienne exécuté par l’artiste en 1424. Son pendant, la Vierge de l’Annonciation est aujourd’hui conservé à la Yale University Art Gallery de New Haven, aux États-Unis.
Virgin Annunciate, v. 1430–32. Tempéra et or sur panneau, 80 x 54,6 cm (sans le cadre : 59,5 x 50 cm.
Gift of Hannah D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz
Provenance:
Believed to have been in Italy, perhaps at Chiusdino; Langton Douglas Collection, London; Dan Fellows Platt Collection, Englewood, New Jersey (ca. 1911–36); E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, NY; Rabinowitz Collection, Sands Point, Long Island (ca. 1944–59).
“In 1911 Mason Perkins discovered two pinnacles, one with the Angel Gabriel now in Massa Marittima and the other with the Virgin Annunciate now in New Haven (figs. 20, 21). Mason Perkins, followed by Pope-Hennessy, suggested that they were the lateral crowning elements of the Madonna della Neve. A missing Salvator would have gone in between the Annunciation pinnacles. In 1956, Zeri pointed out that this reconstruction was architecturally and stylistically incongruous and associated the Annunciation instead with the Arte della Lana altarpiece. This suggestion was rightly rejected by Christiansen, who, however, subsequently reproposed a Madonna della Neve provenance. Yet Blauwkuip’s findings had already clarified the situation. The pinnacles cannot be associated with any other known work of Sassetta, and must therefore be considered as the only remnants of an altarpiece of so far unknown provenance” (Israëls 2003, pp. 60-61).
Bibliography:
F. Mason Perkins, “Dipinti Italiani nella Raccolta Platt, Parte I,” Rassegna d’Arte 11 (1911): 5, fig. 7.
F. Mason Perkins, “La Pala d’altare del Sassetta a Chiusdino,” Rassegna d’Arte 12 (1912): 196.
F. Mason Perkins, “A Proposito della Pala del Sassetta a Chiusdino,” Rassegna d’Arte 13 (1913): 40, Sassetta, part of the Madonna della Neve altarpiece.
Raimond van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 1, 3, 9, 17 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1923), 334–335, Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, pinnacles to Madonna della Neve altarpiece, fig. 211.
Lionello Venturi, Pitture Italiane in America, 2 (Milan, Italy: Libreria Antiquaria Hoepli, 1931), pl. CXI Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection.
Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works, with an Index of Places (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 512, Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection.
George Harold Edgell, A History of Sienese Painting (New York: Dial Press, Inc., 1932), 192, (Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, part of Madonna della Neve altarpiece), fig. 252.
Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, 1 (New York: E. Weyhe, Inc., 1933), pl. 144 Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection.
Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere, con un indice dei luoghi (Milan, Italy: Libreria Antiquaria Hoepli, 1936), 440, (Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, ca. 1430–32).
Louis M. Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz Collection (New York: The Twin Editions, 1945), 13–14, pl. VII, fig. 2 Sassetta, part of Madonna della Neve altarpiece.
Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, 3 (London: Phaidon Press, 1968), vol. 1, p. 386.
Charles Seymour Jr., Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery: A Catalogue by Charles Seymour, Jr. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970), 207, 209, no. 156, fig. 156.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 183, 601.
Katherine Neilson and Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, Selected Paintings and Sculpture from the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), no. 9.
Everett Fahy, “Review of Early Italian Paintings in the Yale University Art Gallery,” Art Bulletin 56, no. 2 (June 1974): 284.
Nicola da Giacomo, “Sassetta between 1423 and 1433-II,” Burlington Magazine 23 (1913): 278, pl. IV, Q Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, as cusp on the sinister side crowning the Madonna della Neve altarpiece in the Duomo of Siena.
Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, A history of painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the second to the sixteenth century (London: London, 1914), 169–170, note 1 Sassetta, Dan Fellow Platt Collection, as one of three cusps crowning the Madonna della Neve altarpiece.
John Pope-Hennessy, Sassetta (London: London, 1939), 27, 53, note 69 Sassetta, as lateral panel with Massa Marittima Angel contiguous to panel of the Redeemer in Madonna della Neve altarpiece.
John Pope-Hennessy, Sienese Quattrocento Painting (London: London, 1947), 25.
Enzo Carli, Sassetta e il Maestro dell’ Osservanza (Milan: Aldo Martello Editore, 1957), 12.
Henk van Os, Sienese altarpieces, 1215-1460: form, content, function (Groningen, The Netherlands: Bouma’s Boekhuis, 1984-1990), 167–168.
Bernard Berenson, “A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend,” Burlington Magazine 2 and 4 (1903): 179–180, discusses Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve altarpiece.
Federico Zeri, “Towards a Reconstruction of Sassetta’s Arte della Lana Triptych (1423-6),” Burlington Magazine 98 (1956): 36–39.
L. Blauwkuip, Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve altaarstuk(Groningen, Germany: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1980), 13.
Machtelt Israëls, Sassetta’s Madonna della Neve: An Image of Patronage (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2003), 60–62, fig. 21.
John Pope-Hennessy, “Rethinking Sassetta,” Burlington Magazine98 (1956): 364–70.
Machtelt Israëls, “New documents for Sassetta and Sano di Pietro at the Porta Romana, Siena,” Burlington Magazine (1998): 436–444.
Lionello Venturi, “The Rabinowitz Collection,” Art Quarterly 7 (1945): pl. CXI.
Keith Christiansen, Laurence Kanter, and Carl Strehlke, The Arte della Lana altarpiece (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988), 65.
Edna Perkel, An Exhibition of Paintings: for the Benefit of the Research Fund of Art and Archaeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., exh. cat. (New York: E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Inc., October 12–November 1, 1955), 16, no. 4, ill.