Photograph by Ed Pollard, Hasselblad H4D50 - 2012.

Madonna and Child Flanked by Four Saints

ArtistAttributed to Naddo Ceccarelli (Italian, active ca.1339 - 1347)

CultureItalian

Dateca. 1339-1347

MediumTempera and gold leaf on panel

DimensionsOverall: 22 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (57.2 x 52.1 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Irene Leache Memorial Foundation, in recognition of the leadership and guidance of its Presidents, 1901–2014: Annie Cogswell Wood, Fannie Rogers Curd, Melissa Payne King, Nannie Baylor Wolcott, Frances Ferguson Carney, Juliet McClure Dalton, Indiana Lindsay Bilisoly, Clara Mitchell Wolcott, Edith Brooke Robertson, Carter Grandy Bernert, Gail Kirby Evett, Jo Ann Mervis Hofheimer, Harriet Travilla Reynolds, Vickie Bowdoin Bilisoly

Object number2014.3.5

Collections

European Art before 1945

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, 310, ROW 07

DescriptionThis tempera and gold leaf on panel painting is a "three-part altarpiece, or triptych, topped with pointed, Gothic arches...The intimate size of [this] tabernacle -- it measures less than two feet square -- suggests that it was not a public, ecclesiastical commission, but a work intended for private devotion. So, too, do the saints who appear on the shutters. Three of them -- Eligius, Bartholomew and Nicholas -- are associated less with ecclesiastical or monastic institutions than with medieval craft guilds, those of blacksmiths, butchers and sailors, respectively. In the center panel the Virgin, with the Child in her arms, stands on a plinth, as though she were a polychromed statue come to life. Attending the Virgin at left are Saint Eligius, who holds his attributes -- the tools of the blacksmith's forge -- and Saint Bartholomew, who displays the knife with which he was martyred. At right are Saint Anthony Abbot, with his book and staff, and Saint Nicholas of Bari, who bears the three golden balls that, legend has it, he gave to enrich the dowries of an impoverished nobleman's daughters. Crowning the wings of the triptych is a two-part Annunciation to the Virgin; the angel of the Annunciation recalls the design of the angel in Giotto's ANNUNCIATION in the Arena Chapel, Padua (ca. 1305)." --Jefferson C. Harrison, THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM HANDBOOK OF THE EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN COLLECTIONS: SELECTED PAINTINGS, SCULPTURE AND DRAWINGS (The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, 1991), p. 2.

Label TextAttributed to Naddo Ceccarelli Italian, active ca. 1339–1347 Virgin and Child Flanked by Four Saints Tempera and gold leaf on wood Like a Gothic dollhouse, this delicate three-part altarpiece shelters the Virgin and her son at center stage, where they tower over the saints who attend to them. The work’s fairly modest size suggests that it was not a church commission, but a work used in private worship. Nonetheless, its luminous colors, delicate floral banding, and lavish gold-leaf background suggest that the buyer paid a pretty penny to hang it at home. During the Middle Ages, an intense devotional cult paid homage to the Virgin Mary and celebrated her role as the blessed Mother of God with paintings like this one. Gift of the Irene Leache Memorial Foundation, in recognition of the leadership and guidance of its Presidents, 1901–2014: Annie Cogswell Wood, Fannie Rogers Curd, Melissa Payne King, Nannie Baylor Wolcott, Frances Ferguson Carney, Juliet McClure Dalton, Indiana Lindsay Bilisoly, Clara Mitchell Wolcott, Edith Brooke Robertson, Carter Grandy Bernert, Gail Kirby Evett, Jo Ann Mervis Hofheimer, Harriet Travilla Reynolds, and Vickie Bowdoin Bilisoly 2014.3.5 ProvenanceEarl of Haddington; Sotheby's, London, Dec. 8, 1971, lot 34; Irene Leache Memorial Loan to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 1972; gift of the Irene Leache Memorial Foundation to the Chrysler Museum, March 2014. Exhibition History"The Adoration of the Magi by Bartolo di Fredi: A Masterpiece Reintegrated," University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, March 1 - May 27, 2012; Museum of Biblical Art, New York, NY, June 8 – September 9, 2012.Published ReferencesEliot W. Rowlands. "Sienese Painted Reliquaries of the Trecento: Their Format and Meaning," _Konsthistorisk Tidskrift_. XLVIII:pp. 122-138, fig. 19. Bernard Berenson. _Italian Pictures of the Renaisssance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools_. London, 1968, 85. "Important New Accessions," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ Vol. 1, no. 6 (August 1972): Cristina De Benedictis, "Naddo Ceccarelli," _Commentari_. 25 (1974), 148, 153, note 14. Martha Stokes. "Spotlighting the Madonna and Child," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_. Vol. 10, no. 12. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum. 12/1980: _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_, (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 24. Jefferson C. Harrison, "Italian Art - Fourteenth To Sixteenth Century," _The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide_ (Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum, 1987), no. 1, 2, ill. Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, no. 1, 2. Klaus Krüger, edited by Victor M. Schmidt, "Medium and Imagination: Aesthetic Aspects of Trecento Panel Painting," _Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento_ Vol. 61 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002): 57-82, fig. 26. Morten Steen Hansen and Joaneath A. Spicer,_Masterpieces of Italian Painting: The Walters Art Museum_ London: Giles, an imprint of D Giles Limited, 2005, 24, 26 (fig. 2), 27.