Gherardo di Jacopo di Neri, called Gherardo Starnina

With Wildenstein, London, by 1973, from whom acquired for the present ownership in April 1982.

C. Volpe, `Per il completamento dell'altare di S. Lorenzo del Maestro del Bambino Vispo', in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, vol. XVII, nos. 2/3, 1973, p. 357 & n17, reproduced p. 355, fig. 7;
C. Syre, Studien zum "Maestro del Bambino Vispo" und Starnina, Bonn 1979, p. 124-125, as by a follower of Starnina;
M. Laclotte, 'Autour de Starnina de Lucques à Valence', in D. Parenti and A Tartuferi (eds.), Nuovi Studi sulla pittura tardogotica. Intorno a Lorenzo Monaco, Florence 2007, p. 66-75.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar, who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The panel has been cradled and this is ensuring an even and secure structural support. There is an overall craquelure pattern which is stable and not visually distracting. Paint Surface The paint surface has a rather dull varnish layer and would benefit from surface cleaning and revarnishing. There is one very small spot of paint loss in the lower left of the composition and a thin diagonal scratch through the tower in the top right of the composition which is approximately 2 cm in length. There are very small flecks of paint loss around the framing edges. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows just a few small retouchings the most significant of which are: 1) three areas in the gold ground in the upper left, and 2) a thin horizontal line in the pink draperies in the lower left of the composition which is approximately 3 cm in length and other very small spots of inpainting. It would appear that there are other retouchings beneath the varnish layers which do not fluoresce under ultra-violet light but are visible in natural light, the most noticeable of which are on the grey pigments of the building in the upper right of the composition and in the foreground beneath the building. These retouchings appear to be excessive and I am sure if removed could be considerably reduced. There are also small scattered areas of apparently pale discoloured retouching in the pink draperies of the woman being saved. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in reasonably good and stable condition and should respond well to cleaning and revarnishing.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Vasari might be correct in considering Starnina to be one of the precursors of the Florentine renaissance, but other information that he gave about the artist has turned out to be unreliable.  Starnina was enrolled in the Compagnia di San Luca in Florence in 1387, and is recorded in the next decade in Spain: in Toledo in 1395, and in Valencia between 1398 and 1401.  Back in Florence, he decorated the chapel of S. Gerolamo in the Carmine, and of his frescoes in Santo Stefano in Empoli where he is recorded in 1409, a detached fragment survives.  Various attempts have been made to reconstruct his oeuvre, and he is now generally recognised as the author of a group of works, including this one, who was known as the Master of the Bambino Vispo after his recurrent depiction of an unusually lively Infant Christ. 

Volpe published this picture as the Master of the Bambino Vispo before the identification as Starnina was made.  He notes the Florentine character of the work, likening it to the work of Rossello di Jacopo Franchi and Giovanni Toscani. 

We are most grateful to Dr Gaudenz Freuler for endorsing the attribution and for pointing out that the predella panel has been associated for its similar size and style with two other predellas by Starnina depicting The Stigmatization of Saint Francis and Saint Martin cutting his cloak for a beggar, both listed as in a private collection.¹  According to Laclotte (see Literature) a fourth predella from the series showing Saint Michael fighting the Dragon was stolen from the Musée d'art et d'histoire, Langres. A photomontage of the proposed recontsruction of the predellas is illustrated by Laclotte (op. cit., p. 69, fig. 5). The main portion of the dismembered altarpiece is yet to be identified.

Volpe wondered if the Franciscan Saint might be S. Giovanni Gualberto (c.985-1073), but without giving a reason; no such subject is recorded in the life of this most Tuscan of saints, who was the son of a Florentine nobleman, and who entered the Benedictine Order and later founded the monastery at Vallombrosa in the Casentino, which spawned in his lifetime a further eleven Vallombrosan houses.

1.  See Syre under Literature, reproduced figs. 153 and 154.