Bernardo Daddi Active in Florence circa 1320 to 1348

Sir Herbert Horne (1864-1916), Florence;
New York art market, 1924;
J. Pierpont Morgan, Aldenham, Herts.,
His deceased sale ('The Property of the Late J. Pierpont Morgan…removed from Wall Hall, Aldenham, Herts.'), London, Christie’s, 31 March 1944, lot 136 (as Nardo Orcagna);
Mrs. M.H. Drey;
Acquired by the late husband the present owner in 1955.

Lugano-Castagnola, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, “Manifestatori delle Cose Miracolose”. Arte Italiana del ‘300 e ‘400 da Collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, 7 April – 30 June 1991, no. 62 (as Bernardo Daddi).

R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. III, The Hague 1924, p. 508, footnote 1;
R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, vol. VIII, New York 1958, p. 150, reproduced on facing page, plate XL (as “close to the assistant of Daddi”);
K. Steinweg, “Rekonstruktion einer orcagnesken Marienkrönung”, in Mitteilungen des deutschen Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, vol. 10, part II, December 1961, pp. 122-127 (as “Orcagnesque”);
J. Byam Shaw, Paintings by Old Masters at Christ Church Oxford, Oxford 1967, pp. 31-33, reproduced p. 32, fig. 2 (as “Florentine, circa 1340-50”);
E. Neri Lusanna & M. Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, vol. III, Florence 1989 ed., p. 45, footnote 52;
E.S. Skaug, Punch Marks From Giotto to Fra Angelico. Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c.1330-1430, Oslo 1994, vol. I, p. 102, and vol. II, under chart 5.3;
G. Freuler, in “Manifestatori delle Cose Miracolose”. Arte Italiana del ‘300 e ‘400 da Collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, exhibition catalogue, Lugano-Castagnola, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, 7 April – 30 June 1991, pp. 168-170, 277, cat. no. 62, reproduced in colour p. 169 (as Bernardo Daddi).

This important and monumental painting was painted by Bernardo Daddi in Florence between 1340 and 1350.  Although it has in the past been associated with both Jacopo di Cione and his brother, Andrea Orcagna, its status as an autograph work by Daddi has recently been endorsed by Everett Fahy, Andrea de Marchi and Miklos Boskovits.  Daddi was one of the most important Florentine painters of the first half of the fourteenth century.  It is now generally thought that he was taught by Giotto himself, and he remained closely acquainted with his workshop and following.  As this panel shows, his style was rather sweeter and less austere than Giotto's, tempering the latter's gravity with a new grace and refinement.  The typically tender and expressive gestures, the subtle colour harmonies and above all the attention to detail and highly decorative patterning in the throne and draperies are all characteristic of his work.

Daddi depicts the moment when the Virgin Mary assumes her place in heaven at the side of her Son, in the words of the Psalms a 'Queen in vesture of gold' with a 'crown of precious stones'. The group of the Mother of God being crowned by her Son Himself had its origins in the stone portals of the great French Gothic cathedrals and had captivated the medieval imagination as an image of veneration for over a century.  The function of the panel is not entirely clear: it is unlikely that it formed part of a larger polyptch but is more likely to have been conceived as a  free-standing panel, probably intended to adorn a pilaster in a church rather than a private chapel.  Steinweg (see Literature) presumed the panel once formed part of a larger altarpiece; the fact that the panel appears to have been reduced on all sides lending weight to her hypothesis.  The proportions of the throne in particular suggested that the composition must originally have been more extensive.  Subsequent technical analysis supported this view; x-radiography indicated that the darker band along the base of the painting, which appears to be a step leading up to the throne, is largely later restoration, introduced to conceal the aureoles of two figures in each of the lower corners and a hand lower left.  These x-rays made it clear that the present panel was essentially the principal upper portion of a panel that would originally have included a number of considerably smaller figures at the base of the throne.  Steinweg managed to trace the lower register from the same altarpiece; the panel with Four music-making angels in Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford University (see fig. 1; 44.3 by 54 cm.; also reproduced in "Manifestatori delle Cose Miracolose".  Arte Italiana del '300 e '400 da Collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, exhibition catalogue, Lugano-Castagnola, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, 7 April - 30 June 1991, p. 170, fig. 1).  This panel not only includes the two lower steps of the throne on which Christ and Mary sit, but it also partially includes the bodies of the two standing saints (identified by her, not wholly convincingly, as St. John the Baptist and possibly St. Stephen).  Steinweg's reconstruction (fig. 2) would indicate that the panel originally measured approximately 170 by 70 cm. and, given that the two standing saints were included in the same panel as the Coronation itself, the fact that this was a free-standing panel seems even more plausible.

The painting was attributed to Jacopo di Cione by Van Marle when it first appeared on the art market in New York in 1924.  The stylistic similarity between this panel and other works painted by the Di Cione brothers led Berenson to attribute the Christ Church picture to Andrea di Cione, called Orcagna, Jacopo di Cione's elder brother (B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance.  Florentine School, vol. I, London 1963, p. 163).  The Di Cione elements are further underlined by a comparison between this and Nardo di Cione's Coronation of the Virgin in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, which clearly owes much to Bernardo Daddi.  Offner considered the Coronation panel to be by a follower of Bernardo Daddi (whom he named "The Assistant of Daddi"), and his comparison between this panel and the polyptych of the same subject in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Florence, underlined a link between the two works.  Steinweg, remaining insistent that certain features of the painting revealed a hand more advanced than that of the "Assistant of Daddi", believed the picture to be close to Orcagna and dated it to the mid-1340s; a very early date for Orcagna himself.  Byam Shaw goes on to speculate that if, as Berenson suspected, Orcagna was Daddi's pupil and this painting is indeed by a young disciple of Daddi's, then the panel may be a youthful work by Andrea Orcagna himself.  More recently Neri Lusanna and Boskovits have re-assigned the painting to Daddi  (see Literature) and since then this view has met with general agreement: most recently from Everett Fahy (oral communication) and Andrea de Marchi (oral communication).

The Christ Church panel was formerly attributed to Taddeo Gaddi, then it was published as "Florentine School, circa 1340-50", and it has more recently been given to Bernardo Daddi by Freuler (see Literature); an attribution endorsed also by Everett Fahy.  The music-making angels are particularly close to those in the arch of Daddi's painting formerly in San Pancrazio but  today in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, dated to the second half of the 1330s (as pointed out by Freuler and, before him, Byam Shaw).  Given the similarity between the Madonnas in both paintings, Freuler argues that a dating of circa 1345 is probably too late and that a date some five years earlier is more plausible.  The great attention to detail and decorative effect, especially the patterning of the throne and figures' draperies,  is characteristic of Daddi.  In the context of a reconstruction, the throne on which  the figures sit is unusally sophisticated and the perspective of the throne's pilasters is entirely convincing.  Our gaze is directed upwards towards the Coronatioin itself, as the kneeling angel in the lower left foreground also looks up and in towards them.

Sir Herbert Horne, the first recorded owner of this picture, was a successful designer and architect with a passion for early Italian art.  He was a noted art historian, publishing numerous articles on Florentine Trecento and Quattrocento art and an important monograph on Botticelli (published in 1908).  In Florence, where he had been a frequent visitor from the mid 1890s and a resident from 1905, Horne was both private collector and art dealer, conducting business with Bernard Berenson from 1899 as well as acting as a consultant to John G. Johnson and agent for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  His own collection of Italian and English paintings was housed in Palazzo Corsini, which he purchased in 1911, and which he bequeathed, together with its contents, to the Italian State.