Taddeo di Bartolo

Sir Edmund Waterton (1830-1887), Walton Hall, Yorkshire (his wax seal is affixed to the reverse);
Lt.-Col. G.T.M. Scrope, O.B.E.;
By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 8 December 1971, lot 36, for £38,000 to Baile.

Antichità Viva, Year XI, no. 2, 1972, p. 67, reproduced (reporting the painting's appearance in the Sotheby's sale the previous year);
G. Freuler, in Engel sind überall, exhibition catalogue, Zurich, Credit Suisse, 27 October 1999 - 28 January 2000, p. 117, cat. no. 8, reproduced in colour on p. 118.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This small altarpiece has clearly always been treated with great reverence. Portable triptychs have naturally been subject to more handling and hazards than most paintings but in this case even the outer casing, while worn and flaked in parts, has remained generally intact, with some of the original fastenings, much of the original marbling on the back and some even on the outer sides of the two wings. There is one short, narrow inserted strip at the lower left edge of the left wing, and various little old holes from lost central fastenings. A certain amount of past worm damage has been limited, the only trace in the painted surface being one small exit hole in the peak of the central panel. The inner surfaces of the finials around the frame have been regessoed and regilded at some time, with the inner frame edges, but this has not impinged upon the interior of any of the painted panels even along the extreme edges of the pounced decoration. The panels themselves appear always to have been flat and stable, with just slight old cracks at the bases of the two wings, which could have come from folding. There are a few signs of old flaking: with a group of lost flakes around the signature at lower centre, also possibly connected to handling, a past loss in the gilding above the Madonna's halo and to the left of it, some smaller lost flakes on each side of the head of the Child and in the white drapery just beneath with a little descending into His golden drapery, a narrow line of retouching down the cheek of the Madonna into her throat, and an even smaller line just above her eyebrow down the craquelure, a tiny touch on the forehead of the Child, little touches on the forehead of the Madonna, on the forehead of the upper angel to her left and the forehead of the next angel in blue and gold, and a small retouched flake in the head of the cherubim on the left of the red drapery beneath the Madonna. There are occasional minute lost flakes in the craquelure, which is very fine and even, and the shadows of the Virgin's Lapis drapery have been lightly strengthened in various places within the folds, with a few strengthening touches in the red drapery of the angel at upper right, a little line in the drapery above the bowing hand of the angel violinist at lower right and one or two touches at the extreme left edge, in a wing and in the punched border. However these are unusually minor touches overall. The lapis drapery is in beautiful condition generally, unblanched and delicately intense, as is the embroidered surface detail virtually throughout, with the flesh painting of the hands and faces softly patinated and intact, and the astonishing finesse of the sgraffito decoration in the drapery miraculously preserved. It is rare to find that the surface was almost entirely gilded beneath the paint, and that this has not caused any separation of the layers; but that as well as the gold uncovered by the decoration the craquelure itself glimmers with gold within all the most sacred figures. In the upper section even the head and hands of God the Father have decorative gold hatching. Only the Saints in the side panels are without a golden underlayer. St John the Baptist is finely intact, with a single diagonal scratch across the lower centre of his robe retouched, with a few other touches nearby under the scroll and some retouching at the base. The right edge of the arch above has been regessoed a little and the red folds in the Annunciation angel above have been slightly strengthened. The far side of her cheek has also been marginally chipped, and on the other wing the Annunciation Virgin has lost a small flake on the side of the forehead and one inside the palm of her hand. St Jerome is also exceptionally well preserved overall, with one flaking loss in the gilding to the left of his shoulder, a small lost flake in his hat, and otherwise just a few strengthening touches in his drapery and at the base. The exceptionally beautiful condition of this little triptych is rare. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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."

This delightful triptych by Taddeo di Bartolo has only been published once since its appearance at auction for the first and only time in 1971; six years after the publication of Sibilla Symeonides' monograph on the artist. It is an exquisite example of Taddeo di Bartolo's late Gothic style: the colourful palette and curvilinear patterns of drapery are characteristic, as is the delicate ornamentation in the pounced and patterned robes of the angels, the Madonna and Christ Child.

The son of a barber, Taddeo di Bartolo is first recorded in Siena in 1386 as a polychromist of statuettes for the Cathedral's new choir-stalls. Two years later he became counsellor to the Cathedral Works and in 1389 is listed as an independent painter for the first time. During the course of the 1390s he travelled to Pisa and Genoa, finding a wife in the latter, returning to Siena by 1399. It was in the first and second decades of the 15th century that Taddeo received most of his major commissions in his native city, by which time he had established a large workshop to cope with the growing demand for his work.

This triptych's intimate scale and portable format suggest that it was intended for private devotion and Taddeo prominently signed the work along the lower edge of the central panel. Although this size is by no means unique in Taddeo di Bartolo's œuvre, many of the artist's surviving paintings are on a much larger scale or are fragments from more complex polyptychs. Certain elements of the painting's composition can be found elsewhere in Taddeo's œuvre and although the triptych is undated, its association with other works allows us to date it to circa 1400 or shortly afterwards. A number of similarities can be found in Taddeo's larger signed triptych of The Madonna and Child enthroned with music-making angels, flanked by Saints John the Baptist and Andrew in the Compagnia di Santa Caterina della Notte, Siena (the chapel beneath the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala), which is also dated 1400.¹  That painting, considered one of Taddeo's masterpieces, shows the Madonna and Child enthroned whereas the Madonna here is seated on the ground, as usually found in representations of the 'Madonna of Humility'. Two angels play a viola da braccio and a harp at the Madonna's feet, rather like the music-making angels surrounding the central group here; such angels reappear in other works by Taddeo, such as in his famous polyptych of The Assumption of the Virgin in Montepulciano, which is dated 1401.²  The most striking resemblance between the two works, however, is the figure of St. John the Baptist. He flanks the left side of the central group and stands in an identical pose; feet planted a little apart, head in three-quarter view, left hand holding a cartellino inscribed 'Ecce agnus dei qui toll[is peccata mundi]...' and right hand pointing to the Madonna and Child in the centre of the composition. The figure of the Baptist was clearly repeated on other occasions, such as in Taddeo's signed panel in the church of San Donato, Ginestreto (Siena), also datable to circa 1400.³  All these works, including the present triptych, were produced at the very height of Taddeo di Bartolo's career and illustrate his position as one of the leading artists bridging the late Gothic and early Renaissance style in Siena.

A note on the provenance
The wax seal on the reverse is that of Sir Edmund Waterton (1830-1887), who used the obsolete title of 27th Lord of Walton. Whilst himself a pre-eminent collector of rings and Catholic manuscripts, his father had acquired a large collection of 148 Old Masters from Herr Berwind in Würzburg in 1830 and brought them back to Walton Hall. It is not known if the Taddeo triptych formed part of this collection which apparently included paintings by Paolo Veronese, Holbein, Van Dyck and Tiepolo. Sir Edmund was forced to sell Walton Hall in 1876 because of large debts, at which point the collection was presumably dispersed; it is not recorded as having been transferred to Alston Hall, near Preston, with his father's natural history collection. Both father and son were devout Catholics and Knights of the Supreme Order of Christ whilst Edmund was also a Knight of Malta and a Papal Privy Chamberlain.

We are grateful to Dr. Gaudenz Freuler for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. Dr. Freuler believes that the triptych dates from an early phase in Taddeo di Bartolo's career, that is 1393-95, on the basis of stylistic comparisons with his Madonna of Humility of 1395, today in the Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, but originally forming the central panel of a larger altarpiece for the Campigli-Sardi Chapel in the church of San Francesco, Pisa.⁴

 

1. See S. Symeonides, Taddeo di Bartolo, Siena 1965, p. 209, reproduced plate XVIII. The date has sometimes, incorrectly, been read as 1410.
2. The Madonna is surrounded by a throng of music-making angels in the central panel of the polyptych in the Cathedral at Montepulciano, for which see Symeonides, op. cit., plate XX and a detail plate XXVI.
3. Symeonides, ibid., p. 210, reproduced plate XIXa.
4. For which see G. Freuler, in Dagli eredi di Giotto al primo Cinquecento, Firenze 2007, pp. 44-49.