Master of the Misericordia

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. Both of these panels have been fairly recently restored and should be presented as is. In the painting of the Virgin there is a crack to the panel in the lower left, which is quite visible but not unstable, and does not seem to warrant any attention at present. The figure herself is largely unrestored except for her hands, where the fingers and some portions of the hands here have received some restoration. The gilding in the background immediately surrounding the figure seems to be old if not original. The four outer corners are probably regilded and the halo may also have been regilded. In the portrait of St. John, the figure is in very good condition with only some slight restoration on the left edge of the blue sleeve and a small amount of retouching in the face. The gilding in the background may have been enhanced, yet the panel is stable and the picture should be hung as is.
"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."

These representations of the Virgin and Saint John mourning originally flanked the image of a Christ, probably as the Man of Sorrows, which all together formed a predella panel for an as yet unidentified altarpiece.  Based on photographs, Miklós Boskovits has suggested that the central section of the group is most likely the Christ as Vir Dolorum in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (inv. 196, cf.  B. Sarrazin, Catalogue raisonné des peintures italiennes du musée des beaux-arts de Nantes, Nantes/Paris 1994, reproduced in color p. 80, cat. no. 5).  This suggestion seems highly likely; the height of the present pair without the strips added around the edges corresponds closely to the size of the Christ in Nantes (which is 15 by 27.5 cm., the central section of the predella being given slightly more width, but not height).  In addition, the punchwork corresponds, with the same lozenge-shaped reserve around the figure and decorated with the same patterns.  The Nantes picture, however, retains its original painted decoration on the outsides of these decorative borders; the present pair have been regilt in the corners, although vestiges of the original decoration are faintly discernible.  The Nantes Christ was purchased by the museum in 1810, and so the panels must have been separated before that date. 

The artistic personality of the Master of the Misericordia was first isolated by Richard Offner (whom he in fact christened the Master of the Orcagnesque Misericordia) around a panel by the artist now in the collection of the Accademia, Florence (inv.8562).  The corpus of his works was substantially augmented by Boskovits (Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, Florence 1975, pp. 366-72) who suggested that he might be identifiable with Giovanni, the older brother of Agnolo Gaddi based on stylistic comparison; however, until documentary evidence surfaces to prove this suggestion, it remains hypothetical. 

We are grateful to Miklós Boskovits for his comments on this lot and for first identifying the present panels to be by the Master of the Misericordia.