Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

Anonymous sale, Paris, Christie's, 22 June 2006, lot 13.

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The panel appears in very good condition, the reverse appears to have been coated, probably to act as a moisture barrier while the integral frame appears in very good condition, and the small losses in the lower corners have been retouched. The gold ground and paint layers appear in excellent condition, there are no recent damages or loss and the adhesion between the paint and the ground layers and the support appears excellent. There are a couple of slightly raised craqulure in the area of the gold ground, however this appears stable. The painting has been recently restored. There are minor retouching present scattered across the three figures, most noticeably, there is a thin scratch on Our Lady's face and small losses to St John's robe. There is also retouching present below Christ's tomb. There is a recently applied varnish layer present and only a very minor amount of surface dust.
"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 exquisite private devotional object, preserved in its original engaged frame, was painted by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini, in or near Florence, in circa 1390-95. The original gold and tool work is still beautifully preserved, with the individual overlapping leaves now obvious to the naked eye. Rarest of all is the artist's signature which, although now difficult to read, seems to correspond to that beneath St John the Baptist on the west wall of Gerini's great masterpiece in the chapel of San Francesco, Prato.¹ Indeed, the painting itself has much in common with this cycle of the life of Christ which was executed circa 1395 at a time when Gerini had discovered a renewed interest in the types and style of Giotto, eschewing unnecessary descriptive detail in favour of the more simplified forms that are typified by the present work. The physiognomies here do however recall those of Gerini's slightly earlier altarpiece, from 1387, depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist (National Gallery, London), notably those of Mary and Saint John.

Small-scale devotional panels such as this enjoyed huge popularity in Florence in the wake of the Black Death that paralysed Europe in 1348 and Gerini was one of the best-known exponents of these. His career spanned several generations of Florentine painting (circa 1360-1415) but he probably received his initial training in the workshop of Taddeo Gaddi (c. 1320-1366) whose style he imitated early on. By the time of his maturity he was regularly collaborating on large commissions with Jacopo di Cione (circa 1320-circa 1398), an artist with whom his work has often been confused; the Annunciation in the Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra, is perhaps their most successful joint venture.²

1. See W. Jacobsen, Die Maler von Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance, Munich/Berlin 2001, reproduced fig. 25.
2. Ibid, fig. 21.