Workshop of Giotto (Francesco di Giotto?)

Private collection;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby's, 6 November 1967, lot 23 (as by a follower of Giotto, circa 1330), for £14,000 to Lewis;
J.S. Lewis, London.

Advertisement for the Sotheby's sale, in The Burlington Magazine, November 1967, p. xxii, reproduced (as by a follower of Giotto, circa 1330);
F. Bologna, Novità su Giotto: Giotto al tempo della cappella Peruzzi, Turin 1969, p. 106, cat. no. 3, reproduced fig. 97 (as by the Florentine follower of Giotto known as the Maestro della Tribuna Scrovegni and datable to 1317);
G. Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, London 1974, p. 343 (as workshop of Giotto, executed during the 1320s);
M. Lucco, "'Me pinxit': schede per un catalogo del Museo Antoniano", in Il Santo, Series 2, XVII, no. 1/2, January - August 1977, pp. 258-59, and foottnote 35, reproduced plate 16 (as by the anonymous Giotto follower who executed the frescoes in the choir of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, same as F. Bologna above);
G. Previtali, Giotto e la sua bottega, (3rd edition, revised by A. Contini), Milan 1993, p. 355, reproduced fig. 402 (as workshop of Giotto, executed during the 1320s);
A. De Marchi et al. eds., Trecento: pittori gotici a Bolzano, exhibition catalogue, Bolzano, 29 April - 23 July 2000, p. 84, under cat. no. 7 (as by a Neapolitan follower of Giotto);
M. Boskovits, "Il Maestro della Croce del Refettorio di Santa Maria Novella: un parente più probabile di Giotto", in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XLIV, no. 1, 2000, pp. 74-75, 77, footnotes 21-25, reproduced p. 72, fig. 8 (as by the Master of the Santa Maria Novella Refectory Crucifix, possibly identifiable as Francesco or Donato di Giotto, datable to 1315-25).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a panel which has been inset or encased in a quite heavy composite material painted to resemble wood but presumably less temperamental. It is not possible to see how much of the original panel remains. The surrounding casing is quite recent. There are in fact few signs of serious cracking or flaking to be seen in the painting itself, which is exceptionally well preserved. One central crack, perhaps a joint, can be seen running vertically from the centre of the top edge through Christ’s hair down to just beyond His navel. This has been retouched and did cause some loss near the top edge in the halo and the punched border although not in the figure itself. The paint surface is remarkably intact, including the gilding. This is scarcely worn, with the edges of each overlapping gold leaf visible. There are some uneven varnish glazes and one or two minor repairs can be seen in the gilding as well as the retouchings mentioned above to the halo and the border at the centre of the top edge: a streak of gold retouching near Christ’s legs and the Madonna’s raised hand, as well as a patch of repair near Christ’s hand on the right by the angel holding a bowl for His blood. But the otherwise almost completely undisturbed gilding with its punched border is rare. Within the figures also there is a peaceful unworn paint surface, even in the modelling of the faces. The azurite robe of the Madonna has, of course become blackened as is almost invariably the case, but even the angels have retained much intact resinous dragon’s blood pigment, with a little extra trail retouched slightly clumsily. There are a few other quite minor retouchings visible under ultra violet light: a little in the Madonna’s arms and more coming up from the base in her drapery, strengthening at the outer edge of the figure of St John, at the base of the cross and on the stand by Christ’s feet. These are minor surface adjustments however in a painting that has survived from the earliest Renaissance in extraordinarily intact condition. 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 important and beautifully preserved Crucifixion was painted circa 1320 by a close associate of Giotto, possibly his son Francesco, based on a design which is very likely to have originated from the Master himself. The condition of the paint surface is remarkable, particularly for such an early work, and allows us to appreciate the full subtlety of the intact glazes of the pink highlights of the faces, the gold edges of the robes and the blood which pours from Christ's wounds.

Several elements of the panel betray an intimate knowledge of Giotto's work executed in different places - in Assisi, in Padua, and later in Florence - and at different moments of his career, making explicit the continuous and necessarily close link between the author of the present panel and Giotto. The disposition of the grieving angels and the small clouds on which they hover and into which they dissolve recall the design of the fresco of the Crucifixion in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua from circa 1305 (see fig. 1). In particular the idea of the angel to the right of the cross who in grief pulls back his clothing to reveal his chest, is lifted straight out of Giotto's fresco. The angels also recall those found beneath the arms of the cross in Giotto's Crucifixion in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg which dates from circa 1315-20. The physiognomy of Christ mirrors the Scrovegni fresco too, as do several of Giotto's painted crosses such as the ones in Rimini (1317), in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (1300?; see fig. 2), and in the Museo Civico in Padua (1317). Iconographically the present work shares with these crosses in Padua and Florence, as well as other crosses, a theological reminder of the earthly aspect of this devotional image - of Christ's human manifestation as the historical Jesus of Nazareth - by the presence of the skull on the mound which rises at the foot of the cross. Far from representing a proto-vanitas element, it is a simple reminder of the locus of the scene, Golgotha, or the place of the skull, the hill outside the walls of Jerusalem where the episode is reported to have taken place.

Since the panel first came to the attention of scholars at the time of the 1967 sale in these Rooms (see Provenance), several artists from Giotto's workshop have been proposed as the possible authors of the work. Both Bologna and Lucco (see Literature) see in the panel the hand of the hitherto anonymous yet recognisable assistant who had helped in the decoration of the choir of the Scrovegni chapel in Padua. The artist was most likely Florentine and active in the Master's workshop when the frescoes of the Chapel of the Magdalene in Assisi were painted (1315-18?) and the Crucifix from the Scrovegni Chapel, now in the Museo Civico in Padua from circa 1317. For Previtali the panel is a product of Giotto's workshop at the time of the Berlin Crucifixion (1320) and the Stefaneschi Polyptych in the Vatican (1320) and cannot predate the 1320s. De Marchi, who mentions the work only in passing, dismisses the attribution to the Master of the Scrovegni Chapel, seeing the work as by a later Neapolitan follower of Giotto.

The most thorough analysis of the panel was undertaken by Boskovits in 2000 (see Literature). Re-assessing the body of works traditionally given to the elusive member of Giotto's workshop known by scholars as "Parente di Giotto", Boskovits proposes that those works are not by a talented youthful collaborator but by Giotto himself between the years 1315-25. However, he proposes that there was indeed a young collaborator active in the studio whose work should be gathered under the label 'Master of the Santa Maria Novella Refectory Crucifix'.  This was very possibly one of Giotto's two sons, Francesco or Donato, leading Boskovits to distinguish in his article between the 'Parente di Giotto' of previous scholarship and a new artistic figure who was in all likelihood a relative of Giotto. A fragmentary cross from 1335-40 (see fig. 3) rediscovered by Erling Skaug in the refectory of the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (which should not be confused with the aforementioned painted cross by Giotto in the church of Santa Maria Novella itself - see fig. 2) lends the artist his name and displays the same punchwork as several signed works by Giotto, including the Baroncelli Polyptych in Santa Croce in Florence (dated 1328 or 1333-37) and the Bologna Polyptych (after 1328), making explicit the close link between the artist and Giotto himself. At the time of the Giotto exhibition in 2000, Tartuferi noted that the quality of the Santa Maria Novella Refectory Crucifix (which he tentatively identified as a work by Francesco di Giotto) falls some way below the other productions of Giotto's workshop at the time, suggesting that the tools were borrowed by an individual member of his workshop engaged in an independent project.¹ This seems more than plausible if the artist was indeed one of Giotto's sons. A portable tabernacle in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes (see fig. 4) has also been ascribed to this master since its technique mirrors that of the Santa Maria Novella Refectory Crucifix but while there are similarities in the attention to detail, its comparatively provincial quality is arguably inferior to the present work. Other works ascribed to the Master are two panels in the Museo Civico A. Lia in La Spezia and certain passages of the frescoes of the Last Judgement in the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua.²

If the Master of the Santa Maria Novella Refectory Crucifix can indeed be identified as Francesco di Giotto, we know little about him. Mention of him is mostly confined to his representing his father - who had become a wealthy man through his work - in numerous property deals between 1318 and 1339. After entering the priesthood Francesco is known to have been assigned the priory of San Martino in Vespignano, his father's home town. He is recorded in the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries between 1320 and 1338 but was not recorded in the Company of Saint Luke until 1341, four years after his father's death, suggesting that he may have assumed control of the workshop in order to complete some outstanding commissions. A work broadly similar to the present panel was sold in New York, Christie's, in 2005 with an attribution to Francesco di Giotto.³ The stylistic similarities to the present work are close but notwithstanding the inferior condition of the Christie's panel, the quality is considerably weaker and displays none of the lyricism of the figures or the refined punchwork exemplified in the present panel.

Whatever the nomenclature applied to the artist, it is clear that while he was still working within the formal structures of Giotto, he had assimilated other influences. The soft swaying movement of the dramatis personae is not rigid enough to be termed strictly giottesque, while the rich details of the wavy edges and folds of the clothes are reminiscent of the group of painters whom Richard Offner termed of 'the Miniaturist Tendency'.⁴  The engraved floral motif of the decorative borders and the arrow-patterned tooling in the haloes which are incised freehand rather than punched by tools are also features of the works of other painters of this non-Giottesque strand of Florentine painting, among them the Master of the Codex of Saint George. Direct comparison can be made with the haloes in the Crucifixion and Lamentation in the Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 61.200), as well as two panels in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (inv. no. 2017c and 2018d).⁵ This freehand decoration also allows us to date the works no later than the mid-1320s since punch tools were generally used after 1320.



1. See A. Tartuferi, Giotto, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2000, pp. 88-89, cat. no. 30, reproduced in colour.
2. See Boskovits, under Literature, pp. 74-75, reproduced figs. 7a, b and 9.
3. Tempera on panel, 40.3 by 18.6 cm; anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 26 January 2005, lot 6.
4. See R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, vol. IV, M. Boskovits (ed.),The Fourteenth Century: The Painters of the Miniaturist Tendency, Florence 1984, pp. 12-79 and 189-219.
5. See L. Kanter in L. Kanter et al. eds., Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450, exh. cat., New York 1994, pp. 100-105, reproduced.