TADDEO DI BARTOLO | THE ENTOMBMENT

Private collection, Florence.

This painting will be published in Dr. Gail Elizabeth Solberg's forthcoming book, Taddeo Di Bartolo: Siena's Painter in the Early Quattrocento.

This previously unpublished panel is a notable addition to the oeuvre of one of the most acclaimed Sienese artists of the early 15th century. Taddeo di Bartolo ran a highly successful workshop, as witnessed through the number of commissions received from patrons both in and outside of Siena. Among Di Bartolo's more influential patrons were the major mercantile and banking families of Pisa (the Casassi and Sardi), the noble Spinola family of Genoa, and the Cardinal Rinaldo Brancacci of Rome. He had a great influence not only on his close contemporaries like Andrea di Bartolo Cini (1360 - 1428), but also younger artists who participated in his workshop like Giovanni di Paolo (1403 - 1482).

We are grateful to Dr. Gail Elizabeth Solberg for endorsing the attribution to Taddeo di Bartolo on the basis of photographs and for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot. She believes this painting was executed circa 1405 with workshop assistance. The detailed rocky landscape, haloes with punched decoration, and drapery folds correspond stylistically with other works by Taddeo, such as the Crucifixion panel from 1401-04 in the Art Institute of Chicago.¹ The sarcophagus decorated with squared stones is another element Taddeo repeats in his compositions as seen in the Dormition of the Virgin in the Landesmuseum Hannover.²

1. Tempera on panel, 37.6 by 72.4 cm., inv. no. 1933.1033. See https://www.artic.edu/artworks/16234/the-crucifixion

2. Tempera on panel, 33.5 by 29.5 cm., inv. no. 297. See http://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/entry/work/8290/