Giovanni di Bartolomeo Cristiani

Private collection, Budapest, before 1981 (according to Offner);

With Lane Fine Art, London;

From whom acquired, circa 2003-2004.

R. Offner, "Giovanni di Bartolomeo Cristiani," in A Corpus of Florentine Painting: the Fourteenth Century. Supplement: A legacy of Attributions, New York 1981, p. 64, reproduced fig. 135.

Although little is known about the life of Giovanni Bartolomeo Cristiani, he was active in Pistoia, northwest of Florence, where he signed and dated altarpieces between 1370 and 1390, and a final fresco is documented in 1396-98. His primary influences were the Florentine painters Niccolò di Tommaso (active 1346 - 1376), Nardo di Cione (active by 1343, d. 1365/66), and Maso di Bianco (1320 - 1346), who carried on Giotto's style. The present panel was the left leaf of a polyptych and the inclusion of St. Martin, who is seldom depicted as a standalone saint, may have referred to the patron's name.