A Prophet. Companion piece to NM 6863
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 30 x 25 cm
Inventory numberNM 6862
Other titlesTitel (sv): Profet. Motstycke till NM 6863 Titel (en): A Prophet. Companion piece to NM 6863 Titel (en): St Benedict of Nursia
DescriptionRes. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 130: FORMER INV. NO.: Förr. 339:1. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single piece of thin white canvas glued to a thick hardwood board. The triangular shape is probably not original. The wood is worm-eaten. The gesso ground is white and thick, and there is a layer of red bole under the gilding. The paint layer and gilding are cracked and abraded, with losses on the surface and along the edges. The painting is dirty. PROVENANCE: Purchased 1873. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Nevin 2009. This is a fragment which originally formed an upper part of a polyptych, known as a pinnacle. It depicts a saint in a black cloak and with a beard, carrying an open book and a birch rod. These are common attributes of St Benedict of Nursia, and there is no doubt that this is the saint referred to here. He has great similarities with two other depictions of the saint in the Nationalmuseum, one attributed to Nardo di Cione (NM 2259, cat. no. 122) and the other to Gherardo Starnina (NM 2678, cat. no. 143), but unlike those versions, he is pointing here at the first line of his monastic rule. The way the saint is turning his head en face, and the detailed representation of his hair, beard and sharp eyelids, recall trecento paintings of the Pisan school. This has also been pointed out by Henk van Os, who has made a convincing attribution to the Master of the Fogg Pietà,¹ a Florentine painter with strong Pisan influences. The Master of the Fogg Pietà takes his name from the Pietà or Lamentation of the Dead Christ in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (inv. no. 1927.306).² Nothing is known of his life, but he has sometimes been identified with the Tuscan painter Maestro di Figline, who is known for an altarpiece in the Collegiata di Santa Maria in Figline Valdarno, south of Florence.³ On the verso, there is a paper label with the following inscription in Swedish: “S.S.F.M. Italiensk fresco målning från början af 1300-talet”. The original provenance of this small panel is not known, but like its counterpart representing the Archangel Michael (NM 6863, cat. no. 131), it probably formed an upper part of an outer wing of a small retable dating from the first half of the 14th century. je 1 Letter to the Nationalmuseum from Henk van Os, dated 30 January 1992, NM Archives, Dokumentationsarkivet, “Master of the Fogg Pietà”. 2 Offner 1926, p. 160; Offner 1927, pp. 49–57. 3 See Nevin 2009. [End]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword