Vincenzo di Bertone Civitali

Saint Vincent; Saint Stephen:

Auction Closed

May 20, 03:42 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Martello Collection

Vincenzo di Bertone Civitali

Lucca, first documented 1488 - circa 1530

Saint Vincent;

Saint Stephen:

a pair, both tempera on panel, unframed

each panel: 64 ¾ by 17 ¾ in.; 164.4 by 45.1 cm.

Commissioned on 22 January 1488, for San Frediano, Lucca, where installed on the south wall of the clerestory until at least the late 18th century;

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 1999, lot 430 (as Giovanni di Piamonte);

There acquired by the present collector.

R. Massagli “Baldassarre di Biagio del Firenze e Matteo Civitali pittore:
qualche novità sulla pittura lucchese del secondo Quattrocento,” in Arte cristiana, vol. LXXXVIII, no. 799 (2000), p. 290, fig. 22 (as Baldassarre di Biagio?);
R. Massagli, “Fra opere e documenti: alcuni aspetti della cultura artistica lucchese dal 1440 al 1480,” in Lucca città d’arte e i suoi archive: Opere d’arte e testimonianze documentarie, ed. Max Seidel and Romano Silva, Venice 2001, p. 205 note 24 (as Baldassarre di Biagio?);
R. Massagli, “Michele Angelo di Pietro Membrini e l’arte a Lucca dal 1480 al 1520,” PhD Dissertation, Florence, Univeristà degli studi di Firenze, 2007, p. 162 (as Vincenzo Civitali?);
C. Daly, Painting in Lucca in the Late Fifteenth Century: A Problem in Artistic Geography, Phd Dissertation, Baltimore, Md., Johns Hopkins University, in progress, Appendix 7, cat. no. 1 (as Vincenzo Civitali).

As Riccardo Massagli and Christopher Daly have both independently proposed, these large panels showing the deacon saints Vincent and Stephen are important works within the small painted oeuvre presently known of the Lucchese artist Vincenzo di Bertone Civitali, the nephew of the celebrated Matteo Civitali. In 1488, Vincenzo and Matteo were commissioned by the Augustinian Friars of San Frediano, Lucca, to paint a hanging altar on the south wall of the clerestory of their church. The contract drawn up in February of that year outlined the tasks required of the two artists for this altarpiece: Matteo was to polychrome an old statue of San Frediano to be set into a niche at the center of the altarpiece, while Vincenzo was asked to paint Saints Stephen and Vincent as laterals to the central niche as well as a lunette of Saint Lawrence in glory.¹ The present lots are almost certainly the two lateral panels discussed in this 1488 contract.

The altarpiece remained in-situ until at least the late 18th century, and it faced a fresco from 1275 illustrating the martyrdom of the same three deacon saints. The original format and appearance of the altarpiece is preserved in an 18th-century drawing published by Romano Silva where the saints are described simply as deacons, probably because the height of the altarpiece prevented a clear identification of each figure, as Daly suggests.² In the present panels, Saint Stephen is easily recognizable with the stone in his head, while Saint Vincent lacks any clear identifying features. As such, Vincent was later repainted to represent Saint Lawrence, but the gridiron that appeared at his feet when the present panels last appeared at auction was a later addition that was easily removed when the panels were cleaned.

We are grateful to Christopher Daly and Riccardo Massagli for independently endorsing an attribution to Vincenzo Civitali. We are also grateful to Christopher Daly for his invaluable assistance in this catalogue entry. These panels are to be included in his forthcoming PhD Dissertation Painting in Lucca in the Late Fifteenth Century: A Problem in Artistic Geography (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., in progress).

1. This contract was originally published by R. Silva, La Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca, Lucca 1985, pp. 43-46.

2. An image of this drawing is available upon request within the department.