Sano di Pietro

Count Karol Lanckoronski (1848-1933), Palais Lanckoronski, Vienna, by 1897;

Thence by descent to his son, Anton Lanckoronski (1893-1956), Vienna;

Seized from the above and taken into custody by the Austrian Monuments Office at the end of 1939;

Recovered in 1945 by the Allied forces at Depot Altaussee (Altaussee no. 1286) and sent to Central Collecting Point, Munich (MCCP no. 2187);

Returned by the Austrian Monuments Office to Anton Lanckoronski, Zurich, 1947;

With Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, by October 1954;

From whom acquired by Monique Louise Roberte Uzielli (1913-2011), New York, by 1968;

From whose estate acquired, via private sale, Christie's, by the present collector, 2012.

B. Berenson, The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, London and New York 1897, p. 177;

E. Gaillard, Un Peintre siénnois au XVe siècle: Sano di Pietro, 1406-1481, Chambéry 1923, p. 202

R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. IX, The Hague 1927, p. 531;

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, Oxford 1932, p. 505;

B.N., "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions," in Burlington Magazine 96, no. 620 (November 1954), p. 362, reproduced figs. 29, 30;

Autumn Exhibition of Fine Pictures by Old Masters, exhibition catalogue, London 1954, pp. 6-7, cat. nos. 12, 14, the second reproduced;

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London 1968, vol. I, p. 377;

M.A. Pavone and V. Pacelli, Enciclopedia bernardiniana, Iconografia, vol. II, L'Aquila 1981, p. 34;

K. Christensen, in Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, exhibition catalogue, K. Christiansen, L. Kanter, C. Strehlke (eds.), New York 1988, pp. 153, under cat. no. 20, 164-166, cat. nos. 24a, 24b, reproduced;

J.W. Cyril, "The Imagery of San Bernardino da Siena, 1440-1500: An Iconographic Study," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan 1991, pp. 63-65, reproduced figs. 32, 33.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, 20 December 1988 - 19 March 1989, nos. 24a, 24b.

This exquisite pair of panels, executed by the Sienese artist Sano di Pietro in the 1470s, originally constituted the predella, or base, of a large altarpiece. A popular and prolific painter and miniaturist, Sano routinely worked for Siena's most eminent religious and civic institutions and was the foremost illustrator of the life and legend of Saint Bernardino, a fifteenth-century Franciscan preacher canonized by Pope Nicholas V in 1450. The two scenes comprise what Keith Christiansen has described as the most extensive Bernardine narrative cycle in fifteenth-century Sienese art.

The artist deftly employed the pictorial device of continuous narrative in both scenes to relate the saint's posthumous miracles. In Saint Bernardino Resuscitating Amico After Drowning, the young burgundy-clad Amico has accidentally drowned in a tub, situated at the composition’s center. Bemoaning their loss, his mother and her attendant, joined by a devout man who has just walked out of the salmon-colored building at right, pray to Saint Bernardino for Amico’s salvation. The cloud-borne saint swoops down from heaven and saves the child, who is seen at left standing with his hands clasped in thanksgiving. In The Miraculous Exorcism of a Possessed Woman, Sano used the interior’s architectural structure to guide the narrative, which unfolds across three vaulted bays. At left, three figures, one walking with crutches, enter the church; between the two polychrome columns, a woman swoons as a small black demon is expelled from her body; at right, the restored victim kneels before Saint Bernardino’s bier, offering thanks for his miraculous intercession.

The two panels may have originally formed the predella for Sano di Pietro’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints Francis, Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret, and Bernardino (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale, inv. no. 237), although this association remains speculative. At times, several other predella panels have been connected with the pair, including: Donna Perna Healed at the Bier of Saint Bernardino,¹ Death of Saint Bernardino on 20 May 1444 in Aquila,² Saint Bernardino Rescuing Carinus from Drowning,³ and Saint Bernardino Preaching.⁴

The pair once formed part of Count Karol Lanckoronski’s distinguished Viennese collection, where the panels would have hung alongside other Italian masterpieces including Dosso Dossi’s Jupiter, Mercury, and Virtus (Krakow, Wawel Castle, inv. no. 8486) and Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon (London, National Gallery, inv. no. NG6294). At the end of 1939, these works were seized and taken into custody by the Austrian Monuments Office. The paintings were subsequently transported to the salt mines at Altaussee, from where Allied forces transported the works to the Munich Collecting Point. The pair was returned to the family in 1947.

¹ Florence, Semenzato, 19 February 2003, lot 15.

² Collection of Countess Editta Rucellai, Florence. 

³ London, Sotheby’s, 7 July 2004, lot 36.

⁴ Vienna, Dorotheum, 23 October 2018, lot 122.