彼得羅·迪·弗朗契斯科·奧廖利

The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, sarahwaldenart@aol.com, an independent restorer in London who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a thick poplar panel with one central joint. There has been quite considerable worm damage behind, now long defunct, and there is no sign of structural weakness in relation to the paint surface. The central joint has only had a minor effect on the paint itself, with a fairly narrow line and no wider losses. Behind there has been a narrow supporting wooden insert added fairly recently. The arched top of the integral frame has been carefully repaired in the centre at the top where the original iron ring perhaps strained the moulding. The gilding of the frame is more worn than that within the painting itself, with red bole everywhere present. The figures seem to have been gently strengthened fairly consistently over time. The azurite blue of the Madonna's robe has darkened as is almost always the case, with a regular craquelure but no apparent damage. The madder of her brocaded bodice has had some reinforcement, but the shell gold border decoration around her robe is beautifully intact and unworn. The two saints are rather well preserved especially in the lighter areas. There are many minute strengthening retouchings in the shadowy side of the head of St Jerome and especially in his forehead, while much of the left side of his head is in good condition with much delicate detail. St Bernardino is rather well intact generally. The central joint has a line of retouching visible under ultra violet light all down its length. The Madonna's face has been carefully strengthened over time with multiple minute touches, the more recent in her forehead being more strongly visible under UV. Fine original drawing can be seen in the eyelids and the actual individual features have fewer little retouches, with the original tempera flesh painting more clearly visible. The Child has also had many similar little strengthening touches over His body, with most particularly in the shadowy areas such as His shoulder. However there are some perfectly preserved untouched areas including His raised hand, which is beautifully intact and pure. Other original paint appears likely to have been overlaid by past over careful restoration. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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Newly discovered, this Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Bernardino of Siena was identified independently by Laurence Kanter and Andrea De Marchi as the work of Pietro di Francesco Orioli.  Born into a family of clock makers, Orioli’s name derives from “degli Orologi”, meaning “of the Clocks”, a moniker adopted by his father, who was charged with the maintenance of all public timepieces in Siena and San Gimignano.¹  Orioli likely trained in the workshop of the leading Sienese painter, Matteo di Giovanni, and, like many works by the artist, this painting bears the influence of his master.  The present composition is close to Matteo di Giovanni’s painting of the same subject now in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin (inv. no. 658) and the pose of the blessing Christ Child, and the treatment of the two male saints is very similar.  Kanter dates the panel in the mid to late 1480s and suggests that, given the inclusion of its eponymous saint, it was likely painted for the Confraternity of Saint Jerome to which Orioli belonged.

The distinctive figure of Saint Bernardino of Siena, with his thin lips and narrow mouth and chin, appears in Orioli’s Madonna and Child formerly in the Serristori collection, Florence, and again, this time facing right, in a Madonna and Child with Saints in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. A930). 

We are grateful to Laurence Kanter and Andrea De Marchi for indepedently suggesting the attribution on the basis of photographs.

 

1.  A. Angelini, “Pietro di Francesco Orioli”, in Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 79, 2013, online edition.
2.  Fondazione Zeri Fototeca achive, entry nos. 18106 and 18115 respectively.