Madonna and Child Enthroned with Four Saints

c. 1240/1245

Margaritone d'Arezzo

Artist, Italian, active second and third quarter 13th century

A woman wearing a long black robe sits on a wide, bench-like seat and holds a child on her lap in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin, rosy cheeks, and gold halos. The panel is shaped so that it is round around the woman’s head and halo; it then widens into a tall rectangle at her shoulders. That woman, Mary, sits with her body facing us and looks off to our right with brown, almond-shaped eyes. She has an oval face with arched brows, a long, straight nose, and her narrow pink lips are closed. Her black garment has a pattern of brick-red diamond shapes with tiny white swirls at the corners. The area between her hood and her face is red, suggesting a veil or the underside of the robe. The pointed tips of red shoes extend out from under the hem, which reaches the floor. A gold crown over her hood comes to a point above her forehead, and rows of circles dangle down each side like a stylized chain. Dark blue and red circles suggest gemstones and touches of white suggest pearls. She supports the baby’s torso with one long-fingered hand and touches a tiny foot with the other. The child, Jesus, has adult-like proportions with a small head, sloping nose, and blond hair. The hand to our left is raised with the first two fingers extended and he holds a scroll in the other hand. He wears a pale gold garment wrapped tightly around his body. Distinct, rose-pink lines suggest folds. The two people’s features and clothing are outlined in black or darker shades. The bench on which they sit is nearly as wide as the panel and seems to curve up a bit to each side. It is scarlet red with designs in black to make scrolls, nested triangles, or stylized leaves. Four people, half the height of Jesus, float against the faded gold background, two to each side. All four have pale, peachy skin and wear long robes in cream white, pale pink, blue, or brown. The bottom two, near Mary’s elbows, wear gold crowns and hold jugs. The man at the top left, near Mary’s shoulder, is bareheaded and gestures toward the center. In the upper right, a bearded man with his gray hair cut into ring around his head holds a red book in one elbow and holds up his other hand, palm facing us. The background seems a little scuffed and some of the gold has worn away. An inscription along the bottom reads, “MARGARIT RITIO ME FECIT.”

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Margaritone d’Arezzo was the first artist from Arezzo whose name we know and whose work survives. He was active during the middle decades of the 13th century. About 300 years later, Giorgio Vasari, who published biographies of Italian artists in 1550 and 1568 (and who was himself an artist from the Tuscan town of Arezzo), all but credited Margaritone with the invention of panel painting in Italy. While this is an exaggeration, it is true that panel painting had not been common earlier: churches were decorated with fresco and mosaic, and wealthy patrons preferred the luxury of manuscript illumination or precious metals. One factor that contributed to the increased popularity of panel paintings was an influx of icons following the Fourth Crusade. When Western Crusaders turned on their Byzantine allies and sacked Constantinople in 1204, thousands of icons and relics were taken to the West. It is not surprising, then, that this early Tuscan painting shares many features with Byzantine art.

The Virgin and Child here are strictly frontal, remote, and hieratic. They are depicted using a limited range of color and outlined by heavy contour lines. Jesus looks more like a miniature adult than an infant. The gold striations of his robe also come from Byzantine convention, and Mary’s triangular crown, with long bejeweled dangles at the sides, is an Eastern form. The very composition of Margaritone’s painting is based on an icon type: the Virgin Nikopoios, or Victory Maker. The original icon was believed to confer victory on Byzantine armies and to repel invading barbarians. It did not repel the Crusaders, however, who transported the icon to the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 97.3 × 49.9 × 1.3 cm (38 5/16 × 19 5/8 × 1/2 in.)
    height (main panel, without extension for head and halo): 73.6 cm (29 in.)
    top section (extension for head and halo): 26.5 × 23.5 cm (10 7/16 × 9 1/4 in.)
    framed: 102.2 x 55.9 x 5.7 cm (40 1/4 x 22 x 2 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.12

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Madonna and Child Enthroned with Four Saints, c. 1240/1245

This horizontal painting is made up of three parts: in the center square panel, a woman reclines under a wooden shelter set into a rocky cave, which is surrounded by angels, and narrower wings to either side are each occupied by a standing man. All the people have pale skin, which is tinged with faint green. The three panels are joined with a gold frame, and the gold background behind the central scene and the men in the side panels are covered with a noticeable network of cracks. In the central panel, a cobalt-blue robe nearly envelopes the reclining woman’s body; this is Mary. It covers her head and falls open where she crosses her wrists over her chest to show a pink garment underneath. A flat gold halo encircles her head ,and her body is surrounded by a field of crimson red, almost like an aura. She rests under a wooden structure with a pitched roof, which is surrounded by craggy, barren rock. A swaddled infant lies in a rectangular, tray-like manger. The infant’s head is also surrounded by a gold halo. Fine gold rays emanate down into the structure from a star just above the peak of the roof. A bull and a donkey look down at the baby from the far side of the manger. The interior of the structure behind them is black. In a smaller scale, two women wash a haloed infant in a tub in front of the rocky cave near the lower left corner of this panel. A man with a white beard and hair sits to our left of Mary, holding a pink cloak at his throat and looking toward the infant. Above and around the rocks, seven winged and haloed angels cluster on each side. One angel to the right presents a scroll with black writing to two men accompanied by a dog and several sheep in the lower right. The man in the panel to the left, Isaiah, has a gray beard and long, wavy hair, and he wears a lilac-purple cloak draped over a coral-orange robe. In his right hand, on our left, he holds an unfurled scroll with large black lettering. His other hand is raised with one finger pointing upward. He looks to our left, away from the central scene. On the right, Ezekiel, echoes Isaiah's pose. Ezekiel holds an open scroll with his left hand, on our right, and his other hand is raised. He also wears a coral-colored robe, but his is overlaid with a blue cloak. His receding hair is short and brown, as is his beard. Like Isaiah, he takes up most of the height of the panel and gazes to our left, toward the central panel.

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Executed for the church of a Benedictine monastery in the area of Arezzo, possibly for the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla near the city walls;[1] probably (art market, Rome); acquired by William Blundell Spence [1814–1900], Florence and London, by 1859;[2] Ralph Nicholson Wornum [1812–1877], London, by 1865.[3] Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers [1827–1900], Rushmore House and King John’s House, Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, by 1894;[4] by descent to his grandson, George Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers [1890–1966], Hinton St. Mary, Dorset, by 1926.[5] (Robert Langton Douglas [1864–1951], London); (Arthur Ruck, London);[6] sold to Philip Lehman [1861–1947], New York, by 1928; sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[7] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] This is suggested by the presence in the background of the painting of three saints identifiable as Benedict, Flora, and Lucilla. On the two latter saints and their cult, see Giuseppe Palazzini, “Lucilla, Flora, Eugenio e compagni,” in Bibliotheca sanctorum, 15 vols., Rome, 1961-2000: 8(1967):275-276.
[2] On Spence, a painter, collector and dealer, see Donata Levi, “William Blundell Spence a Firenze,” in Studi e ricerche di collezionismo e museografia. Firenze 1820 – 1920, Pisa, 1985: 85-149. On 27 July 1859, Spence offered for sale to Lord Lindsay three pictures he had received from Rome shortly before, stating that one of them was signed by Margarito. John Fleming ("Art Dealing in the Risorgimento II - III,” The Burlington Magazine 121 (1979): 503 n. 62) plausibly identifies this otherwise undescribed painting with NGA 1952.5.12; see also Hugh Brigstocke, “Lord Lindsay as a collector,” Bullettin of the John Rylands University Library of Machester 64, n° 2 (1982): 321 n. 4. Lord Lindsay did not buy the panel, which evidently remained for some time with Spence.
[3] Wornum was Keeper of the National Gallery, London, from 1854 until his death. He lent the painting to an exhibition at the British Institution in 1865.
[4] The names of Wornum and Pitt-Rivers are given by Oskar Wulff (“Zwei Tafelbilder des Duecento in Kaiser – Friederich – Museum,” Jahrbuch der Königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 37 (1916): 92 n. 6) and by Robert Lehman (The Philip Lehman Collection, New York and Paris,1928: no. 1). Lehman lists first the Pitt-Rivers collection and then that of Wornum. However, Wornum died in 1877, and, as Daniela Parenti kindly pointed out to Miklós Boskovits, it was only in 1880 that Augustus Henry Lane Fox assumed the surname Pitt-Rivers and took up residence at Rushmore. The painting is described in 1894 by Roach Le Schonix as the earliest European picture displayed by Pitt-Rivers in King John’s House at Tollard Royal as part of “a valuable series of small original pictures illustrating the history of painting from the earliest times. . . . ” (“Notes on Archaeology in Provincial Museums. No. XXXVII–The Museums at Farnham, Dorset, and at King John’s House, Tollard Royal,” The Antiquary 30 [July–December 1894]: 166–171).
[5] The painting is described as among those seen on 19 June 1926, by staff members of Duveen Brothers, Inc. (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Scouts Books--England, Things Seen, 1922-1935, reel 71, box 201, folder 1; kindly brought to the attention of NGA by an e-mail, 7 July 2004, from Maria Gilbert of the Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance, Getty Research Institute, in NGA curatorial files).
[6] Denys Sutton, "Robert Langton Douglas. Part III," Apollo CIX, no. 208 (June 1979): 459 (fig. 22), 468, provides the information that Douglas sold the painting to Ruck, but implies the sale took place before the 1920s, which is not correct (see note 5).
[7] The bill of sale for the Kress Foundation’s purchase of fifteen paintings from the Lehman collection, including NGA 1952.5.12, is dated 11 June 1943; payment was made four days later (copy in NGA curatorial files). The documents concerning the 1943 sale all indicate that Philip Lehman’s son Robert Lehman (1892–1963) was owner of the paintings, but it is not clear in the Lehman Collection archives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, whether Robert made the sale for his father or on his own behalf. See Laurence Kanter’s email of 6 May 2011, about ownership of the Lehman collection, in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1349.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1865

  • Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Masters, British Institution, London, 1865, no. 75, as The Madonna and Child, enthroned with Saints Bruno and Benedict, and Two Cistercian Nuns as Wise Virgins.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 807.

Bibliography

1869

  • Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Geschichte der italienischen Malerei. 6 vols. Deutsche Original-Ausgabe ed. Leipzig, 1869-1876: 1(1869):156.

1878

  • Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori. Edited by Gaetano Milanesi. 9 vols. Florence, 1878-1885: 1(1878):360-361 n. 3.

1886

  • Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Storia della pittura in Italia dal secolo II al secolo XVI. 11 vols. Florence, 1886-1908: 1(1886):291.

1907

  • Weigelt, Curt H. "Margarito d’Arezzo." In Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker and Hans Vollmer. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 24(1930):88.

1916

  • Wulff, Oskar. "Zwei Tafelbilder des Duecento in Kaiser-Friederich-Museum." Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 37 (1916): 92 n. 6.

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 1(1923):336.

1928

  • Lehman, Robert. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928: no. I, repro.

1929

  • "Margaritone." In Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti. Edited by Istituto Giovanni Treccani. 36 vols. Milan, 1929-1939: 22(1934):285.

1930

  • Mayer, August L. "Die Sammlung Philip Lehman." Pantheon 5 (1930): 113.

1931

  • Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 7, repro.

1932

  • Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 1(1932):332.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:no. 8, repro.

1934

  • Sandberg-Vavalà, Evelyn. L’iconografia della Madonna col Bambino nella pittura italiana del Dugento. Siena, 1934: 14 no. 13.

1935

  • D’Ancona, Paolo. Les primitifs italiens du XIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1935: 92.

1943

  • Sinibaldi, Giulia, and Giulia Brunetti, eds. Pittura italiana del Duecento e Trecento: catalogo della mostra giottesca di Firenze del 1937. Exh. cat. Galleria degli Uffizi. Florence, 1943: 121.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 3, repro.

  • Richardson, Edgar Preston. "Recent Important Acquisitions of America Collections, Two New Additions to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery." Art Quarterly 8 (Autumn 1945): 319.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 13, repro.

  • Douglas, Robert Langton. "Recent Additions to the Kress Collection." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 88 (1946): 84 (repro.), 85.

1949

  • Garrison, Edward B. Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: An Illustrated Index. Florence, 1949: 23, 94 n. 237.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 12-15, repro.

  • Galetti, Ugo, and Ettore Camesasca. Enciclopedia della pittura italiana. 3 vols. Milan, 1951: 2:1661, 1662 repro.

  • Salmi, Mario. "Postille alla mostra di Arezzo." Commentari 2 (1951): 174.

1954

  • Stubblebine, James H. "The Development of the Throne in Dugento Tuscan Painting." Marsyas 7 (1954-1957): 28, fig. 4.v

1955

  • Ragghianti, Carlo Ludovico. Pittura del Dugento a Firenze. Florence, 1955: 33 fig. 47, 35.

1959

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 3, fig. 1.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 9, repro.

1960

  • Fachechi, Grazia Maria. "Margarito (Margaritone) d’Arezzo." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 70(2008):108.

1961

  • DeWald, Ernest T. Italian Painting 1200-1600. New York, 1961: 82, fig. 3.30.

  • Berti, Luciano. Il Museo di Arezzo. Itinerari dei musei, gallerie e monumenti d’Italia 103. Rome, 1961: 13.

1962

  • Hager, Hellmut. Die Anfänge des italienischen Altarbildes. Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgechichte des toskanischen Hochaltarretabels. Munich, 1962: 127.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 297, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 83.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 3-4, fig. 1.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 73, repro.

1969

  • Ragghianti, Carlo Ludovico, ed. L’Arte in Italia. Vol. 3 (of 10), Dal secolo XII al secolo XIII. Rome, 1969: 942.

1970

  • Bellosi, Luciano, Giuseppe Cantelli, and Margherita Lenzini Moriondo, eds. Arte in Valdichiana: dal XIII al XVIII secolo. Exh. cat. Fortezza del Girifalco, Cortona, 1970: 3.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 120, 646, 665.

  • "Margarito o Margaritone di Magnano da Arezzo." In Dizionario Enciclopedico Bolaffi dei pittori e degli Incisori italiani: dall’XI al XX secolo. Edited by Alberto Bolaffi and Umberto Allemandi. 11 vols. Turin, 1972-1976: 8(1975):188.

1973

  • Maetzke, Anna Maria. "Nuove ricerche su Margarito d’Arezzo." Bollettino d’arte 58 (1973): 107 fig. 39.

1974

  • Boccia, Lionello G., Carla Corsi, Anna Maria Maetzke, and Albino Secchi, eds. Arte nell’Aretino: recuperi e restauri dal 1968 al 1974. Exh. cat. San Francesco, Arezzo. Florence, 1974: 16.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 214, repro.

  • Kiel, Hanna. "Review of Arte nell’Aretino, recuperi e restauri dal 1968 al 1974." Pantheon 33 (1975): 174-175.

1977

  • Cristiani Testi, Maria Laura. "Modello e Invenzione nel Dugento e nel Trecento: da Villard de Honnecourt a Nicola Pisano, da Giotto a Cennino Cennini." Studi storici e geografici 1 (1977): 157-158.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:301-302; 2:pl. 215.

  • Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part III." Apollo 109 (June 1979): 459 [177] fig. 22, 468 [186].

  • Fleming, John. "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento, 2." The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 917 (1979): 503, n. 62.

  • Fleming, John. "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento, 3." The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 918 (1979): 579.

1981

  • Belting, Hans. Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter: Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion. Berlin, 1981: 72, 73 fig. 16.

1982

  • Brigstocke, Hugh. "Lord Lindsay as a Collector." Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 64, no. 2 (1982): 321 n. 4.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 67, no. 5, color repro.

  • Cristiani Testi, Maria Laura. "Moduli compositivi tra XII e XIII secolo." Critica d’arte 49, no. 2 (1984): 92.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 250, repro.

1986

  • Ricci, Stefania. "Margarito d’Arezzo." In La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:634.

1987

  • Maetzke, Anna Maria. Il Museo statale d’arte medievale e moderna in Arezzo. Florence, 1987: 33.

  • Marques, Luiz. La peinture du Duecento en Italie centrale. Paris, 1987: 91, 290.

1988

  • Wheeler, Marion, ed. His Face--Images of Christ in Art: Selections from the King James Version of the Bible. New York, 1988: 126, no. 22, color repro.

  • Davies, Martin, and Dillian Gordon. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. Rev. ed. London, 1988: 68.

1990

  • Grabski, Józef, ed. Opus Sacrum: Catalogue of the Exhibition from the Collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson. Exh. cat. Zamek Królewski, Warsaw. Vienna, 1990: 29.

1991

  • Antetomaso, Ebe. "Margarito." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 8(1997):202-204.

1993

  • Boskovits, Miklós. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. I, Vol. I: The Origins of Florentine Painting, 1100–1270. Florence, 1993: 73 n. 145.

1996

  • Maetzke, Anna Maria, Laura Speranza, and Stefano Casciu, eds. Mater Christi: altissime testimonianze del culto della Vergine nel territorio aretino. Exh. cat. Sottochiesa di San Francesco, Arezzo. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1996: 37.

  • Richardson, John. "Margarito d’Arezzo." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York, 1996: 20:407.

2002

  • Giorgi, Silvia. "Margarito di Magnano." In La pittura in Europa. Il Dizionario dei pittori. Edited by Carlo Pirovano. 3 vols. Milan, 2002: 2:569.

2003

  • Monciatti, Alessio. "‘Vera beati Francisci effigies ad vivum expressa a Margaritono Aretino pictore sui aevi celeberrimo’: origine e moltiplicazione di un’immagine duecentesca ‘firmata.’" In L’artista medievale: atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Modena, November 17-19, 1999. Edited by Maria Monica Donato. Pisa, 2003: 300, 303, fig 14.

2007

  • Chiodo, Sonia. "Maria regina nelle opere di Margarito d’Arezzo." in Medioevo: la chiesa e il palazzo. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Parma, September 20-24, 2005. Edited by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle. Milan, 2007: 598, repro. 599.

2010

  • Monciatti, Alessio. "Margarito, l’artista e il mito." In Arte in terra d’Arezzo: il Medioevo. Edited by Marco Collareta and Paola Refice. Florence, 2010: 213, repro. 215.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 243-251, color repro.

Inscriptions

across the bottom: MARGARIT[VS DE A]RITIO ME FECIT (Margaritus of Arezzo made me) [1]

Wikidata ID

Q20172895

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