Saint James Minor

c. 1272

Master of Saint Francis

Artist, Umbrian, active third quarter 13th century

A bearded, light-skinned man is shown striding to our left and looking in that direction between two columns supporting an arch in this vertical painting. The area around the man, within the arch, is bright gold. The man has a high forehead with short, brown hair, dark eyes under dark brows, a long, straight nose, a forked beard, and his pink lips are closed. He wears a marine-blue, ankle-length cloak over a long, rose-pink robe. Folds are painted with lines of darker blue and pink. He clenches a parchment-colored scroll in his left hand, on our right, down by his hip and grasps the edge of his cloak with his other hand. His head is surrounded by a halo created by incising and punching the gold background. The shoulder-wide halo is decorated with S-shaped spirals and a ring of simple, delicate flowers around the perimeter. He stands on a dark gray floor that meets the gold background just below knee level. The columns to either side are cut off by the edges of the panel, and are brick-red with light blue, leafy capitals. The brown arch supported by the columns is inscribed, “SANCTUS JACOB LEPHI Q COGNOMINAT E IU.” The corners above are maroon red, and rough, disk-shaped areas in each corner could indicate losses.

Media Options

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Saint James Minor is one of the more elusive of Jesus’s disciples. He is usually identified—as in the inscription running along the arch here—as the son of Alphaeus, and by his attribute, a fuller's club. James was said to have been the first bishop of Jerusalem and to have been killed by a mob wielding the wooden club used to soften cloth. In this case, the pose of Saint James with his right arm wrapped in a swath of drapery was inspired by figures adorning an early Christian sarcophagus formerly kept in the same church as the painting.

The name of the man who painted it may be unknown to us, but he must be counted among the leading artists of his time. The Master of Saint Francis is noted for rapid, energetic drawing and just this way of communicating through vivid gesture. He received other important commissions, including a fresco cycle in the mother church of the Franciscan order at Assisi, where papal interest (and largesse) insured the highest level of work. The artist may very well have been a Franciscan friar himself.

This panel and another in the National Gallery of Art depicting John the Evangelist originally were part of an altarpiece more than 11 feet long—one of the most important altarpieces made in Italy during the third quarter of the 13th century (see Reconstructions). The altarpiece was located in the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia. The Gallery's two panels plus those of Saint Francis and the remaining ten apostles (four panels survive in other museums; the rest are lost) probably flanked a central image of the Virgin and Child (also lost).

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 1


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 48.3 × 22.5 cm (19 × 8 7/8 in.)
    overall size: 49.8 × 24.2 cm (19 5/8 × 9 1/2 in.)
    framed: 63.5 × 38.1 × 9.21 cm (25 × 15 × 3 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.15

Associated Artworks

A man with light skin with a greenish cast, wearing a slate-blue robe draped over a burgundy-red, ankle-length tunic, stands under an arched opening against a glimmering gold background in this vertical painting. The man’s body faces us but he turns his head to our right and looks off in that direction with dark eyes under curving, dark brows. Like his skin, his white hair and beard has a greenish cast, but is painted with long, curving white lines to indicate the flow of hair. He has a high forehead, a long, thin nose, and his small pink lips are closed. His left arm, on our right, is wrapped in or hidden by his robe, and he holds a parchment-colored scroll in front of his chest with his other hand. His clothing is painted with lines to indicate folds. He wears sandals with thin, mahogany-brown straps on his feet and stands on a pine-green floor. His head is surrounded by a halo created by incising and punching the gold background behind the man. The shoulder-wide halo is decorated with S-shaped spirals and a ring of simple, delicate flowers around the perimeter. The arch above the man is supported by maroon-red columns topped by cobalt-blue, leafy capitals. The corners above the arch are maroon red, and rough, disk-shaped areas in each corner could indicate losses. A web of cracks stretches across the gold areas. Writing along the arch reads, “SANCTVS I HANES SSUM.”

Saint John the Evangelist

Master of Saint Francis

1272

More About this Artwork


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Executed in all probability for the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, where at least part of the fragments belonging to the same altarpiece were still preserved in 1793;[1] probably privately owned in Perugia;[2] Anton de Waal [1837–1917], Rome;[3] probably (Paolo Paolini, Rome), by 1921;[4] Philip Lehman [1861–1947], New York, by 1928; sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] William Young Ottley (A Series of Plates Engraved after the Paintings and Sculptures of the Most Eminent masters of the Early Florentine School, London, 1826: pl. 1) describes having seen the Deposition and Lamentation, from the same altarpiece and now in the Galleria Nazionale in Perugia, in the convent of San Francesco in Perugia in 1793. Evidently, as Dillan Gordon (“A Perugian provenience for the Franciscan double - sided altar - piece by the Maestro di S. Francesco,” The Burlington Magazine 124 [1982]: 72 n. 41) observes, the altarpiece had already been sawn apart at that time; see the following note. Previously, Robert Lehman (The Philip Lehman Collection, New York, Paris, 1928: nos. CXII–CXIII), Edward B. Garrison (Italian Romanesque Panel Painting. An Illustrated Index, Florence, 1949: 171), and others proposed a provenance from Assisi for both NGA 1952.5.15 and .16. Jürgen Schultze (“Ein Dugento - altar aus Assisi? Versuch einer Rekonstruktion,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Istituts Florenz 10 [1961]: 59-66; “Zur Kunst des Franziskusmeister,” Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 25 [1963]: 109-150; “Die Fresken in der Unterkirche von San Francesco zu Assisi und andere Werke des Franziskusmeister,” Raggi 7, no. 2 [1967]: 44-58) and Luiz C. Marques (La peinture du Duecento en Italie Centrale, Paris, 1987: 61-64) maintain that the painting to which the NGA panels originally belonged was executed for the high altar of the lower church of San Francesco in Assisi, but most others have abandoned that theory.
[2] The two panels with Stories of Christ entered the Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia in 1810 (and thence into the Galleria Nazionale, as no. 22) following the suppression of the religious orders. The panel of Saint Anthony (no. 21) that originally flanked the scene of Lamentation was acquired some time later by the Municipio of Perugia for the then Pinacoteca Civica (see Francesco Santi, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. Dipinti, sculture e oggetti d’arte di età romanica e gotica, Rome, 1969: 28). Probably, as in various other cases (see for example Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown, Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century, The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2003: 120), the components of the dossal remained in the convent even after its dispersal, perhaps distributed for devotional reasons in the cells and then removed by individual friars after its suppression. Whatever the case, the panels that did not enter the Galleria Nazionale in Perugia apparently surfaced together on the art market in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It was probably in the same period that the figure of the Prophet Isaiah entered the treasury of the basilica in Assisi.
[3] Anton de Waal arrived in Rome from his native Germany in 1868 and in 1873 became rector of the Collegio Teutonico of Santa Maria in Campo Santo in the same city, where he formed a small museum (Erwin Gatz, Anton de Waal (1837-1917) und der Campo Santo Teutonico, Freiburg/Breisgau, 1980). According to Schultze (1961, 64), the four panels formerly forming part of the altarpiece in San Francesco al Prato were sold by the arch-confraternity of Santa Maria della Pietà in Campo Santo Teutonico in 1921.
[4] According to John Pope-Hennessy and Laurence B. Kanter (The Robert Lehman Collection, I, Italian Paintings, New York and Princeton, 1987: 80), the panel with Saints Bartholomew and Simon now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Robert Lehman Collection, no. 1975.1.104), was with the dealer Paolo Paolini in Rome before Philip Lehman purchased it together with NGA 1952.5.15 and .16.
[5] Robert Lehman, The Philip Lehman Collection, New York, Paris, 1928: nos. 61, 62. The bill of sale for the Kress Foundation’s purchase of fifteen paintings from the Lehman collection, including NGA 1952.5.15 and .16, 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 e-mail 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/1831.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 810.

1999

  • The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, Petit Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1998-1999, no. 6/4, repro., as The Apostle Saint James Minor (shown only in New York in 1999).

2024

  • The Enigma of the Master of Saint Francis. The Stil Novo in Thirteenth-Century Umbria, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia, 2024, no. 3.2f, repro..

Bibliography

1907

  • Vollmer, Hans. "Meister des Hl. Franziskus von Assis." 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: 37(1950):105.

1924

  • Vitzthum, Georg Graf, and Wolgang Fritz Volbach. Die Malerei und Plastik des Mittelalters in Italien. Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft 1. Wildpark-Potsdam, 1924: 251.

1928

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

1929

  • Marle, Raimond van. "Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth Century in the Collection of Monsieur Adolph Stoclet in Brussels." Pantheon 4 (1929): 316.

1930

  • Mayer, August L. "Die Sammlung Philip Lehman." Pantheon 5 (1930): 115.

1932

  • Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 1(1932):406-407.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 345.

1935

  • D’Ancona, Paolo. Les primitifs italiens du XIe au XIIIe siècle. Paris, 1935: 76.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Translated by Emilio Cecchi. Milan, 1936: 281.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 7, repro.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 14, repro.

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

1949

  • Garrison, Edward B. Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: An Illustrated Index. Florence, 1949: 27, 162-163, repro.

1951

  • Galetti, Ugo, and Ettore Camesasca. Enciclopedia della pittura italiana. 3 vols. Milan, 1951: 2:1486.

1956

  • Santi, Francesco. La Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria in Perugia. Itinerari dei musei e monumenti d’Italia 90. Rome, 1956: 7.

1957

  • Exposition de la Collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1957: 30.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 13, repro.

1961

  • Schultze, Jürgen. "Ein Duecento-Altar aus Assisi? Versuch einer Rekonstruktion." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 10 (1961): 60, 61, 63, 64.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 108-109, repro.

  • Schultze, Jürgen. "Zur Kunst des ‘Franziskusmeisters.’" Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 25 (1963): 141, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 86.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 4-5, fig. 2.

  • Campini, Dino. Giunta Pisano Capitini e le croci dipinte romaniche. Milan, 1966: 151.

1967

  • Schultze, Jürgen. "Die Fresken in der Unterkirche von San Francesco zu Assisi und andere Werke des ‘Franziskusmeisters.’" Raggi 7, no. 2 (1967): 51-52, repro. 53.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 76, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:255, 256.

1969

  • Santi, Francesco, ed. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, vol. 1, Dipinti, sculture e oggetti d’arte di età romanica e gotica. Rome, 1969: 27, 29, 30-31 (misidentified as James Major).

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 128, 405, 646, 665.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 224, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:324-325; 2:pl. 234.

1980

  • Scarpellini, Pietro. "Le pitture." In Il tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi. Edited by Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto. Assisi, 1980: 43-44.

1982

  • Christiansen, Keith. "Fourteenth-Century Italian Altarpieces." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 40 (1982): 14, repro. 16.

  • Pietralunga, Fra Ludovico da, and Pietro Scarpellini (intro. and comm.). Descrizione della Basilica di S. Francesco e di altri Santuari di Assisi. Treviso, 1982: 175.

  • Gordon, Dillian. "A Perugian Provenance for the Franciscan Double-Sided Altarpiece by the Maestro di S. Francesco." The Burlington Magazine 124 (1982): 71, 72, 74 (repro.), 75.

1983

  • Esser, Saskia. "Die Ausmalung der Unterkirche von San Francesco in Assisi durch den Franziskusmeister." Ph.D. dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1983: 136 n. 4.

  • Poeschke, Joachim. "Der ‘Franziskusmeister’ und die Anfänge der Ausmalung von S. Francesco in Assisi." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 27 (1983): 157 (repro.), 162, 163.

1984

  • Os, Hendrik W. van. Sienese Altarpieces 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function. 2 vols. Groningen, 1984-1990: 1(1984):19, repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 257, repro.

  • Poeschke, Joachim. Die Kirche San Francesco in Assisi und ihre Wandmalereien. Munich, 1985: 67.

1986

  • Castelnuovo, Enrico, ed. La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Essays by Filippo Todini and Elvio Lunghi. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:376, 624.

1987

  • Pope-Hennessy, John, and Laurence B. Kanter. The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings. New York, 1987: 78, 80, repro. 286.

  • Marques, Luiz. La peinture du Duecento en Italie centrale. Paris, 1987: 61, 285.

1989

  • Toscano, Bruno. "Maestro di San Francesco." In Dizionario della pittura e dei pittori. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo and Bruno Toscano. 6 vols. Turin, 1989-1994: 3(1992):412.

  • Todini, Filippo. La pittura umbra dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento. 2 vols. Milan, 1989: 1:185, 2:repro. 29.

1990

  • Neri Lusanna, Enrica, and Cristina De Benedictis. "Miniatura umbra del Duecento: diffusione e Influenze a Roma e nell’Italia meridionale." Studi di storia dell’arte 1 (1990): 11.

1991

  • Solberg, Gail E. "Taddeo di Bartolo: His Life and Work." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1991. Ann Arbor, MI, 1994: 634.

  • Romano, Serena. "Maestro di S. Francesco." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 8(1997):119.

1992

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Appunti per una storia della tavola d’altare: le origini." Arte cristiana 80 (1992): 430, repro. 433.

  • Krüger, Klaus. Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien: Gestalt- und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert. Berlin, 1992: 26, 165, fig. 316.

  • Solberg, Gail E. "A Reconstruction of Taddeo di Bartolo’s Altarpiece for S. Francesco a Prato, Perugia." The Burlington Magazine 134 (1992): 653.

1994

  • Romano, Serena. "Maestro di San Francesco." in Dipinti, sculture e ceramiche della Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria: studi e restauri. Edited by Caterina Bon Valsassina and Vittoria Garibaldi. 1st ed. Florence, 1994: 58, repro. 61.

1996

  • Gordon, Dillian. "The So-Called Paciano Master and the Franciscans in Perugia." Apollo 143 (1996): 36.

  • Romano, Serena. "Master of St Francis." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 20:761.

1997

  • Martin, Frank, and Gerhard Ruf. Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung in Italien. Regensburg, 1997: 53-55.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 157, 166.

  • Krüger, Klaus. "Selbstdarstellung im Konflikt: zur Repräsentation der Bettelorden im Medium der Kunst." In Die Repräsentation der Gruppen Texte, Bilder, Objekte. Edited by Otto Gerhard Oexle and Andrea von Hülsen-Esch. Göttingen, 1998: 178-179, repro.

  • Morello, Giovanni, ed. Sauver Assise. Exh. cat. Musée du Petit Palais, Paris. Milan, 1998: 58.

1999

  • Cannon, Joanna. "The Stoclet ‘Man of Sorrows’: A Thirteenth-Century Italian Diptych Reunited." The Burlington Magazine 141 (1999): 110 n. 30.

  • Morello, Giovanni, and Laurence B. Kanter, eds. The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Milan, 1999: 70-79, repro. 73.

  • Cook, William Robert. Images of Saint Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to c. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue. Florence and Perth, 1999: 163.

2001

  • Andaloro, Maria. "Tracce della prima decorazione pittorica." In Il cantiere pittorico della Basilica superiore di San Francesco in Assisi. Edited by Giuseppe Basile and Pasquale Magro. Assisi, 2001: 84 n. 45.

  • Cooper, Donal. "Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 64 (2001): 9, 10 (repro.), 12.

  • Cooper, Donal. "‘Qui Perusii in archa saxea tumulatus’: The Shrine of Beato Egidio in San Francesco al Prato, Perugia." Papers of the British School at Rome 69 (2001): 224 (repro.), 225, 227-230, 238, 242.

  • Scalini, Mario, and Angelo Tartuferi, eds. Un tesoro rivelato: capolavori dalla collezione Carlo De Carlo. Exh. cat. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, 2001: 40.

2002

  • Giorgi, Silvia. "Maestro di San Francesco." In La pittura in Europa. Il Dizionario dei pittori. Edited by Carlo Pirovano. 3 vols. Milan, 2002: 2:549.

  • Garibaldi, Vittoria. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria: guida. Milan, 2002: 14.

  • Gordon, Dillian. "Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Perugian Double-Sided Altarpieces: Form and Function." In Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in the History of Art 61 ( 2002): 229-234, fig. 2.

  • Krüger, Klaus. "Medium and Imagination: Aesthetic Aspects of Trecento Panel Painting." In Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in the History of Art 61 (2002): 65-67.

  • Bonsanti, Giorgio, ed. La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi. Modena, 2002: 476.

2006

  • Bisogni, Fabio, and Enrico Menestò, eds. Iacopone da Todi e l’arte in Umbria nel Duecento. Exh. cat. Museo Comunale, Todi. Milan, 2006: 168, 170, 172.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 288-300, color repro.

Inscriptions

on the arch: SANCTVS JACOB [A]LPHEI Q[VI] COGNOMINAT[VS] E[ST] IV[STVS] [1]

Wikidata ID

Q20172942


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