Saint James Major

c. 1315/1320

Simone Martini

Painter, Sienese, active from 1315; died 1344

Shown from the waist up, a pale-skinned, bearded man faces us against a shiny gold background on this arched, vertical panel. The wooden panel is rounded at the top and has a wooden frame, which is painted gold along the bottom. The man’s skin has a greenish cast, but his cheeks and forehead are rosy. He has wavy, honey-brown hair and a long, forked beard. With his head tilted slightly to our right, the man looks up and off in that direction with gray eyes. He has a narrow, straight nose, a thin pink mouth, and small ears. He holds a red book in front of his chest with his right hand, to our left. The book has brown hinges, and the edges of the pages are gold. In his other hand, he grasps a wooden staff tied at the top with a small, black, square flag displaying a petal-pink scallop shell. His harvest-yellow cloak drapes over his shoulders, across his body, and over his left arm. Under the cloak, he wears a black tunic with wide gold trim patterned with starburst-like forms within pointed ovals along the neckline and sleeves. A double ringed halo punched with a flower pattern surrounds the man’s head against the glimmering gold background. There is a noticeable network of cracks across the painting's surface, especially on the gold background behind the man. Inscriptions next to his shoulders read “SATVS” on our left and “YACOBVS” on our right.

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This small panel once decorated the predella of an altarpiece along with nine other small portraits of apostles, three of which are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art: Matthew, Simon, and Thaddeus. The brother of the apostle John, Saint James Major was in Jesus’s innermost circle, and one of three witnesses to the Transfiguration and Jesus’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane. He was also the first apostle to be martyred, put to death by King Herod (Acts 12:2) just 15 years after he was called by Jesus to serve. But by the time Simone Martini painted this work, another aspect of James’s legend dominated his iconography. He is shown here as a pilgrim, with a scallop-shell banner decorating his walking staff. James Major was said to have preached in Spain, and his body (or that of a man he rescued) was said to have been pulled from the sea covered with scallops. During the Middle Ages, his shrine in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain was one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage destinations.

Simone Martini probably trained in Siena with Duccio, and by the time he painted the apostle portraits, he had become one of Europe’s leading artists. Simone displays his delight in sinuous, calligraphic line along the edges of the saint’s hood and tunic. Delicate coloration and almond eyes are also marks of Simone’s hand. His reputation earned the patronage of Robert, king of Naples and Anjou, and the pope, then installed in Avignon, in southern France. Through Simone, the brilliant color and rich patterning of Sienese painting met the graceful, lyrical figures of French Gothic, a marriage that evolved to become the international style, a refined and courtly manner that dominated all of the arts across Europe at the end of the Middle Ages.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 1

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 26 x 20 cm (10 1/4 x 7 7/8 in.)
    overall: 30.7 x 23 cm (12 1/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
    framed: 44.4 x 60 cm (17 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.25

Associated Artworks

Saint Simon

Simone Martini

1315

Saint Judas Thaddeus

Simone Martini

1315

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Saint James Major, c. 1315/1320

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

Acquired between 1832 and 1842 by Johann Anton Ramboux [1790-1866], Cologne, together with six other components of the same series, presumably in Siena;[1] (his estate sale, J.M. Heberle, Cologne, 23 May 1867, no. 75 [all ten panels], as by Lippo Memmi);[2] the whole series purchased by the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, which deaccessioned it in 1922-1923;[3] the four NGA panels, 1952.5.23-.26, purchased together with a fifth panel of the same series, by Philip Lehman [1861-1947], New York, by 1928;[4] the four NGA panels sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to the NGA.
[1] Ramboux built up his huge collection of early Italian pictures essentially in the above-mentioned years of his second period of residence in Italy; see Christoph Merzenich,"Di dilettanza per un artista - Der Sammler Antonio Giovanni Ramboux in der Toskana," in Lust und Verlust, edited by Hiltrud Kier and Frank Günter Zehnder, 2 vols., Cologne, 1995-1998: 1(1995): 303-314.
[2] Without quoting their provenance, the sale catalogue entry states only that the ten busts “ . . . stimmen im Ausdruck wie in der übrigen Technik mit den Wandmalereien im Stadthause zu Sangeminiano überein.”
[3] See Kier and Zehnder 1995-1998, 2(1998): 550-552.
[4] The four panels in Washington and a fifth, representing Saint Philip, are included in the catalogue of the Lehman collection (Robert Lehman, The Philip Lehman Collection, New York, Paris, 1928: nos. xix-xxiii). Possibly, Philip Lehman acquired them through Edward Hutton in London, who also handled the panels of the series now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
[5] The bill of sale for the Kress Foundation’s purchase of fifteen paintings from the Lehman collection, including NGA 1952.5.23-.26, 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/1830.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 822.

Bibliography

1862

  • Katalog der Gemälde Alter italienischer Meister (1221-1640) in der Sammlung des Conservator J. A. Ramboux. Cologne, 1862: 15, no. 75.

1864

  • Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle. A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 3 vols. London, 1864-1866: 2(1864):105.

1867

  • Heberle, J. M. Catalog der nachgelassenen Kunst-Sammlungen des Herrn Johann Anton Ramboux. Cologne, 23 May 1867: 17, no. 75.

1869

  • Niessen, Johannes. Verzeichniss der Gemälde-Sammlung des Museums Wallraf-Richartz in Köln. Cologne, 1869: 137.

1897

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1897: 148.

1901

  • Venturi, Adolfo. _Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 5(1907):666-667 n. 1.

1903

  • Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 6 vols. Edited by Robert Langton Douglas (vols. 1-4) and Tancred Borenius (vols. 5-6). Vol. 3, The Sienese, Umbrian, and North Italian Schools. London, 1903-1914: 3(1908):76, 76-77 n. 5.

1907

  • Perkins, Frederick Mason. "Simone di Martino (Simone Martini)." In Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 31(1937):67.

1909

  • Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 2nd ed. New York, 1909: 202.

1926

  • Gielly, Louis. Les primitifs siennois. Paris, 1926: 111.

1928

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

1930

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

1931

  • Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 61, repro.

1932

  • Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 2(1934):258 n.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 534.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:no. 77, repro.

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: 459.

1939

  • McCall, George. Masterpieces of Art. Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Exh. cat. World’s Fair, New York, 1939: 116-117.

1946

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

1951

  • Toesca, Pietro. Il Trecento. Storia dell’arte italiana, 2. Turin, 1951: 551 n. 75.

1956

  • Coor, Gertrude. "Trecento-Gemälde aus der Sammlung Ramboux." Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 18 (1956): 118.

1957

  • Exposition de la Collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1957: 43.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 33, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 123, as by Simone Martini and Assistants.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 48-49, fig. 124.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 110, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:404.

1970

  • Contini, Gianfranco, and Maria Cristina Gozzoli. L’opera completa di Simone Martini. Milan, 1970: 105 no. 53, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 122, 403, 646, 665.

1974

  • De Benedictis, Cristina. "A proposito di un libro su Buffalmacco." Antichità viva 13, no. 2 (1974): 8, 10 n. 13.

  • Mallory, Michael. "An Altarpiece by Lippo Memmi Reconsidered." Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974): 201 n. 19.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 326, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants

1977

  • Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I Dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977: 90.

1978

  • Ressort, Claude, Sylvia Beguin, and Michel Laclotte, eds. Retables italiens du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Exh. cat. Musée National du Louvre, Paris, 1978: 19.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:432-433; 2:pl. 310.

  • De Benedictis, Cristina. La pittura senese 1330-1370. Florence, 1979: 93.

1980

  • Zeri, Federico, and Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: Sienese and Central Italian Schools. A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980: 95.

1982

  • Natale, Mauro, Alessandra Mottola Molfino, and Joyce Brusa. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Vol. 1, Dipinti. Milan, 1982: 145.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 374, repro.

1987

  • Previtali, Giovanni. "Problems in the Workshop of Simone Martini." Center, Research Reports and Record of Activities 7 (1987): 83-84, repro.

1988

  • Boskovits, Miklós, ed. Frühe italienische Malerei: Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Katalog der Gemälde. Translated by Erich Schleier. Berlin, 1988: 75.

  • Martindale, Andrew. Simone Martini. Oxford, 1988: 35 n. 18.

  • Previtali, Giovanni. "Introduzione ai problemi della bottega di Simone Martini." In Simone Martini: atti del convegno; Siena, March 27-29, 1985. Edited by Luciano Bellosi. Florence, 1988: 166 n. 23

1990

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Review of Simone Martino by Andrew Martindale." Kunstchronik 43 (1990): 600.

1991

  • De Benedictis, Cristina. "Lippo Memmi." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 7(1996):732.

  • Christie, Manson & Woods. Important Paintings by Old Masters. New York, 11 January 1991: 28.

1995

  • Baetjer, Katharine. European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865. A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995: 42.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 205, 311, 321, 444, 453.

  • Kier, Hiltrud, and Frank Günter Zehnder, eds. Lust und Verlust. Vol. 2 (of 2), Corpus-Band zu Kölner Gemäldesammlungen 1800-1860. Cologne, 1998: 551, repro.

1999

  • Bagnoli, Alessandro. La Maestà di Simone Martini. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1999: 156 n. 24, 179.

2009

  • Bellosi, Luciano, et al., eds. La collezione Salini: dipinti, sculture e oreficerie dei secoli XII, XIII, XIV e XV. 4 vols. Florence, 2009, 2015: 1(2009):135, repro. 138.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 351-369, color repro.

Inscriptions

on the left side of the Saint: .SA[NC]TVS.; on the right side of the Saint: YACOBVS.

Wikidata ID

Q20172992

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