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Altarpiece Reconstructions

Overview

Like Duccio’s The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, this small panel was part of the Maestà, one of the most important masterpieces in the history of Western painting. The monumental Maestà was a two-sided altarpiece that dominated the main altar in Siena’s cathedral for nearly two centuries. Within the vast black-and-white striped interior of the church, it would have glittered in the colored light that washed down through stained glass. Completed in less than three years, the Maestà was a huge undertaking, for which Duccio received 3,000 gold florins—more than any artist had ever commanded. Although he must have had substantial help from his pupils and workshop assistants, the design and execution indicates that Duccio exercised control over the whole project. Moved to a side altar in 1506, the altarpiece was sawn apart in the 1770s and individual panels subsequently dispersed. This makes it impossible to determine its dimensions with certainty, but it must have been about 15 feet wide, with the gables rising to as much as 17 feet high. In all, there were probably more than 70 individual scenes (see Reconstructions).

This panel was located on the back of the altarpiece, where the imagery was devoted to Christ’s Passion and his mission as teacher—apt subjects for the rear panels, which would have been seen only by clergy standing behind the altar. Here we find Jesus calling his first disciples. He approaches two fishermen at work on the Sea of Galilee: Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew. Their net is full when Jesus says to them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:18).

This panel is one of the highlights of Duccio’s accomplishments and likely one of the last created, displaying all the lessons learned over the years of painting the Maestà. The figures are sensitively human, their gestures expressive, their draperies lyrical yet describing the bodies beneath. Duccio’s setting is evocative of nature, yet reminds us, with the gilded sky, that capturing the physical world is not this painter’s top priority.

Entry

The episode illustrated in the panel is that recounted in the synoptic Gospels of the calling of the first two apostles: Jesus [fig. 1], walking by the Sea of Galilee, accosts Simon, called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, as they are casting a net into the sea, and invites them: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”[1] The composition conforms to the iconographic scheme already familiar in Sienese art in the thirteenth century,[2] though enriched by such details as the motif of the net full of fishes and Peter’s timid gesture of remonstrance, reported only by Luke (“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”). The painting was the fourth of the nine scenes ([fig. 2] [fig. 3] [fig. 4] [fig. 5] [fig. 6] [fig. 7] [fig. 8] [fig. 9]) representing episodes of the public ministry of Jesus, arranged in the predella on the rear side of the altarpiece, the side turned towards the apse [fig. 10] (see also Reconstruction). It was a kind of introduction to the narrative of the Passion, recounted in the twenty-six scenes of the main register of the back of the Maestà and the seven postmortem scenes placed in the gables [fig. 11] (see also Reconstruction). The front side [fig. 12] (see also Reconstruction), facing the nave, was dedicated to the glorification of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral was consecrated. In the main register she appears enthroned, surrounded by twenty angels and ten saints. In the upper register was a gallery of ten busts of apostles, while the predella illustrated seven stories of the childhood of Christ interspersed with six figures of prophets (see entry for The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel). The stories of the death and glorification of the Virgin appeared in the seven panels of the gable. Above these latter, at the very top of the altarpiece, on both sides of the work, small panels with busts of angels flanked further lost images.

The altarpiece of monumental dimensions and complex structure, of which The Nativity and The Calling of the Apostles formed part, is unusually well documented.[3] The procedures regulating the execution of the work and the payments to be made to the artist were meticulously described in a document dated October 9, 1308. It obliged Duccio to conduct the enterprise continuously, without any interruption, and without taking on any other work. It also stipulated that the hours of any absences from his workshop should be deducted from his daily remuneration. The wording of the document, and the fact that it fails to specify the subject or structure of the altarpiece, suggests that it was not in fact the original contract but a supplement to it, presumably prompted by the excessive slowness in the progress of the execution. By October 1308, therefore, Duccio probably had been at work on the Maestà for some time. On the other hand, we do have a secure terminus ante quem for the completion of the altarpiece: on June 9, 1311, some musicians were paid for having accompanied it as it was being transported, in triumphal procession, from the artist’s workshop to the cathedral.[4] Subsequent events in the history of the work also can be followed almost step by step, thanks to the rich surviving documentation.

Art historical discussion of the Maestà has concentrated mainly on the problem of reconstructing the original appearance of the dismantled and in part dispersed ensemble. An exception is James Stubblebine’s attempts to distinguish the parts attributable to various assistants who hypothetically participated in its execution.[5] The only fully autograph parts, in his view, were the large image of the Maestà itself on the front side and the predella below, while the rest of the altarpiece was attributable to various of the main Sienese painters of the early Trecento. In particular, the rear predella, of which this panel formed part, was, according to Stubblebine, painted by Pietro Lorenzetti (Sienese, active 1306 - 1345). More recent studies have not accepted this attribution, at variance with the stylistic data, and the wording of the contract of 1308 also apparently contradicts it: a daily remuneration for Duccio was stipulated as “sixteen soldi of Sienese money for each day that the said Duccio shall work with his own hands on the said panel.”[6] In any case, the extraordinary stylistic coherence of the altarpiece seems to exclude the participation of artists who had already completed their apprenticeship and were able to express themselves with a style of their own — in other words, artists other than those of Duccio’s shop. Duccio, of course, would not have tackled single-handedly the daunting task of painting the eighty or so images of various size that make up the Maestà: he would have undoubtedly entrusted to others the largely mechanical realization of the more decorative parts. His assistants, following the outlines of his drawing, would have intervened in the painting of the less demanding areas of the settings, architectural backdrops, and draperies. But it is equally certain that the master rigorously controlled the work of his assistants, reserving for himself the task not only of painting the faces, or the bodies in movement, but also of revising and finishing the passages he had not personally painted himself.[7]

Discussion has also focused on how best to interpret the iconography of the scenes on the back of the Maestà,[8] which remains in some respects problematic. But art historical analysis has been especially prolific, as noted above, in trying to reconstruct its original appearance. This task, made difficult by the dismemberment of the altarpiece at an early date and the loss of some of its components, was systematically tackled for the first time by Eduard Dobbert (1885), a scholar whose knowledge of the front predella was limited to six scenes and six figures of prophets.[9] He rightly intuited that the sequence of the stories of the childhood of Christ must have begun with The Annunciation [fig. 2], that the scenes must have been interspersed with figures of prophets, and that the predella as a whole must have been as broad as the main panel of the Maestà above. Of the back predella, Dobbert seemed familiar only with The Wedding at Cana [fig. 5], which had remained in the Opera del Duomo in Siena, but he succeeded in correctly guessing the subjects of five other scenes.[10] Dobbert assumed that the number of episodes in the predella must have been identical on both sides of the altarpiece; so it followed that the scenes relating to the public life of Jesus, the first of which must have been a lost Baptism of Christ, would have been similarly interspersed with figures of prophets. Curt Weigelt (1909) accepted Dobbert’s reconstruction of the front predella but proposed the presence of ten stories in the rear predella (adding to the subjects already taken into consideration the Temptation in the Wilderness, Temptation on the Mount [fig. 4], and the Temptation on the Temple [fig. 3], the latter a panel he himself had rediscovered).[11] Weigelt was in error in assuming that the gable zones were filled by eight panels of identical size on both sides.[12] This error was corrected in the reconstruction proposed by Vittorio Lusini (1912), who intuited the presence of a panel of larger size at the center of the upper tier: an image of identical width to that of the Crucifixion below. The two central panels, he conjectured, would have been composed of the now lost scenes of the Coronation of the Virgin (on the front side) and the Ascension (on the back), each of which would have been flanked by three gable panels on either side: the last episodes of the life of Mary above the Maestà and the postmortem stories of Christ on the back. This suggestion has in general been endorsed by more recent studies, whereas the reconstruction proposed by Lusini of a predella with as many as fifteen compartments (nine stories and six prophets) below the Maestà and eleven in the predella on the opposite side has not been accepted.[13]

In more recent decades, general consensus has been reached regarding the nine episodes of the rear predella. Weigelt’s reconstruction of the front predella has also been accepted. It is also generally conceded that one of the stories of the public life of Jesus and the two scenes filling the front and rear of the central gable have been lost.[14] A second order of gable panels with busts of angels, some of them still extant, is also a generally accepted hypothesis.[15] The important research by John White (1973, 1979) has permitted the original dimensions of the Maestà to be established in a plausible way. It measured, according to White, 439 cm in width, while the predella would have been about 450 cm long. The altarpiece would have been supported by two robust lateral pillars or buttresses, with a width of some 30 cm.[16] The overall height of the Maestà remains difficult to calculate, since the gabled elements at the center of the altarpiece are now missing. Sporadic attempts to identify the lost panels with surviving paintings have not met with acceptance in the literature. Alessandro Conti thought that Coronation of the Virgin in Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, no. 16) was a surviving fragment of the central panel of the upper tier on the front side.[17] The proposal is interesting, since the painting in question undoubtedly has Duccesque characteristics and its proportions (contrary to what has been claimed) do not seem at variance with those of the Maestà. Moreover, a witness as trustworthy as Lorenzo Ghiberti maintained that the Coronation did appear on the front side of the altarpiece. So, while we may admit that the pictorial treatment of the panel in Budapest reveals a hand inferior to that of Duccio himself, we ought not to dismiss too hastily the hypothesis that it originally formed part of the Maestà.[18]

Another hypothesis, formulated more recently by the present writer (1982, 1990), concerns the missing first scene of the back of the predella.[19] It seems to me that it can be identified with the little painting also in the museum in Budapest, Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness [fig. 2]. In general, previous proposals for the reconstruction of the Maestà assumed for this part of the predella an image (perhaps the one that was still visible in the sacristy of the cathedral in 1798 and then disappeared) representing the Baptism of Christ or the Temptation in the Wilderness, though the theme of the Baptist Bearing Witness was also considered a possible subject.[20] The Budapest panel, which is in poor condition and perhaps for this very reason sold by the Opera del Duomo, represents a rare subject; very likely it formed part of a larger complex of which, however, no other component has yet been identified. Usually it has been connected with the activity of Ugolino da Siena. Might it instead have formed part of the altarpiece over the high altar in the cathedral? In its present condition it is very difficult to judge, but both the circumstance that Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (who had perhaps been able to see it, in the mid-nineteenth century, in better condition than it is now) did not hesitate to attribute it to Duccio [21] and the slenderness of the arguments with which art historians have tried to deny that it formed part of the predella of the Maestà concur to make its belonging to this work an option that still, in my view, remains valid.[22]

The original appearance of the Maestà, and in particular of the back predella, thus still remains a discussed problem. What remains unchallenged, on the other hand, is the artistic quality of the two panels now in the National Gallery of Art, and on this point a further brief comment should be made. The particular accomplishment of execution of the paintings in the lower zones of the Maestà has long been recognized. Some have tried to explain this phenomenon by assuming that the painter left less room there for the intervention of studio assistants than in the less visible parts, in the upper tiers of the altarpiece.[23] Others emphasize, more plausibly, the more retardataire style detectable in the panels that would have adorned the gables of the work. They point out that the work would have proceeded from top to bottom, and suggest that during the long gestation of the enterprise Duccio was able to experiment with new solutions and to modify his initial project.[24] The painstaking execution, accomplished technique, concise narrative, and expressive emotion in the figures that populate the stories of the predella, where the perspective incongruities present in the gable panels and in the stories of the Passion no longer appear, would therefore depend on their later dating, though this cannot be any later than June 30, 1311.[25] If we compare a passage such as the Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew with the similar scene of the Apparition of Jesus on the Sea of Tiberius (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena), we will immediately feel the greater spaciousness of the composition of the painting now in the Gallery. The figures are smaller and fewer but characterized by particular fluency and eloquence in gesture [fig. 13]. Similar aspects can also be detected in the predella panel of the Nativity [fig. 14], especially if the painting is compared, for example, with one of the last episodes of the life of Mary, recounted in the gable panels. In the Nativity, by contrast, a large number of figures are included, and yet the scene does not seem unduly crowded. In spite of some archaic features, such as the adoption of a larger scale for the figure of Mary than for the other figures, or the incongruity of the roof of the stable, seen from below on the right side and from above on the left, Duccio’s “digressive approach to narration” [26] succeeds in both creating convincing spatial effects and combining the various episodes into a coherent composition. This is also thanks to the master’s subtle analysis of the conduct of the protagonists, who, with their intense emotional participation, render the narrative vivid, complex, and humanly credible.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016

Provenance

NGA 1939.1.141 formed part of the rear predella of Duccio's double-sided altarpiece the Maestà, which was in the course of execution by October 1308 and was placed on the high altar of the Cathedral of Siena on 30 June 1311;[1] the altarpiece was removed from the cathedral in 1506, first stored by the Cathedral authorities, and then later displayed on the wall of the left transept, close to the altar of Saint Sebastian, but probably by this time the predella and gable panels had already been separated from it;[2] the altarpiece was moved to the church of Sant'Ansano in 1777, where its two sides were separated and returned to the cathedral;[3] in 1798 the gables and eight panels of the predella were reported as being housed in the sacristy of the cathedral, whereas the rest, including NGA 1939.1.141, must already have been in private hands;[4] Giuseppe and Marziale Dini, Colle Val d'Elsa (Siena), by 1879;[5] purchased 1886 by (Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919], London and Florence) for Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex;[6] sold 1927 with the entire Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[7] sold 1 October 1928 to Clarence H. Mackay [1874-1938], Roslyn, New York;[8] sold 1934 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[9] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The documents are published in Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Boninsegna. The Documents and Early Sources, ed. Hayden B.J. Maginnis, Atlanta, 2000: 69-81, and in Allesandro Bagnoli et al., eds. Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, Milan, 2003.: 577-579.

[2] See Alessandro Lisini, “Notizie di Duccio pittore e della sua celebre ancona,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 5 (1898): 24-25. According to this author, in 1506 the altarpiece "venne confinata in certi mezzanini dell'Opera [del Duomo]...e per introdurvela fu necessario di togliere tutte le cuspidi e gli accessori" ("was stored in certain passages in the Opera del Duomo...and to enter there it was necessary to cut off all the pinnacles and accessories"). This latter term presumably comprises the predella. Lisini stated that only "sulla fine del secolo" - i.e., at the end of the sixteenth century - was the painting brought back to the cathedral. In Giovanna Ragionieri's opinion, however, the altarpiece had already been returned to the cathedral in 1536 and installed near the altar of Saint Sebastian. See Giovanna Ragionieri, in Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. Alessandro Bagnoli et al., Siena, 2003: 212.

[3] See Pèleo Bacci, Francesco da Valdambrino, Emulo del Ghiberti e collaboratore di Jacopo della Quercia, Siena, 1936: 185-186. The author did not mention the gables and predella; these had probably been separated earlier from the rest of the altarpiece (see the previous note). After the separation of the two sides of the main panel, the front with the image of the Madonna and Child enthroned in majesty surrounded by saints and angels was hung in its former place in the left transept, and the narrative scenes of the back were hung in the opposite transept.

[4] See Bacci 1936, 187. Vittorio Lusini specified that, apart from the twelve scenes of the gable, eight panels of the predella were present in the sacristy at this time, i.e., one more than the predella panels now preserved in the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana del Duomo in Siena. The identity of this eighth scene is uncertain, but presumably it was different from those that reappeared in private hands in the second half of the nineteenth century. See Vittorio Lusini, Il Duomo di Siena, 2 vols., Siena, 1911-1939: 2:77. The seven predella panels now in the Siena cathedral museum represent the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, and Christ among the Doctors from the front predella, and the Temptation on the Temple and the Wedding at Cana from the rear predella. James Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, around the mid-nineteenth century, were only able to see six predella panels in the sacristy of the cathedral: the much damaged Temptation on the Temple and the eighth panel of unknown subject were no longer there. See Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, 3 vols., London, 1864: 2:44 n. 1. Curt H. Weigelt discovered Temptation on the Temple in the storerooms of the Opera del Duomo in 1909, whereas the eighth panel has so far not been identified. See Curt H. Weigelt, “Contributo alla ricostruzione della Maestà di Duccio di Buoninsegna nel Museo della Metropolitana di Siena,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 16, no. 2 (1909): 191-214. The predella, its many panels now divided among various museums in the world, was probably disposed of by the Opera del Duomo during the eighteenth century, and was at first privately owned in Siena.

[5] The painting was exhibited in Colle Val d’Elsa in 1879 as the property of Giuseppe and Marziale Dini, together with three other predella panels: The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew framed together with the Raising of Lazarus, now in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, and the Temptation on the Mountain (Frick Collection, New York) framed together with the Christ and the Woman of Samaria, now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

[6] Fern Rusk Shapley (Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:172 n. 2) quotes the following annotation written by Benson in his personal copy of the catalogue of his collection: “In 1886 I gave a commission to C. Fairfax Murray to spend £ 2000 for me in Italy. These 4 Duccios were part of the spoils.” This information was supplied by Benson’s grandson, Peter Wake, in a letter of 2 February 1976, to Anna Voris (in NGA curatorial files).

[7] See Tancred Borenius, “The Benson collection,” Apollo 6 (1927): 65-70, and Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 206, box 351, folders 2 and 3; reel 207, box 352, folders 1 and 2 (copies in NGA curatorial files).

[8] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Special Collections, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Series I Business Records, New York Sales Lists 1922-1928. The painting was in the Mackay collection in Roslyn, New York (Royal Cortissoz, “The Clarence H. Mackay Collection,” International Studio 40 (December 1929): 120), whereas the Raising of Lazarus together with the Christ and the Woman of Samaria were bought by John D. Rockfeller, Jr. for his collection in New York, and the Temptation on the Mountain was acquired for the Frick Collection, also in New York. Not long after its acquisition, financial difficulties obliged Mackay gradually to sell off parts of his collection, and Duveen Brothers, Inc. assisted him in this effort (see Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976:157, and the Duveen Brothers Records, reels 336–339). The NGA painting had been offered—unsuccessfully—to Samuel H. Kress in 1932 (see Colin Simpson, The Partnership. The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen, London, 1987: 236).

[9] Shapley 1979, 1:172.

Associated Names

Benson, Robert Henry and Evelyn Holford
Dini, Guiseppe and Marziale
Duomo, Siena
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Mackay, Clarence H.
Murray, Charles Fairfax

Exhibition History

1904: Exhibition of Pictures of the School of Siena, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1904, nos. 1 and 7.

1927: Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 108.

1935: Exposition de L'Art Italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo, Petit Palais, Paris, 1935, no. 150.

Technical Summary

The support consists of a single piece of horizontally grained wood, cradled by Stephen Pichetto in 1935 and probably thinned (thickness 0.9 cm) at that time. Before the painting process, fabric and gesso layers were applied to the panel. The main contour lines were incised into the gesso, and red bole was applied to the areas to be gilded. Infrared reflectography at 1.1 – 2.5 microns [1] reveals underdrawing marking the main folds of the garments, the facial features, and hatching in the boat. It also shows that Christ’s face and proper right foot were moved. The paint was applied in thin, smooth layers.

The gold ground is probably modern, but the paint surface is only slightly worn. The two apostles probably had incised halos, which have completely disappeared. Small areas of inpainting are intended to conceal the prominent, vertical linear cracks in the panel that appear throughout the composition. In an area between the left edge of the boat and the left edge of the panel a series of thin, vertical, white lines form a kind of hatching. These lines seem to be a combination of damage and inpainting. They do not appear in early twentieth-century photographs,[2] and therefore the inpainting was probably added during the 1935 restoration. At that time, in addition to cradling the panel, Pichetto removed a discolored varnish and inpainted the losses. The similar but diagonally aligned hatching that appears in the water to the right of the net full of fishes also probably dates from the same intervention.

Bibliography

1894: Foulkes, Costanza Jocelyn. "Le esposizioni d’arte italiana a Londra." Archivio storico d’arte 7 (1894): 154.

1894: Portfolio of Photographic Reproductions of Pictures in the Early Italian Art Exhibition. London, 1894: pl. 42.

1894: Richter, Jean Paul. "Die Ausstellung italienischer Renaissancewerke in der New Gallery in London." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 17 (1894): 238.

1894: Ulmann, Hermann. "Photographische Reproductionen der in der New Gallery 1894 aus englishem Privatbesitz ausgestellten italienischen Bilder." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 17 (1894): 489.

1897: Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1897: 140.

1901: Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 5(1907):560, 566, 568-570, figs. 458, 459, 460, 463.

1902: Douglas, Robert Langton. A History of Siena. London, 1902: 345, 349.

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):10-11 n. 2.

1903: Douglas, Robert Langton. "Duccio and the Early History of Italian Painting." The Monthly Review 35, no. 2 (1903): 142-143.

1904: Frizzoni, Gustavo. "L’esposizione d’arte senese al Burlington Fine Arts Club." L’Arte 7 (1904): 257-258, fig. 1.

1904: Fry, Roger. "La mostra d’arte senese al Burlington Club di Londra." Rassegna d’arte 4 (1904): 116.

1905: Reinach, Saloman. Répertoire de peintures du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (1280-1580). 6 vols. Paris, 1905-1923: 1(1905):463.

1906: Pératé, André. "La peinture italienne au XIV siècle." In Histoire de l’art, vol. 2: formation, expansion et évolution de l'art gothique. Edited by André Michel. Paris, 1906: 828.

1907: Cust, Lionel. "La collection de M. R. H. Benson (Londres)." Les Arts 70 (1907): 24.

1907: Jacobsen, Emil. Sienesische Meister des Trecento in der Gemäldegalerie zu Siena. Strasbourg, 1907: 27 n. 1.

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1908: Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 3 vols. Edited by Edward Hutton. Vol. 2, Sienese School of the Fourteenth Century; Florentine School of the Fifteenth Century. London and New York, 1908-1909: 2(1909):10 n. 5.

1909: Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 2nd ed. New York, 1909: 162, 163.

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1911: Fry, Roger. "Exhibition of Old Masters at the Grafton Galleries, 1." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 20 (1911): 71.

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1911: Weigelt, Curt H. Duccio di Buoninsegna: Studien zur Geschichte der frühsienesischen Tafelmalerei. Leipzig, 1911: 89, 94, 232, 238, 280, pls. 12, 18.

1912: Howe, William Norton. Animal Life in Italian Painting. London, 1912: 49.

1913: Vasari, Giorgio, and Arturo Jahn Rusconi (into. and notes). Vita di Duccio di Buoninsegna. Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori 17. Florence, 1913: 20-22.

1914: Benson, Robert Henry. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex. London, privately printed, 1914: no. 4.

1914: Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: no. 4.

1916: Berenson, Bernard. "Ugolino Lorenzetti." Art in America 5 (1916-1917): 264, 267 fig. 1.

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 2(1924):21, 28-31, 33.

1924: Vitzthum, Georg Graf, and Wolgang Fritz Volbach. Die Malerei und Plastik des Mittelalters in Italien. Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft 1. Wildpark-Potsdam, 1924: 239-240.

1926: Gielly, Louis. Les primitifs siennois. Paris, 1926: 9, 11 n. 106.

1927: Borenius, Tancred. "The Benson Collection." Apollo 6 (1927): 66 (repro.), 68.

1927: Comstock, Helen. "Panels from Duccio’s Majestas for America." International Studio 88, no. 364 (1927): 63, 65, 67-68.

1927: Douglas, Robert Langton. "I dipinti senesi della Collezione Benson passati da Londra in America." Rassegna d’arte senese e del costume 1, no. 5 (1927): 99, 100 (repro.), 103 n.

1927: Washburn-Freund, Frank E. "Die Sammlung Benson." Der Cicerone 19 (1927): 499.

1928: Cecchi, Emilio. Trecentisti senesi. Rome, 1928: 35-36, 41, 42, 43, 127, pl. 25.

1928: Washburn-Freund, Frank E. "Die Vier Duccios der Sammlung Benson." Der Cicerone 20 (1928): 333-336, repro. 335.

1929: Toesca, Pietro. "Duccio di Buoninsegna." In Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti. Edited by Istituto Giovanni Treccani. 36 vols. Milan, 1929-1939: 13(1932):245.

1930: Weigelt, Curt H. Die sienesische Malerei des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts. Pantheon Edition. Florence and Munich, 1930: 10, 15, 69 n. 16, 71.

1931: Hautecoeur, Louis. Les primitifs italiens. Paris, 1931: 119, 120.

1931: Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 15, repro.

1932: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 176.

1932: Edgell, George Harold. A History of Sienese Painting. New York, 1932: 49.

1932: Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 2(1934):32-34, fig. 21.

1933: Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:no. 18, repro.

1935: Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: 30, 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: 152.

1939: Tietze, Hans. Masterpieces of European Painting in America. New York, 1939: 30, repro.

1940: Suida, Wilhelm. "Die Sammlung Kress: New York." Pantheon 26 (1940): 274.

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: nos. 8-10, repros.

1941: Frankfurter, Alfred M. "On the Italian Renaissance Painters in the National Gallery." Art News 40 (15-31 March 1941): 16, 26.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 60, no. 252, pl. IV.

1941: Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 177.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 244, repro. 100.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 16, color repro.

1944: Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 19, repro.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 8, repro.

1947: Carli, Enzo. I capolavori dell’arte senese. 2nd ed. Florence, 1947: 17.

1950: Papi, Vittorio. Duccio’s Majestas: The History and Poetry of a Famous Picture. Siena, 1950: 70.

1951: Brandi, Cesare. Duccio. Florence, 1951: 60, 144, pls. 42, 51.

1951: Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. London, 1951: 134-135.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 16, repro. 14.

1951: Galetti, Ugo, and Ettore Camesasca. Enciclopedia della pittura italiana. 3 vols. Milan, 1951: 1:862.

1951: Toesca, Pietro. Il Trecento. Storia dell’arte italiana, 2. Turin, 1951: 501 n. 37.

1952: Carli, Enzo. Duccio. Astra Arengarium. Collection de Monographies d’Art Peintres 31. Milan, 1952: figs. 63, 73.

1952: Cecchini, Giovanni. L’opera metropolitana e il suo museo. Siena, 1952: 26.

1953: Brandi, Cesare. Duccio di Buoninsegna (La Maestà). Milan, 1953: 10.

1953: Oertel, Robert. Die Frühzeit der italienischen Malerei. Stuttgart, 1953: 123, 226 n. 218.

1955: Carli, Enzo. La pittura senese. Milan, 1955: 46.

1955: DeWald, Ernest T. "Observations on Duccio’s Maestà." In Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend Jr. Edited by Kurt Weitzmann. Princeton, 1955: 373, 374, 379.

1956: D’Ancona, Paolo. Duccio. Milan, 1956: 11, repro. 22.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 14, repro.

1959: Brandi, Cesare, ed. Il restauro della Maestà di Duccio. Rome, 1959: 8, 9, 11, 12.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 14, repro.

1960: Bologna, Ferdinando. "Duccio di Buoninsegna." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 41(1992):747.

1961: Carli, Enzo. Duccio di Buoninsegna. Milan, 1961: 22, 31, pls. 15, 16, 26.

1961: DeWald, Ernest T. Italian Painting 1200-1600. New York, 1961: 112, 117.

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings and Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 6, repro. 8.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 66, repro.

1965: Cooper, Frederick A. "A Reconstruction of Duccio’s Maestà." The Art Bulletin 47 (1965): 156 n. aa, 168 n. 116, figs. 2, 3.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 44.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:6, color repro.

1966: Parronchi, Alessandro. "Segnalazione Duccesca." Antichità viva 5 (1966): 5 n. 1.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 13-14, fig. 28.

1968: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 2:118, pl. 34.

1968: European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 37, repro.

1968: Oertel, Robert. Early Italian Painting to 1400. London, 1968: 358 n. 7.

1968: Ruhemann, Helmut. The Cleaning of Paintings: Problems and Potentialities. London, 1968: 41, fig. 1.

1968: The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue, vol. 2, Paintings, French, Italian and Spanish. New York, 1968: 226.

1969: Stubblebine, James H. "The Angel Pinnacles on Duccio’s Maestà." Art Quarterly 32 (1969): 137, figs. 11 & 14.

1971: Carli, Enzo. I pittori senesi. Siena, 1971: 56.

1972: Cattaneo, Giulio and Edi Baccheschi. L’opera completa di Duccio. 1st ed. Milan, 1972: 7, 92, 93, pls. 22, 27, 61, figs. 68-70, 82.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 68, 268, 277, 645, 660.

1973: Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 79.

1973: Preiser, Arno. Das Entstehen und die Entwicklung der Predella in der italienischen Malerei. Hildesheim and New York, 1973: 78.

1973: Stubblebine, James H. "Duccio and His Collaborators on the Cathedral Maestà." The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 185, 190, 203, fig. 1.

1973: White, John. "Measurement, Design and Carpentry in Duccio’s Maestà, 1." The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 335, 336, 343, 346, 348, 349, fig. 4.

1973: White, John. "Measurement, Design and Carpentry in Duccio’s Maestà, 2." The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 562, 566, fig. 78.

1974: Pesenti, Franco Renzo. "Dismembered works of art - Italian painting." In An Illustrated Inventory of Famous Dismembered Works of Art: European Painting. Paris, 1974: 20, 26-27, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 112, repro.

1976: Fowles, Edward. Memories of Duveen Brothers. London, 1976: 183.

1976: Stoichita, Victor Ieronim. Ucenicia lui Duccio di Buoninsegna. Bucharest, 1976: 39, 40, figs. 55, 59.

1977: Stubblebine, James H. "The Back Predella of Duccio’s Maestà." In Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss. Edited by Irving Lavin and John Plummer. 2 vols. New York, 1977: 1:430, 435, 436 n. 26.

1979: Amico, Leonard N. "Reconstructing an Early Fourteenth Century Pentaptych by Ugolino di Nerio: St. Catherine Finds Her Niche." Bulletin Krannert Art Museum 5, no. 1 (1979): 13.

1979: Carli, Enzo. Il Duomo di Siena. Genoa, 1979: 67-69.

1979: Gardner von Teuffel, Christa. "The Buttressed Altarpiece: A Forgotten Aspect of Tuscan Fourteenth-Century Altarpiece Design." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 21 (1979): 36-41.

1979: Hartt, Frederick. History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 2nd ed. New York, 1979: 104-105, fig. 99.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:172; 2:pl. 120.

1979: Stubblebine, James H. Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School. 2 vols. Princeton, 1979: 1:10, 31, 32, 36, 37, 55, 56, 62, 100, 107, pls. 581, 582, figs. 74, 93.

1979: Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part I." Apollo 109 (April 1979): 295 [49], 296 [50] fig. 3.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 17, pl. 1.

1979: White, John. Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop. New York, 1979: 57, 86, 89, 93, 102, 123, 125, pls. 11, 20, figs. 5, 27, 52.

1980: Conti, Alessandro. "Review of Duccio, Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop by John White." Prospettiva 23 (1980): 99-101.

1981: Carli, Enzo. La pittura senese del Trecento. 1st ed. Milan, 1981: 49.

1981: Seidel, Max. "Das Frühwerk von Pietro Lorenzetti." Städel Jahrbuch 8 (1981): 105.

1983: Brink, Joel. "From Carpentry Analysis to the Discovery of Symmetry in Trecento Painting." In La pittura nel XIV e XV secolo, il contributo dell’analisi tecnica alla storia dell’arte. Edited by Hendrik W. van Os and J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer. Bologna, 1983: 347.

1983: Pope-Hennessy, John. "Some Italian Primitives." Apollo 118 (1983): 10.

1984: Brown, Howard Mayer. "Catalogus. A Corpus of Trecento Pictures with Musical Subject Matter, pt. 1." Imago Musicae 1 (1984): 242-243.

1984: Deuchler, Florens. Duccio. Milan, 1984: 73, 74, 76, 77, 214, 78 (repro.), pls. 134-136, 157.

1984: Os, Hendrik W. van. Sienese Altarpieces 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function. 2 vols. Groningen, 1984-1990: 1(1984):43, 46, figs. 41, 42.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 68, no. 9, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 137, repro.

1985: Sutton, Denys. "Aspects of British Collecting, pt. 4." Apollo 122 (1985): 123, 124 repro.

1985: Wilkins Sullivan, Ruth. "The Anointing in Bethany and Other Affirmations of Christ’s Divinity on Duccio’s Back Predella." The Art Bulletin 67 (1985): 33, 34, 35, 46-47, figs. 1, 2, 25.

1986: Leoncini, Monica. "Duccio di Boninsegna." In La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:569.

1987: Simpson, Colin. The Partnership: The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen. London, 1987: 236.

1987: White, John. Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250 to 1400. The Pelican History of Art. 2nd (integrated) ed. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1987: 291, 627, figs. 173-174.

1988: Davies, Martin, and Dillian Gordon. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. Rev. ed. London, 1988: 17, 20.

1988: Sebag-Montefiore, Charles. "Three Lost Collections of London." National Art Collections Fund Magazine 38 (Christmas 1988): 54.

1988: Tronzo, William. "Between Icon and the Monumental Decoration of a Church: Notes on Duccio’s Maestà and the Definition of the Altarpiece." In Icon: Four Essays. Washington, DC; Baltimore, 1988: repro. 38-39.

1988: Wheeler, Marion, ed. His Face: Images of Christ in Art, New York, 1988: 126, no. 45, color repro.

1988: Wilkins Sullivan, Ruth. "Duccio’s Raising of Lazarus Reexamined." The Art Bulletin 70 (1988): 375 n. 6.

1989: Bomford, David, Jill Dunkerton, Dillian Gordon, Ashok Roy, and Jo Kirby. Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London, 1989: 73-74 (repro.), 190, fig. 40.

1989: Carli, Enzo. Il Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. Opera della Metropolitana di Siena. Siena, 1989: 22.

1989: "Duccio di Buoninsegna." In Dizionario della pittura e dei pittori. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo and Bruno Toscano. 6 vols. Turin, 1989-1994: 2(1990):139.

1989: Ragionieri, Giovanna. Duccio: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1989: 12, 13, 14, 16, 88, 89, 104, repros.

1989: Vos, Rik, and Hendrik W. van Os, eds. Aan de oorsprong van de schilderkunst: vroege italiaanse schilderijen in Nederlands bezit. The Hague, 1989: repro. 126.

1990: Boskovits, Miklós, and Serena Padovani. Early Italian Painting 1290-1470. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. London, 1990: 72, 73, 74 fig. 2.

1991: Bellosi, Luciano. "Duccio di Buoninsegna." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 5(1994):746.

1991: Jannella, Cecilia. Duccio di Buoninsegna. Antella (Florence), 1991: 22, 24, 30, 31, 36, 38, pls. 28, 43.

1991: Riedl, Helmut Philipp. Das Maestà-Bild in der sieneser Malerei des Trecento unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Darstellung im Palazzo Comunale von San Gimignano. Tübingen, 1991: 16, figs. 8, 11.

1991: Zeri, Federico. Giorno per giorno nella pittura: scritti sull’arte toscana dal Trecento al primo Cinquecento. Turin, 1991: 520, 521.

1992: Hall, Nicholas H. J., ed. Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi, New York. New York, 1992: 9, 10, fig. 2.

1992: Landi, Alfonso, and Enzo Carli (commentary). “Racconto” del Duomo di Siena (1655). Florence, 1992: 106-107 n. 21.

1992: National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 11, repro.

1992: Schmidt, Victor M. "Duccio di Buoninsegna." In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Edited by Günter Meissner. 87+ vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1992+: 30(2001):157.

1993: Harpring, Patricia. The Sienese Trecento Painter Bartolo di Fredi. London and Toronto, 1993: 70, repro. 72.

1996: Apostolos Cappadona, Diane. Encyclopedia of Women in Religious Art. New York, 1996: 47, fig. 14.

1996: Gordon, Dillian. “Duccio (di Buoninsegna).” In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 9:344-345.

1996: Popp, Dietmar. Duccio und die Antike: Studien zur Antikenvorstellung und zur Antikenrezeption in der sieneser Malerei am Anfang des 14. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1996: fig. 41.

1997: Moskowitz, Anita Fiderer. "A Late Dugento Male Nude Studied from Life." Source: Notes in the History of Art 16 (1997): 7 n. 11.

1998: Bellosi, Luciano. Duccio, la Maestà. Milan, 1998: 17, 22, 264, 268, repro. 274.

1999: Schmidt, Victor M. "A Duccesque Fragment of the Coronation of the Virgin." Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 90-91 (1999): 42 n. 10.

2001: Strehlke, Carl Brandon. "Carpentry and Connoisseurship: The Disassembly of Altarpieces and the Rise in Interest in Early Italian Art." In Rediscovering Fra Angelico: A Fragmentary History. Edited by Laurence B. Kanter and Carl Brandon Strehlke. Exh. cat. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 2001: 41-42, repro.

2002: Schmidt, Victor M. "Duccesque Painting Representing St John the Baptist Bearing Witness in the Museum of Fine Arts." Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 96 (2002): 54, repro. 55.

2002: Seiler, Peter. "Duccio’s Maestà: The Function of the Scenes from the Life of Christ on the Reverse of the Altarpiece." In Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in the History of Art 61 (2002): repros. 252 and 253, 271-272 n. 26.

2003: Bagnoli, Alessandro, Roberto Bartalini, Luciano Bellosi, and Michel Laclotte, eds. Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico. Exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala, Siena; Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2003: 218-220.

2004: Eclercy, Bastian. Suis manibus? Studien zur Beteiligung von Mitarbeitern am Entwurfsprozess von Duccios Maestà. Munich, 2004: 53, 74.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 10, no. 5, color repro.

2004: Secrest, Meryle. Duveen: A Life in Art. New York, 2004: 337.

2004: Strehlke, Carl Brandon. Italian Paintings, 1250-1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2004: 130-131 repro.

2006: Hartt, Frederick, and David G. Wilkins. History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, 2006: 106, color fig. 4.6, no. 12.

2006: Sander, Jochen, Matthias Theodore Kloft, Rita Sauer, and Stefan Weppelmann. Kult Bild: das Altar- und Andachtsbild von Duccio bis Perugino. Exh. cat. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main. Petersberg, 2006: 70, 71, 74.

2010: Sahaydachny, Antonina. "The Madonna Protectress of Siena in the Maestà Altarpiece by Duccio (1308-1311)." In 1308: eine Topographie historischer Gleichzeitigkeit. Edited by Andreas Speer and David Wirmer. Berlin, 2010: 664.

2011: Gordon, Dillian. The Italian Paintings Before 1400. National Gallery Catalogues. London, 2011: 175-176, under no. NG1330, color fig. 2.

2013: Cappelletti, Lorenzo. "La vocazione dei santi Pietro e Andrea, o piuttosto l’imposizione del nome di Cefa (Pietro) a Simone." Arte cristiana 101, no. 877 (2013): repro. 274.

2013: "Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 10-11, repro.

2015: Bowron, Edgar Peters. “Samuel H. Kress and His Collection of Italian Renaissance Paintings.” In A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America ed. Inge Reist. (The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Art Collecting in America, 2) University Park, Pennsylvania, 2015: 113, color fig. 49.

2016: Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 81-102, color repro.

Altarpiece Reconstructions

Click on any panel in the altarpiece reconstruction below to see an enlarged version of the image. Color reproductions in the reconstruction indicate panels in the National Gallery of Art collection.

Reconstruction of the back of the predella of Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maestà

a. Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness (Entry fig. 2)
b. Temptation on the Temple (Entry fig. 3)
c. Temptation on the Mountain (Entry fig. 4)
d. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew
e. The Wedding at Cana (Entry fig. 5)
f. Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Entry fig. 6)
g. Healing of the Man Born Blind (Entry fig. 7)
h. The Transfiguration (Entry fig. 8)
i. The Raising of Lazarus (Entry fig. 9)

d. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew

Reconstruction of the front of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna:

1. The Annunciation (The National Gallery, London)
2. Isaiah (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
3. The Nativity (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
4. Ezekiel (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
5. The Adoration of the Magi (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
6. Solomon or David (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
7. The Presentation in the Temple (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
8. Malachi (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
9. The Massacre of the Innocents (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
10. Jeremiah (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
11. The Flight into Egypt (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
12. Hosea (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
13. Christ among the Doctors (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
14. The Virgin and Child, Saints, and Angel (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
15. Saint Thaddaeus (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
16. Saint Simon (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
17. Saint Philip (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
18. Saint James the Great (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
19. Saint Andrew (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
20. Saint Matthew (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
21. Saint James the Less (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
22. Saint Bartholomew (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
23. Saint Thomas (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
24. Saint Matthias (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
25. The Annunciation of the Virgin’s Death (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
26. The Virgin’s Farewell to Saint John (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
27. The Virgin’s Farewell to the Apostles (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
28. The Coronation of the Virgin (lost)
29. The Assumption (lost)
30. The Death of the Virgin (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
31. The Funeral of the Virgin (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
32. The Entombment of the Virgin (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)

Reconstruction of the back of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna:

1. John the Baptist Bearing Witness (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)
2. Christ’s Temptation on the Temple (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
3. Christ’s Temptation on the Mountain (Frick Collection, New York)
4. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
5. The Wedding at Cana (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
6. Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid)
7. The Healing of the Blind Man (The National Gallery, London)
8. The Transfiguration (The National Gallery, London)
9. The Raising of Lazarus (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth)
10. The Entry into Jerusalem (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
11. The Washing of the Disciples’ Feet (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
12. The Last Supper (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
13. Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
14. Judas Taking the Bribe (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
15. The Agony in the Garden (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
16. The Betrayal of Christ (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
17. The First Denial of Saint Peter (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
18. Christ before Annas (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
19. The Second Denial of Saint Peter (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
20. The Third Denial of Saint Peter (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
21. Christ Accused by the Pharisees (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
22. Christ before Pilate (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
23. Christ before Herod (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
24. The Mocking of Christ (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
25. The Flagellation (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
26. The Crowning with Thorns (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
27. Pilate Washing His Hands (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
28. Christ Carrying the Cross (lost)
29. The Crucifixion (lost)
30. The Deposition (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
31. The Entombment (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
32. The Holy Women at the Tomb (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
33. The Descent into Limbo (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
34. Noli me tangere (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
35. The Way to Emmaus (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
36. The Apparition behind Closed Doors (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
37. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
38. The Apparition on the Sea (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
39. Christ in Glory or The Last Judgment (lost)
40. The Ascension (lost)
41. The Apparition in Galilee (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
42. The Apparition at Supper (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)
43. Pentecost (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena)

Object Image
Figures
Notes

The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew

[fig. 1] Detail of Christ, Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection
[fig. 2] Duccio di Buoninsegna, Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness, c. 1308–1311, tempera on panel transferred to canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
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[fig. 3] Duccio di Buoninsegna, Temptation on the Temple, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Image: Soprintendenza per le Belle Arti e il Paesaggio di Siena, Grosseto ed Arezzo
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[fig. 4] Duccio di Buoninsegna, Temptation on the Mountain, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, Frick Collection, New York. Image © The Frick Collection, New York
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[fig. 5] Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Wedding at Cana, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena. Image: Soprintendenza per le Belle Arti e il Paesaggio di Siena, Grosseto ed Arezzo
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[fig. 6] Duccio di Buoninsegna, Christ and the Samaritan Woman, 1310–1311, tempera on panel, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. Image © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
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[fig. 7] Duccio di Buoninsegna, Healing of the Man Born Blind, 1307/1308–1311, tempera on panel, The National Gallery, London. Image © National Gallery London/Art Resource, NY
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[fig. 8] Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Transfiguration, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, The National Gallery, London. Image © National Gallery London/Art Resource, NY
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[fig. 9] Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Raising of Lazarus, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Image: Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth, Texas/Art Resource, NY
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[fig. 10] Reconstruction of the back of the predella of Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maestà: a. Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness (fig. 2); b. Temptation on the Temple (fig. 3); c. Temptation on the Mountain (fig. 4); d. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew; e. The Wedding at Cana (fig. 5); f. Christ and the Samaritan Woman (fig. 6); g. Healing of the Man Born Blind (fig. 7); h. The Transfiguration (fig. 8); i. The Raising of Lazarus (fig. 9)
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[fig. 11] Reconstruction of the back of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna
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[fig. 12] Reconstruction of the front of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna
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[fig. 13] Detail of apostles Peter and Andrew, Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection
[fig. 14] Detail of First Bath of the child, Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, 1308–1311, tempera on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection

[1]
See Mt 4:18 – 20; Mk 1:16 – 18; Lk 5:1 – 11.
[2]
Guido da Siena had proposed a similar composition in his Pala di S. Pietro, no. 15 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.
[3]
For the relevant documentation, cf. Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Buoninsegna: The Documents and Early Sources, ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis (Athens, GA, 2000), 69 – 81; Alessandro Bagnoli et al., eds., Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 577 – 579.
[4]
Various scholars rightly have accepted John Pope-Hennessy’s suggestion that the document of 1308 could not have been the original contract. Luciano Bellosi, however, thought that the work was executed between October 1308 and June 1311. See John Pope-Hennessy, “Some Italian Primitives,” Apollo 118 (1983): 10 – 11; Luciano Bellosi, “Il percorso di Duccio,” in Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. Alessandro Bagnoli et al. (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 124.
[5]
James H. Stubblebine, “Duccio and His Collaborators on the Cathedral Maestà,” The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 185 – 204; James H. Stubblebine, “The Back Predella of Duccio’s Maestà,” in Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, ed. Irving Lavin and John Plummer, 2 vols. (New York, 1977), 1:430 – 436; James H. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1979), 1:32, 39 – 48.
[6]
“Duccius promisit . . . laborare continue in dicta tabula temporibus quibus laborari poterit in eadem, et non accipere vel recepire aliquod aliud laborerium ad faciendum donec dicta tabula conpleta et facta fuerit. . . . dominus Jacoppus operarius . . . promisit dicto Duccio pro suo salario . . . sedicim solidos denariorum Senensium pro quolibet die quo dictus Duccius laborabit suis manibus in dicta tabula” (Duccio promised . . . to work continuously upon the said panel at such times as he was able to work on it, and not to accept or receive any other work to be carried out until the said panel shall have been made and completed. . . . Lord Jacopo, clerk of works . . . promised the said Duccio as his salary . . . sixteen soldi of Sienese money for each day that the said Duccio shall work with his own hands on the said panel). Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Buoninsegna: The Documents and Early Sources, ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis (Athens, GA, 2000), 69; Alessandro Bagnoli et al., eds., Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 577.
[7]
For the organization of the work and the involvement of studio assistants in the execution of the Maestà, cf. John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (New York, 1979), 102 – 119; Luciano Bellosi, Duccio, la Maestà (Milan, 1998), 20. Bruno Zanardi’s observations on the system of collaboration between the painters in the fresco decoration of the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi should, however, be taken into consideration in this regard. Cf. Bruno Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini: La questione di Assisi e il cantiere medievale di pittura a fresco, Biblioteca d’arte Skira (Milan, 2002), 39 – 83. Although in my view not always convincing, the observations of this intelligent and well-prepared restorer remain valuable, because they are the outcome of long experience with restoring medieval cycles of frescoes. The organization of teamwork between master and pupils in a cycle of mural paintings cannot have been very different from that ascertained, or assumed, in a large altarpiece like the Maestà.
[8]
Cf. John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (New York, 1979), 124 – 130; Florens Deuchler, Duccio (Milan, 1984), 58 – 63; Luciano Bellosi, Duccio, la Maestà (Milan, 1998), 14 – 15.
[9]
Eduard Dobbert, “Duccio’s Bild Die Geburt Christi in der Königlichen Gemälde-Galerie zu Berlin,” Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 6 (1885): 153–163.
[10]
Though Dobbert did not say so, he probably knew, either directly or at least indirectly, the five components of the back predella that passed into the hands of Fairfax Murray: The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, Christ with the Woman of Samaria, and Raising of Lazarus, all three subsequently sold to the Benson collection in London; Healing of the Man Born Blind, sold together with the Annunciation from the front predella to the National Gallery in London in 1883; and the Transfiguration, purchased in Siena (presumably again from Fairfax Murray) by R. H. Wilson and donated to the National Gallery in London in 1891. The omission of the Temptation on the Mountain, undoubtedly in the hands of the same painter and art dealer in the early years of the nineteenth century, is difficult to explain. It was perhaps ignored merely because, according to Dobbert, no more than seven stories could have been placed on this side of the predella.
[11]
Curt H. Weigelt, “Contributo alla ricostruzione della Maestà di Duccio di Buoninsegna, che si trova nel Museo della Metropolitana di Siena,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 16 (1909): 191 – 214.
[12]
A hypothetical reconstruction of the Maestà that proposed a complete series of representations of the three Temptations would involve an intractable problem of how to coordinate panels of unequal number in the various registers of the complex: ten stories in the predella, eight in the upper register, and seven episodes of the narrative of the Passion in the main panel. The thesis of ten stories in the back predella was revived in more recent times in the reconstruction proposed by Ernest T. DeWald, “Observations on Duccio’s Maestà,” in Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend Jr, ed. Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, 1955), 367; Cesare Brandi, ed., Il restauro della Maestà di Duccio (Rome, 1959), 9.
[13]
In his efforts to complete the iconographic program in what seemed to him the most plausible way, though without taking sufficient account of the evidence of the surviving parts, Vittorio Lusini argued that the representations extended on both sides beyond the width of the main panel, also occupying the lateral pillars of the frame. Vittorio Lusini, “Di Duccio di Buoninsegna,” Rassegna d’arte senese 8 (1912): 70 – 75.
[14]
Frederick A. Cooper, “A Reconstruction of Duccio’s Maestà,” The Art Bulletin 47 (1965): 163 – 164, proposed, implausibly, a predella with only six stories of the childhood of Christ, transferring the scene of Christ among the Doctors to the predella on the back. James H. Stubblebine rightly pointed out that the front and back predella must have had the same width and therefore that the back predella could not have accommodated more than nine scenes. James H. Stubblebine, “The Angel Pinnacles on Duccio’s Maestà,” Art Quarterly 32 (1969): 131 – 152; James H. Stubblebine, “The Back Predella of Duccio’s Maestà,” in Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting in Honor of Millard Meiss, ed. Irving Lavin and John Plummer, 2 vols. (New York, 1977), 1:430 – 436; James H. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1979), 1:54. In his attempt iconographically to complete the subjects of the panels, he conjectured that a further two stories, a representation of Christ with the Baptist (the Baptism of Christ or the Baptist Bearing Witness) and a scene of a miracle (the Raising of Lazarus), were placed at the two narrow sides of the frame of the altarpiece, respectively flanking the episodes of Christ among the Doctors and the Transfiguration. Ruth Wilkins Sullivan made a similar proposal, though it has to be said that predellas of this type (with narrow side panels) otherwise appear in Sienese painting no earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. Ruth Wilkins Sullivan, “The Anointing in Bethany and Other Affirmations of Christ’s Divinity on Duccio’s Back Predella,” The Art Bulletin 67 (1985): 32 – 50.
[15]
The payment memorandum, undated but datable to c. 1309, referred to certain “angiolette di sopra” (little angels above) in the Maestà, which ever since Dobbert’s reconstruction (1885) were understood as panels of the highest tier. Cf. Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Buoninsegna: The Documents and Early Sources, ed. Hayden B. J. Maginnis (Athens, GA, 2000), 75 – 76; Alessandro Bagnoli et al., eds., Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 578. Different proposals, however, have been formulated about the form and number of the components of this third register. Dobbert assumed twelve such busts of angels, placed to the sides of the stories of Christ, while Curt Weigelt (1909) concluded that there were eight on either side of the panel. After some tentative attempts at identification, it was James H. Stubblebine (1969) who identified the four busts of angels that the more recent literature recognizes as belonging to the Maestà: those in the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts; in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (J. G. Johnson Collection); in the Stichting Huis Bergh in ’s-Heerenbergh, Holland; and the panel formerly in the Stoclet collection in Brussels. According to Stubblebine there must originally have been six busts of angels, both on the front and back sides, placed to the sides of the central image. Stubblebine’s proposal regarding the round-arched termination of these panels seems unjustified, since none of the four surviving busts of angels retains its original profile. See Eduard Dobbert, “Duccio’s Bild Die Geburt Christi in der Königlichen Gemälde-Galerie zu Berlin,” Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen 6 (1885): 153 – 163; Curt H. Weigelt, “Contributo alla ricostruzione della Maestà di Duccio di Buoninsegna, che si trova nel Museo della Metropolitana di Siena,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 16 (1909): 191 – 214; James H. Stubblebine, “The Angel Pinnacles on Duccio’s Maestà,” Art Quarterly 32 (1969): 131 – 152. On this question see also Giovanna Ragionieri, in Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. Alessandro Bagnoli et al. (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 25; Carl Brandon Strehlke, Italian Paintings, 1250 – 1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, 2004), 124 – 133.
[16]
John White, “Measurement, Design and Carpentry in Duccio’s Maestà, 1,” The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 334 – 364; John White, “Measurement, Design and Carpentry in Duccio’s Maestà, 2,” The Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 547 – 569; John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (New York, 1979), 94, 207 – 208. White calculated the dimensions of the individual components of Duccio’s altarpiece starting from the assumption that the artist “almost certainly used a Roriczer Progression based on the width of the main panel together with a second progression based on the diagonal of the main panel, to control the entire proportional design of his altarpiece”(White 1979, 94). On the buttresses that served to support the elaborate and heavy structure of the Maestà, cf. Christa Gardner von Teuffel, “The Buttressed Altarpiece: A Forgotten Aspect of Tuscan Fourteenth-Century Altarpiece Design,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 21 (1979): 21 – 65.
[17]
Alessandro Conti, “Review of Duccio, Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop by John White,” Prospettiva 23 (1980): 100.
[18]
Vittorio Lusini (1912) maintained that the subject represented in the central panel of the gable zone would have been a theme of particular importance and would have been linked iconographically with the central part of the main part of the altarpiece: he conjectured the Coronation of the Virgin (surmounted by the image of the Blessing Christ) over the Maestà and the Ascension (surmounted by the image of the Blessing God the Father) on the other side. Vittorio Lusini, “Di Duccio di Buoninsegna,” Rassegna d’arte senese 8 (1912): 74. This proposal still retains its validity today, though a more accredited variant is that which links the episode of the Assumption with the Coronation and the Resurrection with the Ascension; both subjects are missing from the surviving panels of the Maestà. It is very significant, moreover, that Ghiberti, speaking of Duccio and the “tavola maggiore del duomo di Siena” (high altarpiece of Siena Cathedral), said that “nella parte dinançi” (on its front side), one could see “la incoronatione di Nostra Donna” (the coronation of Our Lady); cf. Julius von Schlosser, ed., Lorenzo Ghibertis Denkwürdigkeiten, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912), 1:43. Alessandro Conti’s hypothesis, which Giovanni Ragionieri accepted (1989), was, however, rejected by more recent studies (Schmidt 1999, 2001, 2003) and evidently was not shared by Luciano Bellosi (1998), who failed to refer to it in his study on the Maestà. See Giovanna Ragionieri, Duccio: Catalogo completo dei dipinti (Florence, 1989), 134 – 135; Victor M. Schmidt, “A Duccesque Fragment of the Coronation of the Virgin,” Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 90 – 91 (1999): 39 – 52, 167 – 174; Victor M. Schmidt, “Duccio di Buoninsegna,” in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, ed. Günter Meißner, 87 vols. (Munich, 2001), 30:153 – 157; Victor M. Schmidt, “Tipologie e funzioni della pittura senese su tavola,” in Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. Alessandro Bagnoli et al. (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2003), 557, 560; Luciano Bellosi, Duccio, la Maestà (Milan, 1998). However, as Victor M. Schmidt pointed out, the “pattern of the cloth of honor behind the Virgin in the Budapest panel is a virtual repetition of that of St. Catherine’s mantle,” and “the pattern of the Virgin’s mantle in the fragment repeats that of St. Agnes”: two of the female saints that appear alongside the Madonna in the Maestà (Schmidt 1999, 40 – 42). It should also be recalled that the motifs incised in the halos of the panel in Budapest closely resemble those in Duccio’s altarpiece.

According to Schmidt, the dimensions of the fragment (51.5 × 32 cm) would exclude its belonging to the Maestà, since if the parts now truncated were to be reintegrated the panel would be too big to fit into the central gable. However, the reconstruction proposed by Schmidt did not take into account uncertainties in the calculation of the original size of the Budapest fragment: the difference between its effective width and the lost width of the central gable as John White reconstructed it (77.8 cm) would, in my view, leave sufficient space to accommodate the now lost figure of Christ and the essential structures of the throne. What seems hardly compatible with Duccio’s work is not the size but the style of the Budapest fragment, with its overly dense chiaroscuro and rather schematic modeling. On the other hand, the date of execution of the painting in the Hungarian museum (also in light of the analogies of the ornamental motifs that Schmidt observed) ought to fall more or less in the same years as the Maestà. Bearing this in mind, as well as the relative rarity of the subject as a self-standing image, I cannot categorically exclude the intervention of a studio assistant in this upper zone of the complex.
[19]
Miklós Boskovits, “Review of Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School by J. H. Stubblebine; and Duccio di Buoninsegna by J. White,” The Art Bulletin 64 (1982): 497 – 502; Miklós Boskovits and Serena Padovani, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Early Italian Painting 1290 – 1470 (London, 1990), 76.
[20]
Though admitting the possibility that the first scene of the back predella might have been the Baptism of Christ, James H. Stubblebine wrote that “there is evidence pointing to the likelihood that the scene . . . represented the first time that the Baptist bore witness, as it is described in the Gospel (John 1: 26 – 27).” James H. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1979), 53 – 54. According to Stubblebine, the painting representing this subject in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (no. 6) could be a copy of the lost scene of the Maestà.
[21]
Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, 3 vols. (London, 1864), 2:52. The attribution to Duccio was later confirmed by such connoisseurs as Robert Langton Douglas, in Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, vol. 3, The Sienese, Umbrian, and North Italian Schools, ed. Robert Langton Douglas (London, 1908), 19 n. 2; and Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places (Oxford, 1932), 176.
[22]
Victor M. Schmidt observed that in the painting now in Budapest “some significant details are at odds with the scenes . . . that surely belong to the Maestà. First, the red color of the Christ’s garment is too dark. . . . Second, Christ’s blue mantle is striated with golden striations. . . . Third, Christ’s halo . . . has painted contours.” Victor M. Schmidt, “A Duccesque Painting Representing St John the Baptist Bearing Witness in the Museum of Fine Arts,” Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 96 (2002): 53 – 54. But in the painting’s current state, with its surface covered by a layer of grime and darkened varnish, and with the gold ground completely regilded, the first and last of these observations cannot be seriously taken into consideration. As for the second, since the mantle of Jesus also has golden striations in the last episode of the predella, the Transfiguration, it cannot be excluded that the same was also the case in the initial scene, another epiphany, in which John recognizes the Messiah in Jesus: “This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me’” (Jn 1:30). According to Anna Eörsi, the panel, which she confirmed to be probably the missing element on the back predella, illustrates the words of the Gospel of John (1:26): “there is one among you whom you do not recognize.” Anna Eörsi, “‘. . . There is one among you whom you do not recognise’: Some Golden Threads to Miklós Boskovits with Reference to Duccio’s Saint John the Baptist,” Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 104 (2006): 63 – 73.

The dimensions of the Budapest painting in its present condition (28.5 × 38 cm) are considerably smaller than those of the predella (c. 48 × 50 cm is the average size of those predella panels that have not been cropped), but it seems that it has been cut on all sides, with the possible exception of the lower side. The proportions of the figures correspond, however, to those of the protagonists in the stories of Duccio’s predella. Evidently in view of its poor condition, the painting was transferred to a new support. This operation, conducted at some point in the first half of the nineteenth century, was botched, making drastic restoration of the painting’s whole surface necessary. Johann Anton Ramboux, who had purchased the painting in Siena, said it was comparable with those preserved in the sacristy of Siena Cathedral, i.e., the surviving gable and predella panels of the Maestà. See J. M. Heberle, Catalog der nachgelassenen Kunst-Sammlungen des Herrn Johann Anton Ramboux (Cologne, May 23, 1867) no. 70. This raises the strong suspicion that it was just this episode that was still present in the sacristy of the cathedral in 1798 but was then discarded.
[23]
Weigelt, who suspected the intervention of assistants in the Marian scenes of the upper register, considered the postmortem stories of Christ “ganz Schülerarbeit.” Curt H. Weigelt, Duccio di Buoninsegna: Studien zur Geschichte der frühsienesischen Tafelmalerei (Leipzig, 1911), 16. Vittorio Lusini also proposed the intervention of assistants in the gable panels, while in more recent times Enzo Carli spoke of the involvement of collaborators in the execution of the gable zone and perhaps also in the series of busts of apostles. See Vittorio Lusini, Il Duomo di Siena (Siena, 1911), 68; Enzo Carli, La pittura senese (Milan, 1955), 48; Enzo Carli, La pittura senese del Trecento (Milan, 1981), 66.
[24]
Apart from a first mention by Hayden B. J. Maginnis, it was John White who formulated a hypothesis on how such a large and complex work as the Maestà might have been painted. Hayden B. J. Maginnis, “The Literature of Sienese Trecento Painting 1945 – 1975,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1977): 279 – 280; John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (New York, 1979), 93, 106 – 107. In his view, the execution must have begun only after the completion of its wooden frame. He also assumed that the painting of the huge surface must have proceeded with the use of scaffolds, as in the case of a fresco. According to White, the undated memorandum of c. 1309 that established the procedures for the payment of the rear side of the altarpiece did not mention the predella, because at the time it was not yet in the course of execution. Therefore, it would have been the last part of the complex to be executed. Julian Gardner noted that the idea of alternating narrative scenes and standing figures derives from Nicola Pisano’s pulpit in the cathedral of Siena. Julian Gardner, “Some Aspects of the History of the Italian Altar, ca. 1250 – ca. 1350: Placement and Decoration,” in Objects, Images and the Word: Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton, 2003), 151.
[25]
Basing himself on the more advanced style of the scenes of the predella, Alessandro Conti suggested that it was added to the Maestà later than 1311. Alessandro Conti, “Review of Duccio, Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop by John White,” Prospettiva 23 (1980): 101. Except for Giulietta Chelazzi Dini et al., however, no recent scholars seem to have shared this hypothesis. Giulietta Chelazzi Dini, Alessandro Angelini, and Bernardina Sani, Pittura senese (Milan, 1997), 36.
[26]
Keith Christiansen, Duccio and the Origins of Western Painting (New York; New Haven, 2008), 29.

National Gallery of Art

Overview

Entry

Provenance

Associated Names

Exhibition History

Technical Summary

Bibliography

Related Content

Altarpiece Reconstructions

a. Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness

b. Temptation on the Temple

c. Temptation on the Mountain

d. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew

e. The Wedding at Cana

f. Christ and the Samaritan Woman

g. Healing of the Man Born Blind

h. The Transfiguration

i. The Raising of Lazarus

Reconstruction of the front of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna

Compare Images

National Gallery of Art

Associated Records

Overview

Entry

Provenance

Associated Names

Exhibition History

Technical Summary

Bibliography

Related Content

Altarpiece Reconstructions

a. Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness

b. Temptation on the Temple

c. Temptation on the Mountain

d. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew

e. The Wedding at Cana

f. Christ and the Samaritan Woman

g. Healing of the Man Born Blind

h. The Transfiguration

i. The Raising of Lazarus

Reconstruction of the front of the Maestà altarpiece for Siena Cathedral by Duccio di Buoninsegna

Compare Images