Click on any panel in the altarpiece reconstructions below to see an enlarged version of the image. Color reproductions in the reconstruction indicate panels in the National Gallery of Art collection.
Overview
Saint James Minor is one of the more elusive of Jesus’s disciples. He is usually identified—as in the inscription running along the arch here—as the son of Alphaeus, and by his attribute, a fuller's club. James was said to have been the first bishop of Jerusalem and to have been killed by a mob wielding the wooden club used to soften cloth. In this case, the pose of Saint James with his right arm wrapped in a swath of drapery was inspired by figures adorning an early Christian sarcophagus formerly kept in the same church as the painting.
The name of the man who painted it may be unknown to us, but he must be counted among the leading artists of his time. The
This panel and another in the National Gallery of Art depicting
Entry
This panel and its companion,
Both the arrangement of this series of figures, standing under arcades, and their architectural framing were inspired, as Dillian Gordon (1982) showed, by an early Christian sarcophagus formerly kept in the church of San Francesco al Prato (and now in the Oratory of San Bernardino in Perugia); it had been used as the tomb of the Blessed Egidio (Egido),
As Edward B. Garrison (1949) and other scholars recognized, the altarpiece formerly in San Francesco al Prato should be considered one of the earliest examples of the type of altarpiece classifiable as “low dossal.” Both its large size and the fact that it was painted on both sides suggest that it was intended for the high altar of the church.
The question of the authorship of the work has never been seriously disputed (even though some art historians have preferred to attribute the dispersed Perugian dossal to the workshop of the Master of Saint Francis).
Two plausibly datable works can be of help in this regard. Some have attributed to the Master of Saint Francis the Madonna and Child with an angel frescoed on the north wall of the nave in the lower church of the basilica of San Francesco in Assisi and considered it to have been executed in 1252 or just after.
As new artists joined the enterprise of decorating the basilica at Assisi, however, styles rapidly changed. A transalpine artist of considerable stature must already have been at work there around 1260, introducing stylistic models more closely attuned to the
Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)
March 21, 2016
Inscription
on the arch: SANCTVS JACOB [A]LPHEI Q[VI] COGNOMINAT[VS] E[ST] IV[STVS] [1]
Inscription Notes
[1] James Minor, usually identified with the apostle James the son of Alphaeus (Matthew 10:3) or with James the Lord’s brother (Galatians 1:19), was, according to tradition, the first bishop of Jerusalem; he was also nicknamed “the Just”; cf. Wilhelm Pratscher, “Jakobus (Herrenbruder),” in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, edited by Ernst Dassmann, 10 vols. Stuttgart, 1937-2003: 16(1991):1227-1243.
Provenance
Executed in all probability for the church of San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, where at least part of the fragments belonging to the same altarpiece were still preserved in 1793;[1] probably privately owned in Perugia;[2] Anton de Waal [1837–1917], Rome;[3] probably (Paolo Paolini, Rome), by 1921;[4] Philip Lehman [1861–1947], New York, by 1928; sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to NGA.
Exhibition History
- 1946
- Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 810.
- 1999
- The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, Petit Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1998-1999, no. 6/4, repro., as The Apostle Saint James Minor (shown only in New York in 1999).
Technical Summary
Both this painting and its companion,
Stephen Pichetto “cradled, cleaned, restored, and varnished” both panels in 1944.
Bibliography
- 1907
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- 1924
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- 1928
- Lehman, Robert. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928: no. LXI, repro.
- 1929
- Marle, Raimond van. "Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth Century in the Collection of Monsieur Adolph Stoclet in Brussels." Pantheon 4 (1929): 316.
- 1930
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- 1932
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- 1935
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- 1936
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- 1946
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- 1946
- Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 14, repro.
- 1949
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- 1951
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- 1956
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- 1957
- Exposition de la Collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1957: 30.
- 1959
- Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 13, repro.
- 1961
- Schultze, Jürgen. "Ein Duecento-Altar aus Assisi? Versuch einer Rekonstruktion." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 10 (1961): 60, 61, 63, 64.
- 1963
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- 1963
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 108-109, repro.
- 1965
- Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 86.
- 1966
- Campini, Dino. Giunta Pisano Capitini e le croci dipinte romaniche. Milan, 1966: 151.
- 1966
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 4-5, fig. 2.
- 1967
- Schultze, Jürgen. "Die Fresken in der Unterkirche von San Francesco zu Assisi und andere Werke des ‘Franziskusmeisters.’" Raggi 7, no. 2 (1967): 51-52, repro. 53.
- 1968
- Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:255, 256.
- 1968
- National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 76, repro.
- 1969
- Santi, Francesco, ed. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, vol. 1, Dipinti, sculture e oggetti d’arte di età romanica e gotica. Rome, 1969: 27, 29, 30-31 (misidentified as James Major).
- 1972
- Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 128, 405, 646, 665.
- 1975
- European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 224, repro.
- 1979
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:324-325; 2:pl. 234.
- 1980
- Scarpellini, Pietro. "Le pitture." In Il tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi. Edited by Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré Dal Poggetto. Assisi, 1980: 43-44.
- 1982
- Christiansen, Keith. "Fourteenth-Century Italian Altarpieces." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 40 (1982): 14, repro. 16.
- 1982
- Gordon, Dillian. "A Perugian Provenance for the Franciscan Double-Sided Altarpiece by the Maestro di S. Francesco." The Burlington Magazine 124 (1982): 71, 72, 74 (repro.), 75.
- 1982
- Pietralunga, Fra Ludovico da, and Pietro Scarpellini (intro. and comm.). Descrizione della Basilica di S. Francesco e di altri Santuari di Assisi. Treviso, 1982: 175.
- 1983
- Esser, Saskia. "Die Ausmalung der Unterkirche von San Francesco in Assisi durch den Franziskusmeister." Ph.D. dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1983: 136 n. 4.
- 1983
- Poeschke, Joachim. "Der ‘Franziskusmeister’ und die Anfänge der Ausmalung von S. Francesco in Assisi." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 27 (1983): 157 (repro.), 162, 163.
- 1984
- Os, Hendrik W. van. Sienese Altarpieces 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function. 2 vols. Groningen, 1984-1990: 1(1984):19, repro.
- 1985
- European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 257, repro.
- 1985
- Poeschke, Joachim. Die Kirche San Francesco in Assisi und ihre Wandmalereien. Munich, 1985: 67.
- 1986
- Castelnuovo, Enrico, ed. La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Essays by Filippo Todini and Elvio Lunghi. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:376, 624.
- 1987
- Marques, Luiz. La peinture du Duecento en Italie centrale. Paris, 1987: 61, 285.
- 1987
- Pope-Hennessy, John, and Laurence B. Kanter. The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings. New York, 1987: 78, 80, repro. 286.
- 1989
- Todini, Filippo. La pittura umbra dal Duecento al primo Cinquecento. 2 vols. Milan, 1989: 1:185, 2:repro. 29.
- 1989
- Toscano, Bruno. "Maestro di San Francesco." In Dizionario della pittura e dei pittori. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo and Bruno Toscano. 6 vols. Turin, 1989-1994: 3(1992):412.
- 1990
- Neri Lusanna, Enrica, and Cristina De Benedictis. "Miniatura umbra del Duecento: diffusione e Influenze a Roma e nell’Italia meridionale." Studi di storia dell’arte 1 (1990): 11.
- 1991
- Romano, Serena. "Maestro di S. Francesco." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 8(1997):119.
- 1991
- Solberg, Gail E. "Taddeo di Bartolo: His Life and Work." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1991. Ann Arbor, MI, 1994: 634.
- 1992
- Boskovits, Miklós. "Appunti per una storia della tavola d’altare: le origini." Arte cristiana 80 (1992): 430, repro. 433.
- 1992
- Krüger, Klaus. Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien: Gestalt- und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert. Berlin, 1992: 26, 165, fig. 316.
- 1992
- Solberg, Gail E. "A Reconstruction of Taddeo di Bartolo’s Altarpiece for S. Francesco a Prato, Perugia." The Burlington Magazine 134 (1992): 653.
- 1994
- Romano, Serena. "Maestro di San Francesco." in Dipinti, sculture e ceramiche della Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria: studi e restauri. Edited by Caterina Bon Valsassina and Vittoria Garibaldi. 1st ed. Florence, 1994: 58, repro. 61.
- 1996
- Gordon, Dillian. "The So-Called Paciano Master and the Franciscans in Perugia." Apollo 143 (1996): 36.
- 1996
- Romano, Serena. "Master of St Francis." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 20:761.
- 1997
- Martin, Frank, and Gerhard Ruf. Die Glasmalereien von San Francesco in Assisi: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung in Italien. Regensburg, 1997: 53-55.
- 1998
- Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 157, 166.
- 1998
- Krüger, Klaus. "Selbstdarstellung im Konflikt: zur Repräsentation der Bettelorden im Medium der Kunst." In Die Repräsentation der Gruppen Texte, Bilder, Objekte. Edited by Otto Gerhard Oexle and Andrea von Hülsen-Esch. Göttingen, 1998: 178-179, repro.
- 1998
- Morello, Giovanni, ed. Sauver Assise. Exh. cat. Musée du Petit Palais, Paris. Milan, 1998: 58.
- 1999
- Cannon, Joanna. "The Stoclet ‘Man of Sorrows’: A Thirteenth-Century Italian Diptych Reunited." The Burlington Magazine 141 (1999): 110 n. 30.
- 1999
- Cook, William Robert. Images of Saint Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the Earliest Images to c. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue. Florence and Perth, 1999: 163.
- 1999
- Morello, Giovanni, and Laurence B. Kanter, eds. The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Milan, 1999: 70-79, repro. 73.
- 2001
- Andaloro, Maria. "Tracce della prima decorazione pittorica." In Il cantiere pittorico della Basilica superiore di San Francesco in Assisi. Edited by Giuseppe Basile and Pasquale Magro. Assisi, 2001: 84 n. 45.
- 2001
- Cooper, Donal. "Franciscan Choir Enclosures and the Function of Double-Sided Altarpieces in Pre-Tridentine Umbria." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute 64 (2001): 9, 10 (repro.), 12.
- 2001
- Cooper, Donal. "‘Qui Perusii in archa saxea tumulatus’: The Shrine of Beato Egidio in San Francesco al Prato, Perugia." Papers of the British School at Rome 69 (2001): 224 (repro.), 225, 227-230, 238, 242.
- 2001
- Scalini, Mario, and Angelo Tartuferi, eds. Un tesoro rivelato: capolavori dalla collezione Carlo De Carlo. Exh. cat. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, 2001: 40.
- 2002
- Bonsanti, Giorgio, ed. La Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi. Modena, 2002: 476.
- 2002
- Garibaldi, Vittoria. Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria: guida. Milan, 2002: 14.
- 2002
- Giorgi, Silvia. "Maestro di San Francesco." In La pittura in Europa. Il Dizionario dei pittori. Edited by Carlo Pirovano. 3 vols. Milan, 2002: 2:549.
- 2002
- Gordon, Dillian. "Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Perugian Double-Sided Altarpieces: Form and Function." In Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in the History of Art 61 ( 2002): 229-234, fig. 2.
- 2002
- Krüger, Klaus. "Medium and Imagination: Aesthetic Aspects of Trecento Panel Painting." In Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in the History of Art 61 (2002): 65-67.
- 2006
- Bisogni, Fabio, and Enrico Menestò, eds. Iacopone da Todi e l’arte in Umbria nel Duecento. Exh. cat. Museo Comunale, Todi. Milan, 2006: 168, 170, 172.
- 2016
- Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 288-300, color repro.
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Altarpiece Reconstructions

Reconstruction of an altarpiece formerly in San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, front side, right portion, by the Master of Saint Francis:
a. Prophet Isaiah (Entry fig. 3)
b. Deposition (Entry fig. 4)
c. Lamentation (Entry fig. 5)
d. Saint Anthony of Padua (Entry fig. 6)

Reconstruction of an altarpiece formerly in San Francesco al Prato in Perugia, rear side, left portion, by the Master of Saint Francis:
a. Saint Francis (Entry fig. 7)
b. Saints Bartholomew and Simon (Entry fig. 8)
c.
d.
e. Saint Andrew (Entry fig. 9)
f. Saint Peter (Entry fig. 10)