Gentile da Fabriano

Gentile di Nicolo Masi

Marchigian, c. 1370 - 1427

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Italian painter

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A dozen men and women approach or gather around a stone tomb in a church in this square painting. The people all have pale skin and wear robes in muted blue, sage green, apricot, dark pink, or vivid red. The rectangular tomb is supported on four columns, which are just taller than the people standing next to and under it. It sits in a curved apse, which is decorated with gold paintings or mosaics. In the quarter dome above, a person sits in an almond-shaped halo flanked by two people wearing royal blue and dark pink. Some of the scenes below and to the sides of the dome are hard to make out but one, to our left, shows a person wearing blue holding a baby, and another to our right is of a nearly nude person on a cross. Two people in front of the tomb raise hands to touch its bottom edge. Underneath the casket, one person supports another, who has swooned or fainted. A fifth person there peeks around the front, right column. Two women are on the six steps leading up to the tomb, and a man using a cane approaches from our right. His robes are pulled up over a red gash on his shin. At the bottom center of the picture, three men wearing knee-length tunics support each other, arms slung across each other’s shoulders. Another man carrying a crutch across one shoulder walks away from the tomb, to our left of this trio. Rows of tan stone columns topped by leafy capitals supporting vaulted arches comes toward us to either side of the tomb. One more person wearing monk’s robes is visible through the columns, near the right edge of the painting. The floor at the foot of the steps is petal pink.
Gentile da Fabriano, The Crippled and Sick Cured at the Tomb of Saint Nicholas, 1425, tempera on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.268

The Crippled and Sick Cured at the Tomb of Saint Nicholas

Gentile da Fabriano · 1425 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.268

A young woman, holding a baby in her lap, sits on a wide bench draped with a patterned midnight-blue fabric in this vertical panel painting. The panel is rectangular at the bottom and becomes a pointed arch at the top. The woman and baby both have pale skin tinged with peach, and halos inscribed on a gleaming gold background. The woman’s body is angled to our right and she tilts her head in that direction to look down at the child. She has a slender, oval face, with hazel-brown eyes under thin brows, a long nose, and coral-pink lips. A sliver of blond hair peeks out from the honey-gold cowl that covers her head, neck, and shoulders. The cowl is layered over her gold-trimmed, burgundy-red robe, which has an opening through which her right arm, closer to us, reaches to support to the child. That arm is covered by a long, gold sleeve patterned with scalloped brick-red and marine-blue designs and smoke-gray flowers. The word “MATER” is inscribed on her neckline and “AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOM TECV BEN” along the bottom hem. On the woman’s lap, the child is angled to our left with the woman’s slender hands wrapped around his torso. His mouth is slightly open as he tilts his head up to look at her. His right hand, on our left, reaches up to gesture at her neckline. He has wavy, blond hair and hazel eyes under faint brows, a small nose, and peach-colored lips set in a round face. He wears an ankle-length, cobalt-blue tunic trimmed with bright gold. The fabric on the bench is covered with cobalt-blue and crimson-red flowers, and pools around the seat and across the floor.
Gentile da Fabriano, Madonna and Child Enthroned, c. 1420, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.255

Madonna and Child Enthroned

Gentile da Fabriano · c. 1420 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.255

Bibliography

1896

  • Vasari, Giorgio. La vite del più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti. Gentile da Fabriano e il Pisanello. Ed. Adolfo Venturi. Florence, 1806 (originally 1568).

1909

  • Colasanti, Arduino. Gentile da Fabriano. Bergamo, 1909.

1953

  • Grassi, Luigi. Tutta la pittura di Gentile da Fabriano. Milan, 1953.

1960

  • Bussagli. "Gentile da Fabriano." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 79+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 53(1998):170-176.

  • Degenhart, Bernhard, and Annegritt Schmitt. "Gentile da Fabriano in Rom und die Anfänge des Antikenstudiums." Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 3rd ser., 11 (1960): 59-151.

1976

  • Ikuta, Madoka. "Bibliografia (1930-1976) di Gentile da Fabriano." Bulletin Annuel du Musée National d'Art Occidental, Tokyo 10 (1976): 74-87.

  • Micheletti, Emma. L'opera completa di Gentile da Fabriano. Milan, 1976.

1982

  • Christiansen, Keith. Gentile da Fabriano. London, 1982.

1998

  • De Marchi, Andrea. "Gentile da Fabriano." Art Dossier 136 (1998).

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 287.