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Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011), “Simone Martini/Saint Judas Thaddeus/c. 1315/1320,” Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/41636 (accessed March 19, 2024).

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Overview

Saint Judas Thaddeus once decorated the predella of an altarpiece along with nine other small portraits of apostles, three of which are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art: MatthewSimon, and James Major. This panel of Saint Judas Thaddeus is among the best preserved of the four and the softness of the modeling displays most clearly Simone Martini’s refined pictorial manner. With his head bowed to one side, the apostle turns away from the viewer to contemplate something or someone beyond the frame of representation. The dreamy introspective air of the young saint is complemented by the delicacy of his gestures, particularly the way in which he draws the fingers of his right hand through the fabric of his mantle. The spontaneous naturalism of this action distinguishes Simone's works from those of his peers.

One of the 12 apostles of Jesus, Saint Judas Thaddeus is identified in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, as "Thaddeus." In Luke, John, and the Acts of the Apostles, he is known simply as "Judas." However, he is not to be confused with Judas Iscariot, the traitor. Saint Judas Thaddeus's most prominent role in the biblical narrative takes place during the Last Supper (the Passover meal Jesus shared with his apostles the night before he was crucified). In the midst of Jesus's explanation of what was to come, including the assertion that he would return to them, Judas Thaddeus asked an important question.  John 14:22:  "Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?'” Jesus responded by foretelling the descent of the Holy Spirit on his followers, an event that occurred on Pentecost.

Entry

This panel and its three companions at the Gallery—Saint Matthew, Saint Simon, and Saint James Major—together with six other busts of apostles [fig. 1] [fig. 2] [fig. 3] [fig. 4] [fig. 5] [fig. 6] [fig. 7] [fig. 8] [fig. 9] [fig. 10],[1] originally formed part of a polyptych. The ten panels, acquired as a group by Johann Anton Ramboux in the early nineteenth century, remained together until the 1920s, when they were deaccessioned by the Wallraf-­Richartz Museum in Cologne and dispersed. 

The horizontal graining of the wood of the support in all ten panels suggests they are fragments of a predella.[2] The type of predella formed of busts of saints placed below round arches is rather archaic: in fact, it appears in Sienese painting no later than the years around 1320. Subsequently, preference was given instead to the insertion of narrative scenes in the predella; if busts of saints were included in the program, they were usually inserted in circular or mixtilinear medallions surrounded by painted ornamental motifs.[3] The absence from this series of busts of two of the most venerated apostles, Peter and John, may suggest that these panels were already lost at the time of Ramboux’s acquisition of the panels, together with a bust of Christ (or Christ on the Cross) that normally formed the central image of predellas decorated with busts of saints.[4] But it is more likely that the series of apostles in the predella was originally incomplete and that the images of Peter and John were separated from the rest and incorporated in the main register of the altarpiece, as was the case, for example, in Duccio’s Maestà.[5] As for the sequence of the individual figures, it seems probable that the apostles Andrew and James Major would have been placed closer to the center (and hence in a position of particular emphasis), and that the images of Matthew, Thomas, Simon, and Thaddeus would have been placed closer to the two ends.[6]

As for the painter of these busts of apostles, an attribution to the Sienese master Lippo Memmi (Sienese, active 1317/1347) was supported by Ramboux in the catalog of his collection (1862).[7] This was endorsed by the older studies, beginning with Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle (1864) and ending with Louis Gielly (1926).[8] It was only when the ten panels reentered the art market that the more prestigious name of Simone Martini was proposed by Robert Lehman (1928) and then by others.[9] Art historians generally accepted the attribution to Simone, though more often than not with the qualifier “shop of” or “school of” Simone.[10] The catalog of the National Gallery of Art also cited the four panels presented by the Kress Collection as works of “Simone Martini and assistants.” The attribution to Lippo Memmi, however, was never wholly discarded and has more recently been revived.[11] Proposed dates vary between c. 1320 and 1333.[12]

The attempts in recent decades to unite the catalogs of paintings previously assembled respectively under the names of Lippo Memmi and Barna da Siena, as well as under the nebulous formulae “Companions of Simone,” “Lippo and Tederico Memmi,” or “shop of Memmi” have complicated the matter of distinguishing among the paintings executed within the orbits of Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi and have made Lippo’s artistic development difficult to understand.[13] Inextricably linked to this issue, the chronology of the series of apostles discussed here remains equally problematic. To judge from the works signed and dated[14] by Lippo in the years between c. 1323 and 1333, the insertion in his oeuvre of the four busts of apostles in the Gallery seems far from convincing. The softness of the modeling and the spontaneous naturalness of the saints’ gestures recall more readily the manner of his brother-in-law (Simone Martini) than the solemn poses, polished forms, and metallic sheen that often distinguish the works of Lippo himself. 

Of the series of apostles of which the four panels in the Gallery form part, the Saint Andrew now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York [fig. 11] has close affinities, both in physiognomic type and in his rather surly expression, with the apostle, presumably Saint Andrew as well, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, unanimously recognized as Simone’s work.[15] The Saint Judas Thaddeus [fig. 12] in the Gallery similarly invites comparison with the image of the same saint in Simone’s polyptych in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa.[16] In both images the apostle is presented as a beardless youth who turns towards the arch of the frame with a slight Gothic bend, his head bowed to one side in an attitude of meditation. It cannot be said categorically, however, that the version painted for the polyptych of Pisa around 1319–1320 was the model for the painting in the Gallery, given that the contours of the figure and the drapery folds in the latter are far less agitated, following the stylistic models of previous works by Simone that still fall into the second decade of the century.[17] Comparison with the corresponding figures in the Pisa polyptych remains telling, however, and can also be extended to the representations of Saints Matthew and Simon. Simon is represented as still a young man, with a short, dark beard, while Matthew is a man of middle age in frontal position, with a long, forked beard. Matthew is shown in both paintings in the process of writing his Gospel. Less closely resembling his counterpart in the Washington panel is the Saint James Major of the Pisa polyptych, where we may observe the tendency, absent in the panels discussed here, to present the apostles in movement, to envelop their bodies in voluminous mantles that cast deep folds, and to place sharply foreshortened books in their hands. In the Pisa polyptych the books are in general more voluminous and open, and represented in such a way that some lines of calligraphy are visible. The saints, moreover, often seem to be conversing with one another, accompanying or enforcing their remarks with raised hand or exhibiting an object that not infrequently interrupts the outer contour of the figure, set against the gold ground, as if backlit.

Might the reduced emphasis on agitated rhythms and elegant gestures in the busts of apostles in the Gallery and in their companion panels imply a dating for them prior to the Pisa polyptych? Unfortunately, “objective data” deriving from the use of punch marks help us little in this case, since according to Mojmir S. Frinta’s survey (1998), the punched motifs present in the panels now divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art [fig. 11] [fig. 13] [fig. 14] [fig. 15] and the Gallery recur virtually throughout the entire oeuvre of Simone Martini, from the San Gimignano polyptych to the Annunciation in the Uffizi, Florence (1333), and beyond.[18] It might be more fruitful to concentrate attention instead on another aspect, namely the fact that Simone, as far as we are able to judge today, generally avoided the use of the round arch in his altarpieces. This motif appears for the last time in the youthful polyptych from San Gimignano, while in later works the arch, if it is not Gothic, is enriched with small trefoil arches on the inside, as in the Pisa polyptych. Not only is the framing of the National Gallery of Art panels very similar to that of the components of the predella of the Saint Louis of Toulouse in Naples (painted in c. 1317, the year of the saint’s canonization), but also their stylistic character is consistent with that of the works realized in the years of rapid development between the Maestà in the Palazzo Pubblico (1315) and the Pisan polyptych of 1319–1320. 

These considerations raise the question of identifying the altarpiece of which the ten busts of apostles formed part. Michael Mallory (1974) argued that the four Washington panels, together with their six companion panels in other collections, were in origin the predella of the polyptych by Lippo Memmi of which Saint John the Baptist in the Gallery also formed part.[19] The proposal has not met with acceptance in the art historical literature, but no alternative hypotheses have yet been formulated. A possible candidate for the lost central panel of the polyptych of which the series of busts of apostles formed part could be, in the present writer’s opinion, the Madonna and Child from the church of Santa Maria Maddalena at Castiglion d’Orcia, now in the Museo Civico e Diocesano at Montalcino (80 × 61 cm).[20] The width of the panel is not very different from that of the images placed at the center of Simone’s polyptychs executed for churches in Pisa, Orvieto, or San Gimignano, and its height is also close to that from San Gimignano, now deprived of its original frame. So there is nothing to prevent us from imagining the Montalcino Madonna at the center of a similar polyptych and with a series of apostles in its predella. Our panels share with it not only a similar date but also the external profile terminating in a round arch. 

In conclusion, the ten panels of the apostles can, I believe, be firmly attributed to Simone Martini. In the past scholars have generally undervalued these panels, not as a consequence of any intrinsic mediocrity but because of the loss of the pictorial finishes in some of them, flattening the modeling of the figures, and the unhappy result of successive restorations that have obscured many of the more exquisite touches of the pictorial technique, especially in the busts of Saints Bartholomew, Matthias, and Thomas now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, the better-preserved passages in our panels, in particular in the faces of Saints Thaddeus and James Major, still retain qualities that, in the view of the present writer, seem fully worthy of the hand of Simone.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016

Inscription

on the left of the Saint: .SAN[C]TVS.; on the right of the Saint: TAD[D]EVs.

Provenance

Acquired between 1832 and 1842 by Johann Anton Ramboux [1790-1866], Cologne, together with six other components of the same series, presumably in Siena;[1] (his estate sale, J.M. Heberle, Cologne, 23 May 1867, no. 75 [all ten panels], as by Lippo Memmi);[2] the whole series purchased by the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, which deaccessioned it in 1922-1923;[3] the four NGA panels, 1952.5.23-.26, purchased together with a fifth panel of the same series, by Philip Lehman [1861-1947], New York, by 1928;[4] the four NGA panels sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1952 to the NGA.

Exhibition History

1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 823.

Technical Summary

This painting and its three companions, Saint Matthew, Saint Simon, and Saint James Major, were executed on panels apparently made of a single piece of wood with horizontal grain, which has been thinned to 2.5 cm thick, backed, and cradled. Stephen Pichetto applied the backings and cradles in 1944, at which time he may also have thinned the panels and added the wooden strips that are currently affixed to all sides of each. The inner molding of the arch as well as the capitals and bases of the engaged frame surrounding the painted surface of each panel are original. Before the painting process, the panels were covered with a fabric interleaf, on which a layer of gesso ground was applied. The areas to be gilded were prepared with red bole and the halos decorated with punch marks—those in Saint Matthew and Saint Simon extend onto the top arches of the engaged frames. Incised lines were used to demarcate the figures; a green underpainting was laid in beneath the flesh tones; and the paint was applied with fine, unblended brushstrokes. Infrared reflectography at 1.2 to 5 microns shows a linear underdrawing in the figures’ hands but not in their clothing, except in Saint Judas Thaddeus, in which all the folds in the saint’s cloak were delineated in a liquid medium.[1] Mordant gilding was used for embellishing the borders of the saints’ robes and the bosses and clasps of their books. The books are further decorated with punch marks, and a black material, which might have been silver, has been applied over the gilded clasps and bosses. 

The painted surfaces of all four panels are slightly worn but in fair state apart from a number of small, scattered losses largely associated with the damages to the supports and the removal of parts of the original engaged frames and moldings along the borders. Two small repairs are visible in the gold ground in Saint Matthew, and retouchings around the saint’s throat, chest, and shoulders have discolored. Retouching in Saint Simon mostly affects the saint’s right cheek and left shoulder. Vertical and diagonal cracks, with attendant minor paint loss, are more prominent along the bottom edge of Saint James Major, while retouching in Saint Judas Thaddeus is largely confined to the saint’s face and book. The lettering of the inscriptions in all four panels has been reinforced. When he applied the cradles in 1944, Stephen Pichetto also “cleaned, restored, and varnished” the paintings. Robert Lehman (1928) mentioned an earlier cleaning, probably in the early 1920s.[2]

Bibliography

1862
Katalog der Gemälde Alter italienischer Meister (1221-1640) in der Sammlung des Conservator J. A. Ramboux. Cologne, 1862: 15, no. 75.
1864
Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle. A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 3 vols. London, 1864-1866: 2(1864):105.
1867
Heberle, J. M. Catalog der nachgelassenen Kunst-Sammlungen des Herrn Johann Anton Ramboux. Cologne, 23 May 1867: 17, no. 75.
1869
Niessen, Johannes. Verzeichniss der Gemälde-Sammlung des Museums Wallraf-Richartz in Köln. Cologne, 1869: 137.
1897
Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1897: 148.
1901
Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 5(1907):666-667 n. 1.
1903
Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 6 vols. Edited by Robert Langton Douglas (vols. 1-4) and Tancred Borenius (vols. 5-6). Vol. 3, The Sienese, Umbrian, and North Italian Schools. London, 1903-1914: 3(1908):76, 76-77 n. 5.
1907
Perkins, Frederick Mason. "Simone di Martino (Simone Martini)." In Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 31(1937):67.
1909
Berenson, Bernard. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 2nd ed. New York, 1909: 202.
1926
Gielly, Louis. Les primitifs siennois. Paris, 1926: 111.
1928
Lehman, Robert. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928: no. XIX, repro.
1930
Mayer, August L. "Die Sammlung Philip Lehman." Pantheon 5 (1930): 113.
1931
Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 61, repro.
1932
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 534.
1932
Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 2(1934):258 n.
1933
Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:no. 77, repro.
1936
Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Translated by Emilio Cecchi. Milan, 1936: 459.
1939
McCall, George. Masterpieces of Art. Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800. Edited by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Exh. cat. World’s Fair, New York, 1939: 116-117.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 17, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.
1946
Douglas, Robert Langton. "Recent Additions to the Kress Collection." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 88 (1946): 85.
1951
Toesca, Pietro. Il Trecento. Storia dell’arte italiana, 2. Turin, 1951: 551 n. 75.
1956
Coor, Gertrude. "Trecento-Gemälde aus der Sammlung Ramboux." Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 18 (1956): 118.
1957
Exposition de la Collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1957: 43.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 33, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 123, as by Simone Martini and Assistants.
1966
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 48-49, fig. 122.
1968
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:404.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 110, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.
1970
Contini, Gianfranco, and Maria Cristina Gozzoli. L’opera completa di Simone Martini. Milan, 1970: 105 no. 53, repro.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 122, 451, 646, 665.
1974
De Benedictis, Cristina. "A proposito di un libro su Buffalmacco." Antichità viva 13, no. 2 (1974): 8, 10 n. 13.
1974
Mallory, Michael. "An Altarpiece by Lippo Memmi Reconsidered." Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974): 201 n. 19.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 328, repro., as by Simone Martini and Assistants.
1977
Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I Dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977: 90.
1978
Ressort, Claude, Sylvia Beguin, and Michel Laclotte, eds. Retables italiens du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Exh. cat. Musée National du Louvre, Paris, 1978: 19.
1979
De Benedictis, Cristina. La pittura senese 1330-1370. Florence, 1979: 93 (as James Minor)
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:432-433; 2:pl. 310.
1980
Zeri, Federico, and Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: Sienese and Central Italian Schools. A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980: 95.
1982
Natale, Mauro, Alessandra Mottola Molfino, and Joyce Brusa. Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Vol. 1 (of 7), Dipinti. Milan, 1982: 145.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 374, repro.
1987
Previtali, Giovanni. "Problems in the Workshop of Simone Martini." Center, Research Reports and Record of Activities 7 (1987): 83-84, repro.
1988
Boskovits, Miklós, ed. Frühe italienische Malerei: Gemäldegalerie Berlin, Katalog der Gemälde. Translated by Erich Schleier. Berlin, 1988: 75.
1988
Martindale, Andrew. Simone Martini. Oxford, 1988: 35 n. 18.
1988
Previtali, Giovanni. "Introduzione ai problemi della bottega di Simone Martini." In Simone Martini: atti del convegno; Siena, March 27-29, 1985. Edited by Luciano Bellosi. Florence, 1988: 166 n. 23
1990
Boskovits, Miklós. "Review of Simone Martino by Andrew Martindale." Kunstchronik 43 (1990): 600.
1991
Christie, Manson & Woods. Important Paintings by Old Masters. New York, 11 January 1991: 28.
1991
De Benedictis, Cristina. "Lippo Memmi." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 7(1996):732.
1995
Baetjer, Katharine. European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865. A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995: 42.
1998
Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 205.
1998
Kier, Hiltrud, and Frank Günter Zehnder, eds. Lust und Verlust. Vol. 2 (of 2), Corpus-Band zu Kölner Gemäldesammlungen 1800-1860. Cologne, 1998: 552, repro.
1999
Bagnoli, Alessandro. La Maestà di Simone Martini. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 1999: 156 n. 24, 179.
2009
Bellosi, Luciano, et al., eds. La collezione Salini: dipinti, sculture e oreficerie dei secoli XII, XIII, XIV e XV. 2 vols. Florence, 2009, 2015: 1(2009):135, repro. 139.
2016
Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 351-369, color repro.

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