Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and Four Saints

c. 1400

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Niccolo di Pietro Gerini

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and Four Saints

Niccolo di Pietro Gerini

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels and Four Saints

c. 1400

Physical Qualities Tempera and gilding on wood panel, 30 1/4 x 18 1/8 in. (76.8 x 46 cm.)

Credit Line Bequest of Saidie A. May

Object Number 1951.390

Like a queen in a golden heaven, the Madonna sits on an ornate throne, holding the Christ Child on her lap. The saints and angels at her side appear surprisingly small. St. John the Baptist, with unkempt hair, wears the brown hair shirt that he wore in the wilderness. St. Catherine of Alexandria holds the spiked wheel on which she was tortured, along with a palm branch representing her martyrdom. The apostle St. James the Greater grasps the pilgrim’s staff that he carried as he spread the gospel to the world. St. Dorothy holds the roses that she sent to an unbeliever who mocked her belief in Paradise.A dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, hovers above two winged angels. Despite the heavenly golden setting, the altarpiece panel gives the six figures little space to spread out. In years to come, artists would portray the Madonna and saints in more comfortable earthly surroundings. S.Johnston, 8/2004

The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1951; The Baltimore Museum of Art on extended loan, 1939-1951; Saidie A. May, The Park Lane, New York City, United States, by purchase, [1925?], before c. 1923-33; Gav. Prof. Giuseppe Volterra, Via Tornabuoni 12 Firenze.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, ‘Saidie A. May Collection,’ September 6-October 222, 1972, p. 39, ill.

B. Berenson, “Italian Pictures of the Renaissance - Florentine School”, vol 1, London: Phaidon Press, 1963, p. 158.

B. B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri., “Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections”, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972, p. 81.

M. Boskovitz, “Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento”, Florence: Eadam, 1975, p. 403.

R. Fremantle, “Florentine Gothic Painters from Giotto to Masaccio”, London: Secker and Warburg, 1975, p. 330, no, 684.

*Bruce Cole, “Circle of Niccolo di Pietro Gerini: ‘Madonna and Child with Five Angels,"' in Gertrude Rosenthal ed. "Italian Paintings: XIV - XVIIIth Centuries from the collections of The Baltimore Museum of Art," Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1981, pp. 67-73, ill. p. 66.

Richard Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: A Legacy of Attributions, edited by Hayden B.J. Maginnis. The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Locust Valley, New York: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1981, p. 86, fig. 165.

*Susan L. Caroselli, “Italian Panel Painting of the Early Renaissance In the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art”, Los Angeles, CA: Museum Associates, Lost Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994, p. 95.