Andrea di Bonaiuto (Andrea da Firenze) - The Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints - image-1

Lot 1403 Dα

Andrea di Bonaiuto (Andrea da Firenze) - The Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints

Auction 1057 - overview Cologne
14.11.2015, 11:00 - Old Master and 19th Century Paintings and Drawings
Estimate: 140.000 € - 160.000 €
Result: 483.600 € (incl. premium)

Andrea di Bonaiuto (Andrea da Firenze)

The Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints

Tempera on panel. 46.5 x 21.5 cm.

This small panel by the Florentine master Andrea di Bonaiuto was purchased by the Munich based artist Franz von Lenbach in the 1890s. At this point in time, Lenbach had achieved wealth and fame and began to amass an important collection of early Italian painting.
This little-known panel was first published in 1996. It would have formed the centre of a small hinged altarpiece intended for personal devotion, but the accompanying wings are either lost or have yet to be identified. Freuler and Tripps have identified the present work as an early example of Bonaiuto's oeuvre - perhaps even the earliest. Thanks to the works he painted for the Dominican order at Santa Maria Novella, Andrea di Bonaiuto was one of the most popular artists in Florence during the late 1360s.
The first thing one notices about this painting is the care and delicacy with which the artist has depicted the materials and drapery. This manner lends the work a somewhat severe and hieratic appearance, in accordance with the style of Florentine painting of this time. After the innovations brought about by Giotto and Bernado Daddi, there followed a period in which archaic tendencies of reduced perspective and size-based hierarchies of importance enjoyed a resurgence. The main protagonists of this style were Nardo di Cione and his brother Orcagna.
The present work could be convincingly attributed to Bonaiuto through comparison to a very similarly composed panel in Copenhagen.

Provenance

Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904). - Subsequently in family ownership.

Literature

Johannes Tripps: Tendencies of Gothic in Florence: Andrea die Boaiuti, in A Corpus of Flerentine Painting, IV/VII/1 Andrea di Bonaiuti, Florenz 1996, p. 90, illus. I.
Cited literature: G. Freuler: Manifestatori dell cose miracolose. Arte Italiana del ´300 e ´400 da collezioni in Swizzera e nel Liechtenstein, Lugano 1991, - Ugo Feraci: L´ereditá di Giotto, Florence 2008, p. 118.