Images(5)

The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John, with Saint John Baptist (above); Franciscan Saint in Prayer before a Vision of Christ and Saints, with a Male Saint (above) (recto and verso)

Master of the Osservanza (Italian (Sienese), active in second quarter, 15th century)

late 1440s

Medium/TechniqueTempera on panel; base a modern restoration

Dimensions69.9 x 37.8 cm (27 1/2 x 14 7/8 in.)

Credit LineCharles Potter Kling Fund

Accession number60.536

On View

On view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

Reliquaries are precious containers for the relics of holy persons. Here the small glass roundels would have held fragments believed to be the bones of saints or other items. One side of the painting depicts the Crucifixion and above it, John the Baptist. The other side shows a Franciscan saint before a vision of Christ, the Virgin, and perhaps Saint Peter. A male saint, dressed in red and holding a palm of martyrdom, is painted in the pinnacle above. The artist, known for the smooth draperies of his figures, has long been called the Master of the Osservanza, after a painting by the same hand in a church near Siena. Some scholars now believe this group of works to be by Sano di Pietro, a 15th-century Sienese painter. The reliquary was first restored as early as the 18^th century, when some of the glass roundels and identifying labels were replaced.

ProvenanceUntil 1900, Eugen Miller von Aichholz (b. 1835 - d. 1919), Vienna; May 18-22, 1900, Aichholz sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, lot 368 [see note 1]. By 1909, Henri Heugel (b. 1844 - d. 1916), Paris [see note 2]; by descent to his wife; by descent to their son, Jacques Heugel (b. 1890 - d. 1979), Paris. January, 1952, sold by Otto Wertheimer (dealer), Paris, to M. Knoedler and Co., New York (stock no. A4774) [see note 3]; 1960, sold by Knoedler to the MFA for $15,000. (Accession Date: May 11, 1960)

NOTES:
[1] Attributed to Fra Angelico. [2] As published by Bernard Berenson, "Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance" (New York, 1909), p. 178. [3] Attributed to Giovanni di Paolo. Bought in half-share with Pinakos, Inc.