Francesco Pesellino, Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi, Saints Zeno and Jerome
Full title | Saints Zeno and Jerome |
---|---|
Artist | Francesco Pesellino, Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi |
Artist dates | 1422 - 1457; born about 1406; died 1469; born about 1406; died 1469 |
Group | The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece |
Date made | 1455-60 |
Medium and support | Egg tempera, tempera grassa and oil on wood |
Dimensions | 84.5 × 56 cm |
Acquisition credit | Presented by the Art Fund in association with and by the generosity of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bt, 1929 |
Inventory number | NG4428 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This large pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) was painted for a church in Pistoia, but sawn into pieces in the eighteenth century. It was reassembled in the National Gallery – look closely and you can see lines where the fragments were put back together.
Two fourth-century saints – Zeno, a bishop of Verona, and Jerome, one of the Fathers of the Church – stand in front of a palm and an olive tree. Zeno holds a crosier, while Jerome has a book, as he translated the Bible into Latin, and wears the red robes of a cardinal. As secretary to the pope he is usually shown as a cardinal, although the office did not exist in his day.
This altarpiece was begun by Francesco Pesellino and completed by Filippo Lippi after Pesellino’s death. It’s not clear which artist painted which bit, and Zeno and Jerome are especially problematic: they are painted in a different way to other parts of the panel.
Two fourth-century saints – Zeno, a bishop of Verona, and Jerome, one of the Fathers of the Church – stand in front of a palm and olive tree. Zeno wears a bishop’s mitre on his head and holds a crosier; Jerome has a book, standing for the Bible which he translated into Latin, and wears the red robes of a cardinal. As secretary to the pope, he was usually shown as a cardinal, although the office did not exist in his day.
This oddly shaped fragment comes from a large pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) painted for a church in Pistoia (Zeno was the patron of Pistoia cathedral). This altarpiece was begun by one artist, Francesco Pesellino, and completed after his death by another, Fra Filippo Lippi. Jerome doesn‘t have his usual companion lion, which is surprising – especially as Pesellino was very fond of showing lions, as in Saints Mamas and James and The Story of David and Goliath – but the lower part of these figures is a modern reconstruction.
Although we know a lot about how the altarpiece was commissioned and executed from surviving documents, it was only partly complete when Pesellino died in 1457, and we are not completely sure which artist painted which bit. These figures are especially problematic.
The whole composition was drawn in great detail before being painted, and in many places the underdrawing is visible – you can see it in Zeno’s and Jerome’s faces, hands and drapery. The drawing must have been done in the early stages, presumably by Pesellino: it seems to be the same as in the rest of the panel. But the way Zeno and Jerome were painted is different to Mamas and James, although it’s difficult to judge as the surface is quite worn. Technical analysis has shown that their flesh tones don’t have a layer of a green earth pigment underneath, as was used for Mamas and James. Different pigments were also used to build up the final flesh colour. These differences suggest a different artist; maybe these saints were not finished when Pesellino died and were completed in Lippi’s workshop.
A drawing by Pesellino in the Uffizi, Florence, shows Zeno accompanied by Mamas (who here stands on the opposite side of the Cross). This is perhaps one of the preliminary designs Pesellino made for the confraternity in planning for the altarpiece. Like many artists of this era, Pesellino reused figures in different paintings, and the Saint Jerome we see here is very similar to one he painted on a small panel (now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York).
The four types of tree in the painting – the olive and palm behind Zeno and Jerome and the cypress and possible cedar behind Mamas and James – might represent the four woods which supposedly went into making Christ’s Cross.
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The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece
This large altarpiece – one of the few in the National Gallery which is almost complete – has had an eventful life. It was commissioned in 1455 from the Florentine painter Francesco Pesellino, and is his only surviving documented work. He died in 1457 and it was finished by Fra Filippo Lippi and his workshop. We know a lot about how and why it was made from the records of the confraternity who commissioned it.
From 1465 it sat on the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity at Pistoia, but in 1793 the confraternity was suppressed and the altarpiece was taken apart, with the main panel sawn into pieces, and dispersed. Most of it was gradually acquired by the National Gallery and the altarpiece reassembled.
This is the earliest pala (an altarpiece with a single main panel) in the National Gallery.
This large altarpiece is extraordinary in many ways. Sawn into fragments in the eighteenth century, it was reassembled in the early twentieth, and is one of the few in our collection that is virtually complete. It’s our earliest example of a particular type of altarpiece, a pala.
Commissioned in 1455 by a confraternity of priests, it is Pesellino’s only surviving documented work. He died in 1457 before he could finish it, so it was completed by Fra Filippo Lippi and his workshop. Made for the high altar of the church of the Holy Trinity in Pistoia, it was taken apart after 1783 when the confraternity was suppressed. The main panel was cut up into five or six pieces and dispersed. Most were gradually acquired by the National Gallery, although one panel is owned by the Royal Collection and one fragment is lost.
Today we see The Trinity in the centre, with angels to the right and left. Saints Zeno and Jerome appear on the right, with Saints Mamas and James on the left. Only the lower right-hand side of the main panel is a modern reconstruction, as is the frame. In the predella we see an imprisoned Saint Mamas thrown to the lions, Saint James the Great being beheaded, Saint Zeno exorcising the daughter of the Emperor Gallienus and Saint Jerome with his lion.
Because of this altarpiece we have a fascinating insight into how medieval art was made and valued. From the surviving minutes of the confraternity’s meetings we know when and why a new altarpiece was commissioned, what it was to show and that it was to cost between 150 and 200 florins – a huge sum, perhaps partly due to the expense of using fashionable Florentine artists rather than local ones. We even know that Mamas was included because he was the favourite saint of Pero ser Landi, the confraternity’s treasurer. The confraternity was careful to see plans for each aspect of the work, and commissioned preparatory drawings – some of which survive – from Pesellino and from a maestro Lorenzo, who perhaps designed the woodwork. Landi made repeated trips to Florence to sign the contract and oversee progress.
By July 1457 Pesellino was too ill to continue; by the end of the month he was dead. There was then a battle between Pesellino’s widow and his business partner over the money paid and still owing on the partly painted panel. This was resolved by September 1458 when the panel was brought to Pistoia and the commission for finishing it given to Filippo Lippi. The whole ensemble was finally hoisted into place in June 1465, nearly ten years after it had been commissioned.
It must have looked radically new to the priests seated in the choir stalls: traditionally altarpieces were polyptychs but during the fifteenth century they changed to this new form, like the slightly later Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The whole idea of showing solid, weighty figures in a panoramic landscape was new and was to have a great influence on later painters, such as Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo.