Full title | The Trinity |
---|---|
Artist | Francesco Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi and workshop |
Artist dates | 1422 - 1457; 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 | 185.5 x 91 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1863 |
Inventory number | NG727 |
Location | Room 53 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This large pala (an altarpiece with a single, unified surface) was painted for a church in Pistoia but was sawn into pieces in the eighteenth century; most of it was later reassembled in the National Gallery. Look closely and you can see lines where the separate fragments were put back together.
It shows the Trinity: God the Father floats in mid-air, holding up the Cross, Christ’s body hanging on it; the dove of the Holy Ghost hovers between them. The altarpiece was commissioned by a confraternity of priests dedicated to the Trinity – hence the subject.
The painting was begun by Francesco Pesellino and completed after his death in 1457 by Fra Filippo Lippi. It was described as ‘half finished’ when Pesellino died and we're not completely sure which bits were done by which artist.
God the Father floats in mid-air, surrounded by red and blue cherubim and seraphim, holding up the Cross; Christ’s body hangs on it. The dove of the Holy Ghost hovers between them. This way of showing them is known as a ‘Throne of Grace Trinity’, and in medieval Christian theology signified God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice.
This oddly shaped painting was cut from a pala, an altarpiece with a single, unified surface. The Pistoia Santa Trinità Altarpiece was commissioned in 1456 by a confraternity of priests dedicated to the Trinity – hence the subject – but was cut into pieces, probably when the confraternity was suppressed, in the late eighteenth century.
The painting was begun by Francesco Pesellino, and completed after his death by Fra Filippo Lippi. On Pesellino’s death the altarpiece was described as ‘half finished’ and we're not completely sure which bits were done by which artist. Presumably all the preparatory stages – the design, the underdrawing and the water-gilding, where gold leaf was applied using an animal glue mixed with water and then burnished – were done by Pesellino. Technical analysis shows that the whole composition was drawn in great detail before painting began; there’s even a surviving preparatory drawing of God from the Trinity (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). All Pesellino’s figures were done in the same way, with a thin wash of paint over a strong drawing, and show a good grasp of form and structure.
But parts of the Trinity are less convincing, and were perhaps left unfinished when Pesellino died. God’s hands are oddly boneless; Christ’s beard seems to have been added in at a late stage, and his body is painted in a single layer of paint and might not be finished. God’s hands and Christ’s body are blank in the St Petersburg study, but possibly for very different reasons. Pesellino could copy the body – a conventional pose – from an existing image of the Crucifixion, but he might have left the hands until he could do a study from life, mindful of the difficultly of showing hands bearing the weight of the Cross.
Lippi and his workshop were responsible for things done in the final stages, such as the dots for the foliage on the trees, the detailing which disguises the juncture in the middle ground between the two types of landscape, and the mordant gilding. This was among the final stages in the execution of a panel painting, and involved applying gold leaf over the paint surface. Cleverly, in parts of the painting which were intended to catch the light – such as the left side of God’s tiara and the yellow lining of his robe – decoration was done in mordant gilding, while paint was used on the darker right side. This technique is also found in other works accepted by Lippi.
Considering everything the painting has gone through, the individual parts are in quite good condition. Some of the colours have changed over time: the blue azurite of the Cherubim has darkened, as has the red vermilion used to paint the details of the seraphim’s wings. Parts of the mordant gilding has flaked off God’s tiara and the mandorla which surrounds him, and the dark area behind his head was originally a rich green.
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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.









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