Niccolò di Buonaccorso was one of the most accomplished Sienese painters of the second half of the fourteenth century, though he is little known today. His surviving works are small in scale and rendered in a highly refined miniaturist technique. This richly decorated "Coronation of the Virgin" corresponds in style, size, and framing to two other panels also depicting scenes from the Life of the Virgin: The Presentation of the Virgin (Uffizi, Florence), the Marriage of the Virgin (National Gallery, London). The backs of all three panels are decorated with the same ornamental pattern, suggesting that the structure originally folded in a fashion that would have allowed the backs to be seen. It is not clear how or if the panels were originally joined. Like the other two panels, this one is silvered, punched, and painted with a pattern of diamond-shaped lozenges in blue and red on the verso; the outer edges were originally silvered and punched. It has been suggested that the polyptych may have been produced for the Spedale of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Coronation of the Virgin
Artist:Niccolò di Buonaccorso (Italian, active Siena by 1372–died 1388 Siena)
Date:ca. 1380
Medium:Tempera on wood, gold ground
Dimensions:Overall, with engaged frame, 20 x 12 7/8 in. (50.8 x 32.7 cm); painted surface 17 5/8 x 10 1/2 in. (44.8 x 26.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:1975.1.21
Sciarra collection, Rome; Gardner and Vicomte Bernard d'Hendecourt, Paris; F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York; acquired by Philip Lehman in 1914; Pauline Ickelheimer, New York. Acquired by Robert Lehman in 1946.
J[oseph]. A[rcher]. Crowe and G[iovanni]. B[attista]. Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in Italy: Umbria, Florence and Siena from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. Ed. Langton Douglas. Vol. 3, The Sienese, Umbrian, & North Italian Schools. London, 1908, p. 133.
F. Mason Perkins. "Dipinti senesi sconosciuti o inediti." Rassegna d'arte 14 (1914), pp. 98-99.
Osvald Sirén and Maurice W. Brockwell. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives. Exh. cat., F. Kleinberger Galleries, Inc. New York, 1917, p. 142, no. 53.
Edward Hutton. The Sienese School in the National Gallery. London, 1925, p. 42.
Robert Lehman. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928, no. 36.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 392.
Bernard Berenson. Pitture italiane del Rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Valori plastici, Milan, 1936, p. 337.
Paintings and Bronzes from the Collection of Mr. Robert Lehman. Exh. cat., Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Colorado Springs, 1951, Pl. 7
.
Theodore Allen Heinrich. "The Lehman Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12 (April 1954), p. 218.
Charles Sterling, ed. Exposition de la collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie. Paris, 1957, no. 298.
The Lehman Collection. Exh. cat.Cincinnati, 1959, no. 19.
Kenneth L. Ames. "An Annunciation by Niccolò de Buonaccorso." The Wadsworth Atheneum Bulletin 2 (1966), pp. 24, 29. Fig. 4.
Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 6, The Hague, 1970, p. 75.
George Szabó. The Robert Lehman Collection: A Guide. New York, 1975, p. 17. Pl. 14.
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris. "Naddo Ceccarelli." L' Art gothique siennois: enluminure, peinture, orfèvrerie,
Sculpture
. Exh. cat.Florence, 1983, pp. 262-263.
John Pope-Hennessy assisted by Laurence B. Kanter inThe Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings. New York, 1987, pp. 33-35, no. 14.
Jill Dunkerton et al. Giotto to Durer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery. New Haven, 1991, p. 230. Fig. 8a.
Laurence B. Kanter inPainting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence: 1300–1450. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1994, p. 106.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 48.
Pia Palladino. Art and Devotion in Siena after 1350: Luca di Tommè and Niccolò di Buonaccorso. Exh. cat., Timken Museum of Art. San Diego, 1997, pp. 46-48, Pl. 10.
Lidia Maria Riba. Un regalo para el alma. Buenos Aires, 1997, p. 10.
Caroline R. Drabik. Pre-Renaissance Italian Frames With Glass Decorations in American Collections. New York, 2001.
Gloria Fossi. Uffizi: Art, History, Collections. Florence, 2001, p. 59.
Victor M. Schmidt. Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. New Haven, 2002, pp. 403-405.
Victor M. Schmidt. Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250–1400. Florence, 2005, pp. 292-293, 310, no. 216.
Dillian Gordon. The Italian Paintings Before 1400. London, 2011, pp. 380-93.
Bernardo Daddi (Italian, Florence (?) ca. 1290–1348 Florence) (possibly with workshop assistance)
ca. 1337–39
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