One of a pair of pilaster panels

Spinello Aretino (1350/52-1410) painted these two panels depiciting Saints Philip and James the Greater(?) for an altarpiece for Monte Oliveto Maggiore near Siena. Other panels from the same polyptych survive in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena; the Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Budapest; and the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Another pilaster panel like the two in the Robert Lehman Collection was sold at Sotheby's in London in 1982. An inscription across the base of the altarpiece frame, recorded by Giorgio Vasari when it was still intact, memorialized the frame carver and the gilder alongside the painter: "Simone Cini Fiorentino fece l'intaglio, Gabriello Saracini la messe d'oro e Spinello di Luca d'Arezzo la dipinse l'anno 1385." The three artists received equal payments for their work. The pastiglia Solomonic columns on these two panels are not as well defined as those on 1975.1.23b, which are subtly delineated with punching. The simple punching on these panels with vague pastiglia moldings befits the humble manner of the two saints.