
Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome, Bernardino of Siena, and Angels
Sano di Pietro·c. 1455
Historical Context
Sano di Pietro's Virgin and Child with Saints Jerome and Bernardino of Siena (c. 1455) reflects the extraordinary prominence of San Bernardino in mid-fifteenth-century Siena. Bernardino had died in 1444 and was canonized by Pope Nicholas V in 1450 — an astonishing six years after his death — making him the most celebrated Sienese in generations. Sano di Pietro was the leading producer of devotional panels for the Sienese market and participated in the visual promotion of Bernardino's cult, depicting the friar with his distinctive IHS emblem in dozens of commissions. His accessible, technically conservative style served a broad devotional audience across the Sienese contado.
Technical Analysis
Sano di Pietro's tempera technique achieves rich, jewel-like colors on the small panel, with gold ground and detailed decorative elements characteristic of the Sienese school. The figures are rendered with precise, linear drawing and clear, flat colors, maintaining the Gothic devotional tradition that persisted in Siena longer than in Florence.
Provenance
Possibly private collection, London; sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 27, 1882, La Collection de M. M. de Londres, either no. 71, Vierge avec gloire d’anges, for Fr 675, or no. 74, La Vierge et l’Enfant, for Fr 410 [the catalogue of the Dollfus sale stated that the painting was no. 72 in the 1882 sale, though that number is a Visitation]; Jean Dollfus, Paris; sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, pt. 3, April 1-2, 1912, no. 76, ill., to Kleinberger for Fr 15,600 [according to annotated catalogue at Getty Center, Los Angeles]; sold by Kleinberger to Ferdinand Hermann, New York [according to Hermann sale catalogue]; sold American Art Association, New York, January 15, 1918, no. 46, ill. to R. Ederheimer for $2,100 [price and buyer in annotated sale catalogue in Art Institute Library and American Art New 1918]. Private collection, New York, possibly that of Ederheimer; sold Anderson Galleries, New York, February 18, 1921, no. 107 to Kleinberger, New York [the consignor described as a “New York gentleman”, price and buyer in Kleinberger records, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art]; sold by Kleinberger to Martin A. Ryerson (died 1932), Chicago, 1922 [Kleinberger records cited above and invoice in curatorial file]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1933.
See It In Person
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