Saint Anthony Distributing His Wealth to the Poor
Master of the Osservanza (Sano di Pietro?)·c. 1430/1435
Historical Context
The Master of the Osservanza's Saint Anthony Distributing His Wealth to the Poor, painted around 1430-1435, illustrates an episode from the life of the desert father who renounced all worldly possessions. This panel belongs to a narrative cycle depicting Anthony's life that is among the finest achievements of early Quattrocento Sienese painting. The theme of voluntary poverty resonated with the Franciscan and Observant reform movements active in early fifteenth-century Siena.
Technical Analysis
The tempera-on-poplar technique produces the brilliant, enamel-like color and precise drawing characteristic of the Sienese school. The narrative is composed with decorative clarity, with the architectural setting and figure groupings creating a legible, rhythmic visual narrative.
Provenance
Probably Aloisi-Vicoli-Caccialupi family, San Severino Marche; by inheritance to Count Augusto Caccialupi Olivieri [1834-1897], Macerata, by 1870;[1] purchased by Robert Jenkins Nevin [1839-1906], Rome.[2] Dan Fellows Platt [1873-1938], Englewood, New Jersey, in 1906;[3] sold November 1943 by the trustees of the Platt estate to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] See Filippo Raffaelli, _Catalogo di quadric divarie scuole pittoriche raccolti dal Sig. Conte Augusto Caccialupi in Macerata_, Macerata, 1870: 6, nos. V, VI. Count Augusto Caccialupi's family inherited, apart from the Caccialupi estate, also those of the Aloisi and Vicoli families of San Severino. The Caccialupis were also from this city; Count Augusto, however, lived in Macerata; see Vittorio Spreti, _Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana_, Milan, 1929: 2:226-229, and Aldo Adversi, Dante Cecchi, and Libero Paci, _Storia di Macerata_, 5 vols., Macerata, 1971-1977: 2(1972):59. [2] In the preface to the _Catalogo della vendita della collezione del fu reverendo Dottor Roberto I. Nevin..._, sale cat. Galleria Sangiorgi, Rome, 22-27 April 1907: 8, F. Mason Perkins mentions that a group of paintings was acquired by Nevin from the Caccialupi collection. According to Giusepe Vitalini Sacconi (_Pittura marchigiana. La scuola camerinese_, Trieste, 1968: 238 n. 285), Nevin bought all of what at that remained of the collection, a considerable part of which was already sold before 1870. The provenance of NGA 1952.5.20 and NGA 1952.5.21 from the Nevin collection is first stated by Lionello Venturi, _Pitture italiane in America_, Milan, 1931: no. CXXV. They must have been sold before Nevin died, as they are not in the catalogue of his 1907 estate sale. [3] There seen already by F. Mason Perkins, "Quattro tavole inedite del Sassetta," _Rassegna d'Arte Senese_ 7 (1907): 45-46. See Dan Fellows Platt Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, NJ; box 2, folder 23, call number C0860. [4] The bill of sale for six paintings from Ethel Bliss Platt, as trustee of the estate of Dan Fellows Platt, to the Kress Foundation is dated 30 November 1943. A letter of the same date from the Foundation to Mrs. Platt confirms that the purchase is "made with the understanding that [the paintings] are to be deeded to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C." (Copies of both documents are in NGA curatorial files.) See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1795.
