BATTISTA DI BIAGIO SANGUIGNI formerly called MASTER... Lot 3007

BATTISTA DI BIAGIO SANGUIGNI formerly called MASTER OF 1419 (active around 1393 Florence 1451) Three panels of an altar: Madonna and Child adored by the donor family (central panel), Saints John the Baptist and Anthony Abbas (left wing)/ Saints James the Elder and Maurus (right wing). Tempera and gold ground on wood. 91,3 × 53,4 cm (central panel) / 98,5 × 48,2 cm (left wing) / 98,5 × 46,8 cm (right wing). Provenance: - Probably commissioned for a Benedictine order by Jacopo di Niccolò Corbizzi. Central panel: - Probably in German private collection since the 1940s. - 1992 by inheritance in private collection Germany. - Auction Koller, Zurich,26.3.2021, lot 3007. - Swiss private collection. Side wing: - Kunsthandel Julius Böhler, Munich, 1971. - Swiss private collection, acquired at the above. Exhibition (side wing): Lugano-Castagnola 1991, Heralds of Wonderful Things. Early Italian painting from collections in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Villa Favorita, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano-Castagnola, 7.4.-30.6.1991. Literature: - Miklos Boskovits: Ancora sul Maestro del 1419, in: Arte Cristiana 90, 2002, vol. 812, p. 334. figs. 5-7. Center panel: - Laurence B. Kanter: Zanobi Strozzi miniatore and Battista di Biagio Sanguigni, in: Arte Cristiana 90, 2002, vol. 812, p. 329. - Laurence B. Kanter: Battista di Biagio Sanguigni and Zanobi Strozzi, in: exhib.cat. Fra Angelico, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p.227 ff. page-wing: - Ausst.-Kat. Heralds of Wonderful Things. Early Italian painting from collections in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Villa Favorita, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano-Castagnola, Eidolon 1991, cat. no. 90, p. 230, fig. 231. These three panels could recently be reunited and form an impressive triptych, which was probably commissioned for a Benedictine order by Jacopo di Niccolò Corbizzi. The central panel shows, in an elegant late Gothic formal language, the mother and her divine child seated on a marble throne bench. At their feet appears a group of devout persons, presumably the founder's family, and to the right the women of a Benedictine community associated with them. This sacred encounter, which is also joined by two angels, is enclosed by a magnificent red gold brocade. While the holy mother, with the expansive gesture of her right hand, takes the pious women under her protection, the boy Jesus, dressed in a gold embroidered purple tunic, is turned directly towards the viewer with a gesture of blessing. The 91.3 cm high panel, as well as most of the original framework, has been trimmed in its lower half by about 20 cm, with the exception of the original pointed arch with a multi-pass. The same finding applies to the framework of the uncut side panels. With likewise Benedictine iconography, Miklòs Boskovits (see literature) has asserted an affiliation with our Madonna on the basis of stylocritical considerations. The correctness of the reconstruction question of our altarpiece can be confirmed today on the basis of the findings on the originals and further surveys of the pictorial program. The central panels are usually higher than the lateral elements. Since the central panel is trimmed by a piece at the bottom and it overhangs it by the trimmed height, there should be no doubt that all three elements belong to a triptych, especially since they also form a unit stylistically. Agreement can also be seen in the oriental patterning of the throne cloth consisting of garnet roses, stylized mythical creatures and turtles, which was stitched into the gold ground according to the same stencil pattern as the patterning of the red ground painted on the side panels. Finally, further, ultimately conclusive corroboration for the correctness of the reconstruction of our triptych comes from the Benedictine context of the pictorial program, where Benedictine nuns appear on the main panel on the left and Saints Maurus and Antonius Abbas in the habit of the black order of Benedictines on the side panels. The central panel was first published by Laurence B. Kanter and Miklòs Boskovits (see Literature) and the master of 1419, now identified as Battista di Biagio Sanguigni. The two side panels were first attributed by Prof. Gaudenz Freuler in 1991 to the Master of 1419, then still known by the notional name. Until the convincing identification of this initially still anonymous painter with Battista di Biagio Sanguigni by Laurence B. Kanter (see Laurence B. Kanter, 2002 and 2005), the œuvre of this artist was listed as a group of works by the so-called Master of 1419 (see Georg Pudelko: The stylistic developm