MASTER OF THE CHAPEL BRACCIOLINI - (Active in Pistoia from 1390 to 1426) - The Virgin and Child on throne surrounded by six angels - Altarpiece panel - Egg painting and gold ground on wood panel in third point - 147 x 84 cm overall -134 x 67 cm panel alone -133 x 74 cm pictorial surface - Expert : René MILLET - - It is probable that this important panel, as yet unpublished, originally occupied the center of an altarpiece, judging by the trace of a crossbeam on the reverse, which must have continued onto the side panels that have now disappeared. - The depiction shows the Virgin Mary, holding a rose in her right hand, wearing a large mantle covering her head and opening onto a richly decorated red dress. She is seated on an imposing throne whose base rests on a red carpet with golden flowers, and whose high back, decorated with checkerboard motifs, is topped by a spoiled pinnacle. The Child, standing on the Virgin's lap, blesses with his right hand. Six angels stand, three by three, on either side of the throne, at whose feet two other thurifer angels kneel. All these figures are haloed by nimbuses with punched motifs and clad in draperies in delicate shades of red, pink, green and yellow, enhanced by ornamental gold motifs. - This panel is related to a group of frescoes preserved in the Bracciolini chapel in the transept of the church of San Francesco in Pistoia, attributed to an artist known only by his conventional name: the Master of the Bracciolini Chapel. - Giulia Brunetti was the first to bring to light the work of this artist, who worked mainly in Pistoia in the late 14th and early 15th centuries (see G. Brunetti "Gli affreschi della capella Bracciolini in San Francesco a Pistoia" Rivista d'arte, 1935, pp. 221 - 244). It took more than half a century for critics to complete the catalog of this painter with a substantial number of painted panels, devotional works or altarpiece panels (see A. De Marchi, "Il Maestro della capella Bracciolini e l'avvio del tardogotico a Pistoia" Storia dell'arte, 74, 1992, pp. 5 - 24 - E. Neri Lusanna and P. Ruschi, "Santa Maria a Ripalta. Aspetti della cultura artistica medievale a Pistoia", 1992, pp. 45 - 48), executed until around 1426, when the Budapest polyptych, the painter's last known work, was created (see A. De Marchi, op.cit supra, reproduced fig. 21). - It was against a backdrop of Florentine ascendancy around Agnolo Gaddi and Niccolo di Tommaso, mingled with the Sienese influences present in the city or the local influences of a Giovanni di Bartolomeo Cristiani or an Antonio Vite, that the Master of the Bracciolini Chapel formed around the 1380s. His style is characterized by slender, strictly elegant figures, richly chromatic, with a pronounced taste for gilded ornamentation and passive expressions. This initial stylistic rigor fades towards the end of the painter's career, in favor of greater flexibility. - The panel in question echoes the Madonnas of Giovanni di Bartolomeo Cristiani (Maestà, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, for example), but is distinguished by recurring personal elements that its creator, the Master of the Bracciolini Chapel, places in the balanced composition, the stretched stature of the stilted figures, the numbed fluidity of the drapery, the delicate ornamentation of the brocaded fabrics, the persistence of the richly punctuated halos and the detail of the hands with their tapered, curved fingers. These features can be found in some of the master's painted panels on wood, such as the Madonna and Child, six saints and two angels (London Christie's sale, November 26, 1965, lot.75). - cf. Neri Lusanna, op. cit. p. 46, fig. 61), they recur in the frescoes, allowing us to integrate our panel into the corpus of works by this painter, probably in the second decade of the 15th century, at the same period as the scenes of the Marriage of the Virgin or the Triumph of Saint Augustine (see E. Neri Lusanna, op.cit. fig. 49) from the church of San Francesco in Pistoia. - Condition report: - Support: - Panel made up of three boards, 36.5cm, 12.5cm and 14.5cm wide, joined together with clean joints and reinforced at the edges with a 4cm wide rod - old traces of wood-eating insect galleries visible. A 12.5cm-high notch has been cut across the entire width of the panel, at the top, to allow insertion of a counter-threaded crosspiece secured by two partially visible nails. - Painting layer: - Wear on the gold background. The paint surface shows lifting, wear, restoration and repainting.