Csornay Boldizsár - Hubai Péter szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 96. (Budapest, 2002)
VICTOR M. SCHMIDT: A Duccesque Painting Representing St John the Baptist Bearing Witness in the Museum of Fine Arts
corresponds most to the panel in Budapest, with the difference that Christ is not shown apart but among the bystanders. The same formula is found elsewhere in Tuscan cycles of John the Baptist. These include the late thirteenth-century mosaics of the Baptistery in Florence and three painted cycles listed by George Kaftal, 20 Andrea Pisano's bronze door of the Florentine Baptistery, the silver frontal for its main altar begun in 1366, 21 and a predella by Mariotto di Nardo in Ss. Jacopo e Lucia at San Miniato (fig. 27). 22 A panel by the Aretine painter Andrea di Nerio in the Kunstmuseum of Bern shows a different formula in that the Lamb instead of the figure of Christ is shown; this is obviously a literal rendering of John 1:29: "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The panel goes together with three other scenes from the life of the Baptist. Originally they may have been part of a predella, or, considering the proportions (31,5 X 44,5 cm), rather a v/ta-panel or a dossal. 23 One such dossal has been preserved in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena (fig. 28). Although probably painted by an Umbrian artist around 1270-1280, it has an old Sienese provenance. It contains the only preserved cycle of the Baptist from Siena before Duccio. The scene of the Baptist Bearing Witness is not represented, but a similar scene taken from John 1:35-36: the Baptist standing with two of his disciples points to Christ on the left , 24 Considering these parallels, it is clear that the Budapest panel must have belonged to a cycle of the Baptist, most likely a predella. The size and proportions (28,5 x 38 cm) coincide nicely with Mariotto's predella at San Miniato, which contains six scenes in all (27 x 208 cm). ATTRIBUTION The style of the panel obviously recalls Duccio, particularly the Maestà, but a number of qualities, such as the somewhat simplified draperies, the rather restricted variety in facial types, and the flattened figures relate the panel to Ugolino, particularly the now dispersed predella of his high altarpiece for Santa Croce in Florence. It is therefore not 20 Kaftal, G., Iconography of the saints in Tuscan painting, Florence 1952, col. 553-554, no. 13. 21 For colour reproductions sec Paolucci, A. (ed.), // Battistero di San Giovanni a Firenze. Atlante. The Baptistery of San Giovanni, Florence. Atlas, Modena 1994, 83, fig. 93; 608, fig. 973 (wrongly identified as 'Christ visiting the Baptist in the wilderness'). 22 Tesori d'arte antica a San Miniato, Genoa 1979, 62-63. 23 These are the Birth of St John the Baptist, Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais (29 x 39); St John the Baptist Receiving a H air shirt from an Angel, Bern, Kunstmuseum (31,5 x 44,5 cm); 5/ John the Baptist Preaching, Napels, Museo Capodimonte (panel reduced to a tondo). See Freuler, G., "Manifestatori delle cose miracolose" : arte italiana del 'iöO e '400 da collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, Einsiedeln 1991, 189-191, no. 70; Bartalini, R., T Tarlati, il 'Maestro del Vescovado' e la pittura aretina della prima meta del Trecento', Prospettiva (1996), nos. 83-84, 30-55, esp. 46, 48 and 55, note 51; Boskovits, M., 'Marginalia su Buffalmaceo e sulla pittura aretina del primo Trecento', Arte cristiana 86, 1998, 165-176, esp. 165-166. 24 Torriti, P., La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I dipinti, Genoa 1990, 20-22, no. 14 (92 x 170,5 cm). For the iconography, see Kaftal, op. cit., col. 553, no. 15.
