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
without reason that the panel was previously considered by some authors to be part of that polyptych. The flat silhouetted figures of the bystanders in the Budapest panel are met again in the Last Suppemow in the Robert Lehman Collection (fig. 29), 25 and the tendency to caricature, particularly visible in the faces of the Jews, is seen in several panels from the same predella (fig. 30). The faces, however, are not so elongated as usually seen in Ugolino's work, as a comparison with the St John the Baptist (fig. 31) from the Santa Croce polyptych now in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie shows. 26 As the Budapest panel most likely comes from a predella, the possibility exists that it was executed by an assistant rather than by Ugolino himself. Ugolino's father, Nerio di Ugolino, as well as his brothers Guido and Minuccio (or Muccio) were painters as well, and it has been suggested that Ugolino may have been the head of family workshop, which would explain the unevenness in quality in the Santa Croce polyptych. 27 The Santa Croce polyptych is reported to have been signed, 28 but for the rest no signed or dated work by Ugolino is known. Nevertheless it is likely that the Santa Croce polyptych was commissioned in the 1320s, and this rough date is acceptable for the Budapest panel as well. SUGGESTION FOR THE PROVENANCE As to the provenance of the ensemble to which the Budapest panel belonged, there are obviously very few clues. However, if we assume that the ensemble was made for a church dedicated to the Baptist in Siena, we can present an educated guess. The Baptistery of Siena Cathedral is an unlikely candidate: the façade was founded in 1317 and the construction was still under way in the following decade. 29 Nor does a hospital dedicated to the Baptist near the Porta Tufi seem to be a plausible location, as it was 25 Pope-Hennesy, J., and Kanter, L.B., The Robert Lehmann collection, I. Italian paintings, New York 1987,8-11. 26 Boskovits, M. Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Katalog der Gemälde. Frühe italienische Malerei, Berlin 1987,163-176. 27 Pope-Hennessy - Kanter, op. cit., 10. For documents concerning Ugolino and his family, see Bacci, P., Dipinti inediti e sconosciuti di Pietro Lorenzetti, Bernardo Daddi etc. in Siena e nel contado, Siena 1939, 123-151. 28 Padre Della Valle saw the polyptych in the dormitory of Santa Croce and recorded the signature below the Madonna: "Ugolinus de Senis me pinxit". Delia Valle, G., Lettere sanesi, II, Rome 1785, 203. For the reconstruction of the polyptych, see also Art in the making, cit., 98-123, and Muller, N.E., 'Reflections on Ugolino di Nerio's Santa Croce Polyptych', Zeitschrift für Kuntgeschichte 57 (1994), 45-74. 29 Lusini, V, // San Giovanni di Siena e i suoi restauri, Florence 1911; Middeldorf Kosegarten, A., Sienesische Bildhauer am Duomo Vecchio. Studien zur Skulptur in Siena, 1250-1330, Munich 1984, 3334; Ploeg, K. van der, Art, architecture and liturgy. Siena Cathedral in the Middle Ages, Groningen 1993, 98-104.
