Master of Charles III of Durazzo

(active in Florence, circa 1380–1420)
The Story of Lucretia,
tempera, gold and silver on panel, a cassone panel, 48 x 126.5 cm

Provenance:
Collection of Vincenzo Corsi, Florence (1861);
Fiesole, Castello di Vincigliata, Sir John Temple Leader (1879-1903);
by descent, Richard Luttrell Pilkington Bethell, 3rd Lord Westbury (1903-1917);
Collection of Barone Alberto Fassini, Rome (before 1926);
Private collection, Milan;
Private collection, Switzerland.

Literature:
M. Gustalla, Catalogo della Esposizione di oggetti d’arte del Medio Evo e dell’epoca del Risorgimento dell’arte fatta a Firenze in casa Guastalla, Florence 1861, p. 26, no. 18;
G. Marcotti, Vincigliata, Florence 1879, p. 120;
possibly L. Scott (L. Baxter), The Castle of Vincigliata, Florence 1897,
p. 155;
A. Schiaparelli, La casa fiorentina e i suoi arredi nei secoli XIV e XV, Florence 1908, p. 225;
P. Schubring, Cassoni, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1923, Vol. I, p. 223, no. 21;
R. Van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. IX, The Hague 1927, p. 98;
J. Miziolek, Florentina Libertas. La ‘Storia di Lucrezia Romana e la cacciata del Tiranno’ sui cassoni del primo Rinascimento, in Prospettiva, 83-84 (1996), pp. 160-166;
J. Miziolek, Soggetti Classici sui Cassoni Fiorentini alla vigilia del Rinascimento, Warsaw 1996, pp. 29, 33-37;
J. Miziolek, Florentine marriage chest depicting the story of Lucrezia and the war with Giangaleazzo Visconti, in Art and Politics, Warsaw 1999, pp. 35-37;
L. Sbaraglio, Le origini dei cassoni istoriati nella Pittura Fiorentina, in Virtu’ d’amore. Pittura nuziale nel Quattrocento fiorentino, exhibition catalogue, (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence), Florence-Milan 2010, pp. 105-106, fig. 2;
L. Sbaraglio, in Le Opere e i Giorni. Exempla virtutis, favole antiche e vita quotidiana nel racconto dei cassoni rinascimentali, exhibition catalogue (Museo Stibbert, Florence), Florence 2015, p. 94

The present work was once in the celebrated collection formed by Sir John Temple Leader (1810-1903) at the Castello di Vincigliata near Fiesole, which he purchased in 1855 and restored in neo-medieval style, furnishing and richly embellishing it with paintings and furniture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This panel, which is recorded at Vincigliata in 1879, was an original section that was inserted into a reconfigured cassone built up of purpose made elements and designed in a Trecento style, as specified by Van Marle who was the last to see it in the Castle around 1925; (the cassone was documented in photographs: Brogi 9162, and in the reproduction included in Schubring’s repertory).

The panel painting subsequently remained inaccessible in a private collection: at this time it was removed from its nineteenth century additions, in the meantime it was studied on the basis of the old photographs and identified by Jerzy Miziolek and Lorenzo Sbaraglio as one of the most important works by the Master of Charles III of Durazzo, a Florentine painter active during the last thirty years of the Trecento and the first of the Quattrocento, who, it is believed, first conceived of the storied cassone as a type.

Contained within two gilded rosette shaped frames are two unidentified coats of arms, these re-emerged from beneath a nineteenth century reworking that had substituted them with those of the Alessandri family, the ancient owners of the Castello di Vincigliata, and possibly the Ricasoli, with whom in the past a link between the two noble houses by marriage had been thought to exist, this however remains unproven by documents.

The panel appears to be in an excellent state of preservation, its precious stucco-paste ornament in gold and silver gilded relief appear undamaged, which is exceptional for this type of painting; three integrated relief frames open windows onto as many compartments within which is depicted the Story of Lucretia as told by Livy. In the first scene Lucretia is seen in bed in her room as Sestus Tarquinius approaches to assault her; here the female nude and the minute detail with which the interior is described are especially striking. In the second scene the dramatic suicide of Lucretia before two armed men is depicted, while in the third and final scene the expulsion of Tarquin from Rome is depicted: emblematically standing out from this symbolic representation of the eternal city is the dome of the Pantheon.

As evidenced by Miziolek’s studies, this is one of the oldest representations of this subject in Italian painting, and certainly the earliest among those painted by the Master of Charles III of Durazzo. In Florence at the end of the Trecento this theme assumed a very specific political meaning that celebrated ‘Libertas’ and the republican virtues in opposition to tyranny.

In the progress of this singular artist, the present painting, which is of a particularly high quality and refinement of execution, belongs to a moment early in his career, while his style still revealed certain archaizing traits connected to the tradition of Orcagna and his followers, alongside an expressive manner and graphic characterisation that strongly recall the style of Agnolo Gaddi. Both the style of painting and the figure types reveal evident affinities with other early works by the artist like the cassone in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, showing the Stories of Saladino and of Messer Torello with which it also shares very similar stucco-paste or pastiglia ornament. Likewise it should be compared to the panel in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no. 07.120.1) representing Charles III of Durazzo capturing Naples (1381-82) after which the painter is conventionally named (see: E. Fahy, ‘Florence and Naples: a Cassone Panel in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’ in Hommage à Michel Laclotte: Etudes sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, Milan 1994, pp. 231-43); these comparative references indicate a date of execution for the present panel to circa 1380.

Technical analysis:
This front of a cassone appears well preserved, also its metal parts, made of silver leaf for the decorated interlaced border of the painted medallions and gold leaf for the external background. The scenes are painted on a white ground with straight incisions for the architecture and furniture, made with a thin point and a ruler, while a thin brush with black carbon-based ink was used to draw the outlines of the figures, painted with accuracy, without changes.

The palette, detected by spectroscopic exams, include natural ultramarine (from lapis lazuli) in all the blue/pale blue clothes, a copper-based green pigment (probably verdigris) in the green colours, lead-tin yellow in the clothes of the central soldier, yellow ochre in the bed, a carmine type red lake for many pink-purple garments and buildings, including the walls of Rome, vermillion in brilliant reds and, not so frequently used in such abundance, the lead-containing reddish orange of minium. The range and the quality of the materials clearly indicate the status of the family and the importance of the object.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical examination of the present painting.