BP-catalogue2023#Final - Flipbook - Page 7
as Florentine around 1425. All of the figures in the
surviving drawings represent biblical figures, mostly
saints, although it is sometimes difficult to identify them
precisely. Thus, in the present drawing, on the recto,
the figure with a bow could represent Saint Sebastian,
while the monk at prayer could be Saint Dominic.
The sketchbook, one of the earliest known on paper
rather than parchment4, probably served as a visual
archive of an artist’s studio and provided a repertoire
of forms that could be used as a model for paintings,
sculptures or embroidery. In each of the known
drawings, the draftsman has depicted the draperies
with great care, while the heads are only briefly
sketched.
The identity of the artist has given rise to several
suggestions. Janos Scholz, who owned a drawing
probably by the same hand5 but not from the
sketchbook, suggested that it was a work by Lorenzo
Monaco (1370-1424), in comparison with a famous
Fig. 1
École toscane, vers 1400, Un saint,
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
drawing in the Uffizi6. Pursuing the same idea, but
taking into account the stylistic differences between
the sheets in the notebook and the one in the Uffizi,
I.Q. Van Regteren Altena attributed the sketchbook
to Mariotto di Nardo (active between 1390 and
1425 approximately) whose late style was inspired by
Lorenzo Monaco7. Bernhart Degenhart and Annegrit
Schmitt8, on the other hand, likened the sheets of the
notebook to a painted altarpiece, fragments of which
are in the Fesch Museum in Ajaccio (Fig. 2) and
in the Cini Foundation in Venice. These panels are
attributed to an anonymous artist active in Umbria
in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, whom
Roberto Longhi has named the Master of the Silver
Crucifix. Recently, Gaudenz Freuler9 has suggested
the names of artists active between Lucca, Pisa and
Siena in the early fifteenth century, such as Taddeo
di Bartolo (1362-1422), Martino di Bartolomeo
(1389-1434) and the Sienese sculptor Francesco
Valdambrino (c. 1375-1435).
Fig. 2
Maître du Crucifix d’argent, Six saints,
Ajaccio, Musée Fesch