Although from Milan, Giovanni was primarily active in Florence, where the refined naturalism of his figures was influential. This lunette-shaped picture dates from the 1360s and was probably set into an arch above a tomb. It shows the deceased husband and wife welcomed into heaven by the Christ Child. Two realms overlap: the sacred and the temporal, making the illusionistic ledge, the disparity in figure scale, and the clasped hands resonate with meaning.　

The surface is badly abraded, but the head and right hand of the Madonna give a good idea of the subtlety of Giovanni’s painting.

The provenance of this damaged but outstanding work by one of the leading innovators of Florentine painting in the mid-fourteenth century is not known. However, its shape and iconography strongly suggest that it was part of an architectural complex and either ornamented the lunette above a door or, more probably, a niche above a tomb. The Virgin, who holds a lily (a symbol of her purity), stands behind a ledge or parapet on which her infant son stands. Two donors—presumably husband and wife—kneel on the parapet in adoration or supplication. The Virgin and Christ Child turn towards the male and the child grasps his praying hands, an action that may signify that he is deceased and is, in effect, being welcomed into heaven. The parapet thus has both an illusionistic effect, linking the picture to its architectural surround, and an iconographic one (for a discussion of the parapet, see Schmidt 2005).

The style and date of the work have been much discussed, as has its relation to Sienese painting and, more specifically, to the work of Simone Martini. Certainly the elegance of the figures and the elaborate tooling of the gold remind one of the work of Simone (for a discussion of the motif punches used by Giovanni, see the essay by Skaug in Parenti 2008, pp. 103–13). Whether this was the result of a trip to Siena or to Avignon, where Simone was active after 1336, remains a matter of conjecture. The extraordinary naturalism in the description of the stem of lilies and the marvelously articulated right hand of the Virgin and the transparency of her veil are usually understood as part of Giovanni’s Lombard heritage and were important for the development of Florentine painting. There are very few fixed dates marking Giovanni’s career and this work has been placed as early as ca. 1360 and after ca. 1365. In the one case the point of comparison is the large altarpiece by Giovanni for the church of Ognissanti in Florence (Uffizi, Florence); in the other, it is the cycle of frescoes he did in the Rinuccini Chapel in Santa Croce (see Parenti 2008 for a full discussion of these issues).

The picture has, unfortunately, suffered a good deal, but the flesh portions of the Madonna and Child are relatively well preserved.

[2011]

General Charles Richard Fox, London; William Fuller Maitland, Stansted House, Essex; [Georges Brauer, Florence, until 1907; sold to MMA]

Milan. Palazzo Reale. "Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza," April 1–June 30, 1958, no. 53.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.

Florence. Galleria dell'Accademia. "Giovanni da Milano: capolavori del gotico fra Lombardia e Toscana," June 10–November 2, 2008, no. 25.

R[oger]. E. F[ry]. "On a Semi-circular Panel of the Madonna and Child with Donor on Either Side, by Giovanni da Milano." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (January 1908), p. 11, accepts Sirén's attribution to Giovanni da Milano.

"Purchases." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Annual Report, 1907 (1908), p. 58, as attributed to Giovanni da Milano.

Osvald Sirén. Giottino und seine Stellung in der gleichzeitigen florentinischen Malerei. Leipzig, 1908, p. 91, fig. 23, as by Giovanni da Milano.

Osvald Sirén. "Art in America: Trecento Pictures in American Collections—II." Burlington Magazine 14 (December 1908), p. 194, pl. IV, attributes it to Giovanni da Milano.

Catalogue of the Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1911, under Addenda, September and October 1907, Gallery 11, as attributed to Starnina.

Pietro Toesca. La pittura e la miniatura nella Lombardia, dai più antichi monumenti alla metà del Quattrocento. Milan, 1912, p. 226, doubts the attribution to Giovanni da Milano.

Wilhelm Suida in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 14, Leipzig, 1921, p. 129, lists it among the controversial attributions to Giovanni da Milano.

Raimond van Marle. "Local Schools of North Italy of the 14th Century." The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 4, The Hague, 1924, p. 240 n.2 (continued from p. 238), calls it a work of the school of Giovanni da Milano .

Lionello Venturi. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931, unpaginated, pl. C, accepts Sirén's attribution to Giovanni da Milano.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 244, as by Giovanni da Milano.

Lionello Venturi. "Romanesque and Gothic." Italian Paintings in America. 1, New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 123, accepts Sirén's attribution to Giovanni da Milano.

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 210.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 13–14, ill., as by Giovanni da Milano; doubts that it was originally part of an altarpiece, suggesting instead that it was "placed above a tomb, or set into a wall or a large piece of furniture in a sacristy".

Alessandro Marabottini. Giovanni da Milano. Florence, 1950, pp. 71–72, 122, pl. XI, attributes it Giovanni da Milano and suggests that it was painted in Florence between 1365 and 1369.

Pietro Toesca. Il Trecento. Turin, 1951, p. 766, attributes it to Giovanni da Milano, dating it shortly before 1365 along with the artist's polyptych in the Museo Civico, Prato; notes relationships with Sienese painting.

Dorothy C. Shorr. The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy During the XIV Century. New York, 1954, p. 84 n. 2, states that the pose and gesture of the Christ Child are rare in Florentine painting, but related to those of the Infant in Simone Martini's Maestà (Palazzo Pubblico, Siena).

Franco Russoli in Arte lombarda dai Visconti agli Sforza. Exh. cat., Palazzo Reale. Milan, 1958, p. 22, no. 53, pl. XXVIII, as by Giovanni da Milano.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School. London, 1963, vol. 1, p. 89, pl. 278.

Liana Castelfranchi-Vegas. Giovanni da Milano. Milan, 1965, unpaginated.

A[lessandro]. Marabottini. "Una crocifissione di Giovanni da Milano e i soggiorni del pittore in Toscana e in Lombardia." Commentari, n.s., 16 (January–June 1965), p. 31, includes it in a group of pictures that he dates between about 1363 and 1369.

Miklós Boskovits. Giovanni da Milano. Florence, 1966, pp. 17, 33, observes the similarity between the Madonna in the MMA panel and the Saint Catherine in the Prato polyptych, dating the two works to the same period of the artist's career.

Miklos Boskovits. "Notes sur Giovanni da Milano." Revue de l'art no. 11 (1971), p. 57, groups it with works that he dates to the early 1360s.

Everett Fahy. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum: An Exhibition and a Catalogue." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29 (June 1971), p. 433, ill.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, pp. 33–34, ill., date it to a late period of Giovanni da Milano's career, noting the influence of the Sienese school; suggest that it was originally placed over a tomb or doorway .

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 89, 313, 533, 605.

Mina Gregori. "Giovanni da Milano: storia di un polittico." Paragone 23 (March 1972), pp. 4, 24 n. 4.

Luigi Cavadini in Giovanni da Milano. Valmorea, Italy, 1980, pp. 26, 48–49, no. 6, ill., notes the influence of Simone Martini, suggesting that Giovanni da Milano may have visited Avignon.

Carlo Volpe. "Il lungo percorso del "dipingere dolcissimo e tanto unito"." Storia dell'arte italiana. 5, pt. 2, v. 1, Turin, 1983, p. 301.

John Pope-Hennessy. "Roger Fry and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Oxford, China, and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on his Eightieth Birthday. London, 1984, p. 237.

Enza Biagi in La pittura in Italia: il Duecento e il Trecento. revised and expanded ed. Milan, 1986, vol. 2, p. 577, implies a date between 1360 and 1365.

Erling S. Skaug. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting. Oslo, 1994, vol. 1, pp. 182, 185; vol. 2, punch chart 6.11, identifies punch marks that it shares with works of Florentine and Sienese painters of the period.

M[ina]. Gregori in Enciclopedia dell'arte medievale. 6, Rome, 1995, p. 734, mentions that it was probably made for a tomb.

Mojmír S. Frinta. "Part I: Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes." Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998, pp. 90, 143, 250, 318, 380, 381, 392, 463, 490, ill. pp. 143, 250, 380 (details of punch marks), classifies the punch marks appearing in this painting.

V[alerio]. Ascani in Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 56, Rome, 2001, p. 89.

Victor M. Schmidt. "The Lunette-Shaped Panel and Some Characteristics of Panel Painting." Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Washington, 2002, pp. 86, 98 n. 12, fig. 9, compares it to a similar composition by Paolo Veneziano in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice, and states that it was probably part of a tomb.

Carl Brandon Strehlke. Italian Paintings 1250–1450 in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2004, pp. 154–55 n. 21, states that it probably originally decorated "a private Florentine burial chapel known as an 'avello', which was set into an arched niche that sometimes contained an image".

Victor M. Schmidt. Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250–1400. Florence, 2005, pp. 145–46, 159 n. 13, fig. 96, suggests that the painted ledge was an afterthought, since it is painted over the Madonna's robe and perhaps around the feet of the Christ Child.

C. E. Travi Caspani in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. 55, Munich, 2007, p. 42.

Keith Christiansen. "Duccio and the Origins of Western Painting." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 66 (Summer 2008), p. 52, fig. 45 (color), relates the parapet or ledge to Duccio's innovative parapet included in his Madonna and Child of about 1295–1300 in the MMA (2004.442).

Mina Gregori in Giovanni da Milano: capolavori del gotico fra Lombardia e Toscana. Exh. cat., Galleria dell'Accademia. Florence, 2008, p. 44.

Daniela Parenti in Giovanni da Milano: capolavori del gotico fra Lombardia e Toscana. Exh. cat., Galleria dell'Accademia. Florence, 2008, pp. 236–37, no. 25, ill. (color), dates it about 1360.

Linda Pisani in Giovanni da Milano: capolavori del gotico fra Lombardia e Toscana. Exh. cat., Galleria dell'Accademia. Florence, 2008, p. 192.