This is the right-hand panel of a major altarpiece by Giovanni di Paolo. A scene from the base (predella) is also in the Metropolitan and shows the Presentation in the Temple (41.100.4). Giovanni found inspiration for his large figures in the sculpture of his great compatriot, Jacopo della Quercia. Note how the haloes are foreshortened to emphasize the angle of the heads. For a reconstruction of the altarpiece, consult metmuseum.org/collections

This panel showing Saints Matthew and Francis is from the right-hand portion of an altarpiece that had at its center a Madonna and Child (fragmentary, 84.5 x 56.7 cm; Monte dei Paschi di Siena) and, on the left, a panel with Saints Catherine of Alexandria(?) and John the Baptist (also fragmentary, 104.5 x 44.5 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Pope-Hennessy (1937 and 1988) argued that the resulting altarpiece was to be identified with a work formerly in the church of San Francesco, Siena (an altarpiece in the Fondi or Tondi chapel dated, according to early sources, 1436; see Bossio 1575, Chigi 1625–26, and Ugurgieri Azzolini 1649). Although this view was contested by Brandi (1941), until recently it was widely accepted, despite the fact that the Fondi altarpiece was dedicated to Saint James, who is not shown in the altarpiece, and that it was damaged and possibly destroyed in a fire of 1655. Pope-Hennessy and Brandi argued over the relevance of this information for the hypothetical identification of the altarpiece, but agreed in dating the altarpiece to which the MMA panel belongs to the mid-1430s.

De Marchi (1992) proposed identifying as the predella to this altarpiece a series of panels showing the Annunciation (painted surface 38.7 x 44.7 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington), the Nativity (38.7 x 44.3 cm; Pinacoteca Vaticana), the Crucifixion (39 x 53.8 cm; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), the Adoration of the Magi (39.3 x 44.2 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art), and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (MMA 41.100.4), and he has been followed by Boskovits (2003) and Sallay (2010). Previously these panels had been dated by most critics to about 1440, but De Marchi and Boskovits have more recently dated them to the mid-1430s. Their reconstruction has been accepted by Sallay. De Marchi considered the identification with the Fondi (or Tondi) altarpiece possible, while Boskovits left the matter open. Sallay has argued persuasively against the identification and has further noted that the altarpiece need not have come from a Franciscan church.

Regardless of its original destination, this must have been one of Giovanni di Paolo's most impressive altarpieces. The two saints in the MMA panel are modeled in a way that emphasizes formal structure, and the haloes are notable for the attempt at foreshortening, with the classical lettering increasing in size in accordance with the projection of the halo. The Madonna and Child composition in Siena derives from Gentile da Fabriano’s Quaratesi Altarpiece (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), and three of the predella scenes are based on the predella of Gentile’s Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi, Florence). Giovanni must have made a trip to Florence around 1430 and recorded compositions that particularly impressed him in an album.

[2011]

Inscription: Inscribed (on halos): SANCTVS MACTEVS APOSTOLVS; SANCTVS F[RANCISCV]S SERA[F]RIC[VS] (Saint Matthew the Apostle; Saint Francis the Seraphic)

?Fondi chapel, church of San Francesco, Siena (1436–?1655); Mme d'Oliviera, Florence (until 1887); [Coudert Brothers, New York, 1887–88]

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Temporary Exhibition," April 1906, no. 43 (as "Part of an Altarpiece," by Giovanni di Paolo).

Wooster, Ohio. Josephine Long Wishart Museum of Art. "Exhibition of Paintings of French, Italian, Dutch, Flemish and German Masters, lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 20–December 15, 1944, unnumbered cat. (p. 7).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Giovanni di Paolo: Paintings," August 14–October 8, 1973, no. 1.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500," December 20, 1988–March 19, 1989, no. 28.

F. Bossio. "Sante visite." Memoriale della visita pastorale. no. 21, 1575, f. 664 [Archivio Arcivescovile, Siena; see Refs. Pope-Hennessy 1937 and Strehlke 1988], mentions the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child in the Fondi chapel of the church of San Francesco in Siena, and adds that the altar is dedicated to Saint James the Greater [this picture possibly originally formed the right section of the altarpiece].

Fabio Chigi. List of paintings, sculpture, and architecture in Siena. 1625–26, c. 218 v. [Biblioteca apostolica vaticana; published in Pèleo Bacci, "L'elenco delle pitture, sculture e architetture di Siena compilato nel 1625–26 da mons. Fabio Chigi poi Alessandro VII," Bullettino senese di storia patria, n.s., 10 (1939), p. 318], under the church of San Francesco, lists a work "di casa Tondi [not Fondi] di Giovanni di Pavolo 1436," referring to the altarpiece of which this panel may originally have formed the right section.

Isidoro Ugurgieri Azzolini. "Sanesi pittori, scultori, architetti, ed altri artefici famosi." Le pompe sanesi, o vero relazione delli huomini e donne illustri di Siena, e suo stato. 2, Pistoia, 1649, p. 346 [see Refs. Della Valle 1786 and Strehlke 1988], discusses a picture by Giovanni di Paolo of 1436 in the church of San Francesco in Siena, of a Madonna and saints, and a predella with scenes of the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Crucifixion [this panel may have formed the right section of that work].

Guglielmo Della Valle. Lettere sanesi. 3, Rome, 1786, p. 50, quotes Ugurgieri [see Ref. 1649].

Roger Fry. Letters. January–March 1906 [published in Ref. Sutton 1972, vol. 1, letter no. 173, p. 251], mentions that he found this picture among others put away in a storeroom.

Roger Fry. Letter to his wife, Helen Fry. December 5, 1906 [published in Ref. Sutton 1972, vol. 1, letter no. 210, p. 276].

Bernhard Berenson. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. New York, 1909, p. 178, lists it as "Saint Francis and Another Saint," an early work by Giovanni di Paolo.

Joseph Breck. "Some Paintings by Giovanni di Paolo: I." Art in America 2 (April 1914), pp. 177, 180, 185, fig. 2.

[Curt H.] Weigelt in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 14, Leipzig, 1921, p. 134.

Raimond van Marle. "Late Gothic Painting in Tuscany." The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 9, The Hague, 1927, p. 404, fig. 260, as from the D'Oliviera collection, Florence; believes they must originally have formed part of a polyptych similar to the one in the Uffizi, Florence.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 246.

Marialuisa Gengaro. "Eclettismo e arte nel Quattrocento senese." La Diana 7 (1932), p. 31.

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 212.

John Pope-Hennessy. Giovanni di Paolo, 1403–1483. London, 1937, pp. 12–13, 19, 47 n. 24, p. 172, pl. V, recognizes it as belonging to the same altarpiece as the Madonna and Child in a tabernacle in the via delle Terme, Siena [now Monte dei Paschi, Siena], and Saints Ursula and John the Baptist in the Kelekian collection, Paris [now Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the female saint is now identified as Catherine], and suggests identifying this altarpiece with the one painted in 1436 for the Fondi family chapel in the church of San Francesco in Siena, injured by fire in 1655.

F. Mason Perkins. Letter. March 24, 1938, notes that he had attributed it to Giovanni di Paolo in a letter to the curator in 1905.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 87–88, ill., concurs with Pope-Hennessy [see Ref. 1937] that this work and the two saints then in the Kelekian collection [now Museum of Fine Arts, Houston] and the Madonna and Child in Siena all come from the same altarpiece, and tentatively accepts his identification of this altarpiece as the one painted for the Fondi chapel in the church of San Francesco, Siena, in 1436.

Cesare Brandi. "Giovanni di Paolo." Le arti 3 (April–May 1941), pp. 241–43, 246, accepts Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1937] reconstruction but rejects the connection with the Fondi altarpiece.

Cesare Brandi. "Giovanni di Paolo, II." Le arti 3 (June–July 1941), p. 327 n. 67, dates it about 1440.

Cesare Brandi. Giovanni di Paolo. Florence, 1947, pp. 18–19, 21–22, 26, 83 n. 67, p. 120 [same text as Refs. Brandi 1941].

Cesare Brandi. Quattrocentisti senesi. Milan, 1949, pp. 259–60.

Enzo Carli. "Dipinti senesi nel museo di Houston." Antichità viva 2 (April 1963), p. 20.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools. London, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 177–78, 181, as companion to the panels in Houston and Siena.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 90, 365, 397, 432, 605.

Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, p. 251 n. 9 to letter no. 173 (February 18, 1906), p. 276 n. 1 to letter no. 210 (December 5, 1906).

Piero Torriti. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: I dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977, p. 306.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sienese and Central Italian Schools. New York, 1980, pp. 19–20, pl. 38, tentatively date it to the late 1430s, but are not convinced by Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1937] identification of the altarpiece to which it originally belonged with the Fondi altarpiece, painted in 1436.

J. Patrice Marandel in The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: A Guide to the Collection. Houston, 1981, p. 25, under no. 45.

Luciano Cateni in La sede storica del Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Siena, 1988, pp. 308, 312, ill. p. 310.

John Pope-Hennessy. "Giovanni di Paolo." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 46 (Fall 1988), p. 8, 10–11, fig. 7 (color), mentions the influence of Jacopo della Quercia on the figure of Saint Matthew.

Carl Brandon Strehlke in Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1988, pp. 172, 176–78, no. 28, ill., finds the evidence that it and its companions formed the Fondi altarpiece inconclusive; dates it to the mid-1430s; notes that the figure type of Saint Francis derives from the corresponding figure in Sassetta's "Madonna of the Snow" altarpiece (Contini-Bonacossi Bequest, Florence).

Elina Taselaar in The Early Sienese Paintings in Holland. Florence, 1989, p. 70, disagrees with Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1937] identification of the panels [including this one] making up the Fondi altarpiece, and with his dating; further claims that the chapel in question was that of the Tondi, not Fondi, family.

Andrea De Marchi. Gentile da Fabriano: Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico. Milan, 1992, p. 211 n. 34, proposes as the predella the Annunciation (National Gallery of Art, Washington), the Nativity (Pinacoteca Vaticana), the Crucifixion (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), the Adoration of the Magi (Cleveland Museum of Art), and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (MMA 41.100.4), noting that three of these subjects are mentioned by Ugurgieri Azzolini [see Ref. 1649] as forming part of the Fondi altarpiece.

Frank Dabell in Gold Backs, 1250–1480. Exh. cat., Matthiesen Fine Art. London, 1996, p. 116.

Eliot W. Rowlands. The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300–1800. Kansas City, Mo., 1996, p. 99.

Carolyn C. Wilson. "Structure and Iconography in Giovanni di Paolo's Altarpieces: The Case of the Houston Panels." Arte cristiana 84 (November–December 1996), p. 422–25, 430 nn. 24, 25, 28, 29, p. 432 n. 40, fig. 9.

Janneke Johanna Anje Panders. "The Underdrawing of Giovanni di Paolo: Characteristics and Development." PhD diss., Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1997, p. 38 n. 86, p. 52 n. 104.

Mojmír S. Frinta. "Part I: Catalogue Raisonné of All Punch Shapes." Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998, pp. 118, 222, 262, classifies the punch marks appearing in this painting.

Miklós Boskovits in Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. Washington, 2003, pp. 328, 331 nn. 35, 38, fig. 1 (reconstruction), independent of Ref. De Marchi 1992, proposes that a set of predella panels in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Cleveland Museum of Art, and MMA (41.100.4), belongs to the altarpiece of which this panel is a part; dates the entire assembly about 1435 and reserves judgment as to its original destination.

Dóra Sallay in Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello: le arti a Siena nel primo rinascimento. Exh. cat., Santa Maria della Scala et al., Siena. Milan, 2010, pp. 214, 216, under no. C.14, ill. (reconstruction).