The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

The Picture: Beneath the vaulted Gothic porch of a temple is seen a group of figures involved in a ritual ceremony. An officiating priest stands behind the altar, set deep in the space (the gold area above his head once showed a hanging lamp with a radiance of gold light). In the group of figures shown on the left, prominence is given to the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, both identified by their haloes. The Virgin extends her arms toward her infant son, who is held by a bearded, elderly man, shown on the right accompanied by an old woman. They are identifiable as Simeon and the prophetess Anna (again, they both have haloes). The scene is thus the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (also known as the Purification of the Virgin), a ritual event that took place forty days after the birth of a child and is described in the gospel of Luke 2:22–40. As recounted there, Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem, bringing with them two pigeons or turtledoves to sacrifice, according to the custom. There they encountered the aged prophetess Anna, and Simeon, to whom “it was revealed . . . that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. . . . Then took he [the child] up in his arms and blessed God . . . [and] said unto Mary, his mother, Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. . . . Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.” The eighty-four-year-old Anna “coming in that instant, gave thanks likewise . . . and spoke of him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” In Giovanni di Paolo’s depiction, Joseph carries a white pigeon required for sacrifice. The temple porch projects into a paved square flanked by two private palaces. The two luxuriously dressed women on one side of the temple porch make a striking contrast with the two beggars on the opposite side, and it is on the beggars’ side that is seen a hole in the pavement. Presumably, the beggars stand for Christ’s ministry to the poor.

The Reconstruction of the Predella: This scene formed part of the base, or predella, of an altarpiece. All of the predella panels are known and show, in narrative sequence, 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. Aside from the Crucifixion, the predella was dedicated to the infancy of Christ. Three of these scenes adapt in a highly original fashion compositions deriving from Gentile da Fabriano's famous Adoration of the Magi altarpiece of 1423, painted for the Strozzi chapel in Santa Trinita, Florence (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence). In The Met’s Presentation, Giovanni di Paolo has retained the figural parts of Gentile’s composition of the same theme (see images above, fig. 2), but he has treated the space in a less consistent fashion and altered the architecture of the buildings, giving the details a more pronounced, Sienese appearance. For example, the single window and balcony in the building on the left in Gentile’s panel has been replaced by a tripartite window with tracery typical of Sienese Gothic architecture. Similarly, the columns of the porch are more elongated with foliate capitals and the embrasures of the windows are striped, as is—again—typical in Siena. Giovanni has also introduced a plunging view into the interior of the temple and added the priest standing behind the altar. His source for that was an earlier altarpiece in the cathedral of Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (fig. 3). This blending of visual sources is typical of the artist, who seems to have kept an album of drawings recording compositions and motifs of works of art he admired (on this, see Ladis 1995). The result was always highly original and this practice carries implications concerning assumptions about creativity and originality in pre-modern painting.

Date and Proposals for Reconstructing the Altarpiece: Given that all the panels of the predella of an important altarpiece survive, it seems plausible that at least some of the main panels should as well. Surprisingly, then, it is only in the last twenty-five years that this series has been associated with surviving panels from the main tier of an altarpiece. In the earlier literature on the artist, the panels were consistently dated to the years around 1440 or 1440–45, and it was on that basis that Pope-Hennessy (1988) suggested associating the series with a work commissioned from Giovanni di Paolo in 1440 for a chapel in the infirmary of the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, of which, however, no certain panels can be identified. An alternative hypothesis was subsequently proposed by De Marchi (1992)—one that implied a somewhat earlier dating in the 1430s. He associated the predella with the surviving panels of what has long been recognized as an important altarpiece: a fragmentary panel with Saints Catherine of Alexandria(?) and John the Baptist (104.5 x 44.5 cm; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), a cut-down panel showing the Madonna and Child (84.5 x 56.7 cm; Monte dei Paschi di Siena), and the more or less intact panel in The Met with Saints Matthew and Francis (88.3.111). Because of the presence of Saint Francis, these panels had previously been associated by Pope-Hennessy with a work formerly in the church of San Francesco, Siena, that decorated a chapel belonging to the Fondi or Tondi family and dated from 1436. De Marchi noted that the figures in these dispersed panels derive from an altarpiece painted by Gentile da Fabriano for the Florentine church of San Niccolò Oltrarno (Galleria degli Uffizi) and that it would be appropriate that its predella also had scenes that derived from Gentile—though from his Adoration of the Magi for the church of Santa Trinita. De Marchi’s reconstruction was accepted by Boskovits (2003), who strongly argued the case for redating the predella panels to the mid-1430s rather than to the 1440s. However, he rejected an association with the altarpiece recorded by early sources as being in San Francesco. It might be added that the Fondi, or Tondi, chapel is known to have been dedicated to Saint James, who is not included in the panels. Further refinements for envisaging the altarpiece were made by Sallay (2010), and it is her reconstruction that is is accepted here: fig. 1. Still missing from that reconstruction are the pinnacle panels and the small panels with figures of saints that would have decorated the piers to either side of the altarpiece.

One of the intriguing issues in the reconstruction is the fact that the composition of the surviving fragment of the central panel—a Madonna of Humility (and thus showing the Virgin seated on the ground rather than enthroned)—cannot be imagined as having extended the full height of the space the panel had to have occupied. Sallay suggested that the space below the panel contained a grill for the display of a relic or with a tabernacle for communion. Though uncommon, examples for this type of altarpiece survive. Another possibility is that the space contained a grill that would have allowed cloistered nuns in the convent to communicate with the officiating priest. In this case, we would have to imagine the altarpiece as occupying a position separating the nave from the choir area. Again, analogies exist. Each of these suggestions implies an important placement for the altarpiece, which must, indeed, have been one of Giovanni's most impressive works. For further discussion, see the entry for 88.3.111.

Keith Christiansen 2014; revised 2018

Giovanni Rosini, Pisa (by ca. 1830–at least 1850; as attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti and as attributed to the brother of Fra Angelico); Charles Noel Carnegie, 10th Earl of Southesk, Kinnaird Castle, Brechin, Scotland (sold to Douglas); [R. Langton Douglas, London, until 1915; sold through F. Mason Perkins to Blumenthal]; George Blumenthal, New York (1915–41; cat., vol. 1, 1926, pl. XXVI)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Loan Exhibition of the Arts of the Italian Renaissance," May 7–September 9, 1923, no. 10 (lent by George and Florence Blumenthal).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces from the George Blumenthal Collection," December 8, 1943–?, no. 23.

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. "30 Masterpieces: An Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 4–November 23, 1947, unnumbered cat.

Iowa City. State University of Iowa, School of Fine Arts. "30 Masterpieces: An Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 9–March 31, 1948, unnumbered cat.

Bloomington. Indiana University. "30 Masterpieces: An Exhibition of Paintings from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 18–May 16, 1948, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art and the Well-Dressed Woman," February 18–March 20, 1949, no catalogue.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Giovanni di Paolo: Paintings," August 14–October 8, 1973, no. 2.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500," December 20, 1988–March 19, 1989, no. 31.

Siena. Santa Maria della Scala, Opera della Metropolitana and Pinacoteca Nazionale. "Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello: le arti a Siena nel primo rinascimento," March 26–July 11, 2010, no. C.14.

Ettore Romagnoli. Biografia cronologica de' bellartisti senesi, 1200–1800. Vol. 2, Florence, [ca. 1830], p. 256/2, as in the collection of Professore Rosini; attributes it to Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

Giovanni Rosini. Storia della pittura italiana esposta coi monumenti. Vol. 2, Pisa, 1840, pp. 257, 261 n. 23 [2nd ed., vol. 3, 1850, p. 41 n. 32, ill. opp. p. 36], attributes it tentatively to the brother of Fra Angelico, noting that Romagnoli [see Ref. 1830] ascribed it to Ambrogio Lorenzetti; mentions that there is a predella panel of the same composition in Paris, attributed to Gentile da Fabriano in the catalogue of the museum.

F. Mason Perkins. "Some Sienese Paintings in American Collections: Part Four." Art in America 9 (February 1921), pp. 45–46, fig. 1, as in the Blumenthal collection, New York; attributes it to Giovanni di Paolo and dates it to the first half of his career; notes the influence of Sassetta, and states that the composition is based on Ambrogio Lorenzetti's altarpiece of the Presentation (Uffizi, Florence); lists two other works by Giovanni of the same subject (Pinacoteca nazionale, Siena, no. 211; and church of the Conservatorio di S. Pietro at Colle di Val d'Elsa).

Stella Rubinstein-Bloch. Catalogue of the Collection of George and Florence Blumenthal. Vol. 1, Paintings—Early Schools. Paris, 1926, unpaginated, pl. XXVI.

Raimond van Marle. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. Vol. 9, Late Gothic Painting in Tuscany. The Hague, 1927, p. 422, dates it about 1445.

Lionello Venturi. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931, unpaginated, pl. CXXVIII.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 246, as "Circumcision"; calls it an early work.

Marialuisa Gengaro. "Eclettismo e arte nel Quattrocento senese." La Diana 7 (1932), pp. 15, 29, pl. 7, notes its dependence on Gentile da Fabriano's predella panel (Louvre, Paris) of the same subject from his altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi, Florence).

Lionello Venturi. Italian Paintings in America. Vol. 1, Romanesque and Gothic. New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 156.

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

John Pope-Hennessy. Giovanni di Paolo, 1403–1483. London, 1937, pp. 37–40, 54 n. 92, p. 173, identifies it as part of the same predella as the "Expulsion of Adam and Eve and the Annunciation" (National Gallery of Art, Washington; 1939.1.223), the "Nativity" (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome), and the "Crucifixion" (SMPK, Berlin); calls it "a straightforward copy" of Gentile's panel in the Louvre; dates the series shortly before 1445; lists it as from the Southesk collection.

Cesare Brandi. "Giovanni di Paolo." Le arti 3 (April–May 1941), p. 243 n. 32, p. 245 n. 36, accepts Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1937] identification of the four panels of the predella, and erroneously describes the MMA panel as 6 cm shorter than the others.

Henry Sayles Francis. "A New Giovanni di Paolo." Art Quarterly 5 (1942), pp. 317–18, 322, fig. 3, adds the "Adoration of the Magi" (Cleveland Museum of Art) as the fifth panel of the predella.

Henry S. Francis. "An 'Adoration of the Magi' by Giovanni di Paolo." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 29 (December 1942), pp. 166–67.

Harry B. Wehle. "The Presentation in the Temple by Giovanni di Paolo." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (April 1945), pp. 185–88, ill. on cover (color), states that it was formerly in the collection of Sir Charles Noel Carnegie, tenth Earl of Southesk, Kinnaird Castle.

Cesare Brandi. Giovanni di Paolo. Florence, 1947, pp. 72–74 nn. 32, 36, p. 120 [similar text to Ref. Brandi 1941], accepts Francis's [see Ref. 1942] addition of the fifth panel of the predella.

Cesare Brandi. Quattrocentisti senesi. Milan, 1949, p. 260, dates the predella about 1445.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 42.

Fern Rusk Shapley. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Schools: XIII–XV Century. London, 1966, p. 148, under no. K412, accepts the identifications of the five panels of the predella, and the dating of about 1445.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools. London, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 175–76, 178, 180, 182.

Carol Herselle Krinsky. "Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem before 1500." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970), p. 10, pl. 2C.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 90, 274, 607.

Elizabeth Ourusoff De Fernandez-Gimenez in "European Paintings Before 1500." The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings. Part 1, Cleveland, 1974, pp. 103–4.

Robert Oertel and Hans-Joachim Eberhardt in Catalogue of Paintings, 13th–18th Century. 2nd, rev. ed. Berlin-Dahlem, 1978, p. 180, under no. 1112C [German ed., 1975, p. 174], date the predella about 1440–45.

Denys Sutton. "Robert Langton Douglas, Part III, XV: The War Years." Apollo 109 (June 1979), p. 436, fig. 19, states that this picture and Simone Martini's "Saint Andrew" (41.100.23) were bought by Douglas at "the Northesk Sale" (but see Pope-Hennessy 1937 and Wehle 1945).

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. 27–28, pl. 45, question the inclusion of the Crucifixion in Berlin as part of the predella; date the series about 1440.

John Pope-Hennessy. "Giovanni di Paolo." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 46 (Fall 1988), pp. 11, 13, fig. 9 (color), dates the five panels about 1440, and suggests that they may have formed the predella of an altarpiece commissioned from Giovanni di Paolo for the Spedale della Scala in 1440.

Carl Brandon Strehlke in Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1988, pp. 189–91, no. 31, ill. (overall and in reconstruction of predella), accepts the inclusion of the Berlin Crucifixion as part of the predella; dates the series to the early 1440s, and definitely before 1445.

Andrea De Marchi. Gentile da Fabriano: Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico. Milan, 1992, p. 190 n. 83, p. 211 nn. 33–34.

Andrew Ladis. "Sources and Resources: The Lost Sketchbooks of Giovanni di Paolo." The Craft of Art: Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop. Ed. Andrew Ladis and Carolyn Wood. Athens, Ga., 1995, pp. 59, 67, 83 n. 19, fig. 21.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 53, ill. p. 52.

Miklós Boskovits in Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. Washington, 2003, pp. 326, 328, 330 nn. 19, 21, 24, p. 331 n. 38, fig. 1 (reconstruction), proposes that the predella of which this is one panel belongs with a set of elements (Saints Catherine and John the Baptist in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Madonna and Child in the Banca Monte dei Paschi, Siena; Saints Matthew and Francis in the MMA) that is sometimes identified with the Fondi altarpiece in San Francesco in Siena; dates the entire assembly about 1435.

Alessandro Marchi in Gentile da Fabriano and the Other Renaissance. Ed. Laura Laureati and Lorenza Mochi Onori. Exh. cat., Spedale di Santa Maria del Buon Gesù, Fabriano. Milan, 2006, p. 300 [Italian ed., "Gentile da Fabriano e l'altro Rinascimento"].

Dóra Sallay in Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello: le arti a Siena nel primo rinascimento. Ed. Max Seidel. Exh. cat., Santa Maria della Scala et al., Siena. Milan, 2010, pp. 214, 216, no. C.14, ill. pp. 214 (reconstruction), 217 (color).

Andrea De Marchi. La pala d'altare dal polittico alla pala quadra. Florence, 2012, pp. 101–2, accepts Sallay's reconstruction, suggesting that rather than a relic, a grill occupied a space beneath the Virgin and Child in the center panel.

Emanuele Zappasodi. "Ambrogio Lorenzetti 'huomo di grande ingegno': un polittico fuori canone e due tavole dimenticate." Nuovi studi 19 (2013), pp. 10, 19 nn. 42–43, pl. 16 (altarpiece reconstruction), accepts the reconstruction of Sallay.

Mattia Biffis. "A Rediscovered 'St Jerome' on Copper by Guido Reni and its Early Provenance." Burlington Magazine 158 (August 2016), p. 614.

Fausto Nicolai. "'Primitives' in America: Frederick Mason Perkins and the Early Renaissance Italian Paintings in the Lehman and Blumenthal Collections." Journal of the History of Collections (April 28, 2018), pp. 3–4, 15 nn. 25, 28–29, 32, 34, fig. 2 (color) [https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy005], provides documentation relating to Blumenthal's acquisition of the panel from Langton Douglas; states that Douglas indicated that the picture had been in the collection of the earls of Northesk for eighty years.

Gaudenz Freuler. Giovanni di Paolo: The Onset of an Artistic Extravaganza, Apprenticeship and Early Career (1410–1426). Todi, 2024, p. 101, figs. 122–23 (color, overall and altarpiece reconstruction).