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Title:Scenes from a Legend; Coats of Arms
Artist:Master of Charles of Durazzo (Italian, Florentine, late 14th century)
Medium:Tempera on wood, embossed gilt and silver ornament
Dimensions:(a) 15 1/2 x 46 in. (39.4 x 116.8 cm); end panels, with coats of arms: (b) overall 15 5/8 x 18 3/4 in. (39.7 x 47.6 cm), painted surface 14 7/8 x 18 in. (37.8 x 45.7 cm); (c) overall 15 1/8 x 19 3/8 in. (38.4 x 49.2 cm), painted surface 14 1/2 x 18 5/8 in. (36.8 x 47.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:The Collection of Giovanni P. Morosini, presented by his daughter Giulia, 1932
Accession Number:32.75.2a–c
Giovanni Pertinax Morosini, Riverdale-on-Hudson, N.Y. (until d. 1908); his daughter, Giulia Morosini, Riverdale-on-Hudson (1908–d. 1932)
Richmond. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. "Italian Art: Loss and Survival," October 15–November 16, 1947, no catalogue.
Pasadena Art Institute. November 20, 1947–January 20, 1948, no catalogue [probably the second venue of the exhibition "Italian Art: Loss and Survival" from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.
Harry B. Wehle. "The Bequest of Giulia P. Morosini: Paintings and Miniatures." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 34 (January 1939), pp. 19–20, identifies the subject as Three Scenes of Female Virtue and dates it about 1430; says it represents (from left to right) the wife and mother of Coriolanus persuading him to spare Rome from the Volscian army, episodes from the story of Tarquin and Lucretia, and Saint Monica conversing with her son Saint Augustine.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 21–22, ill. (32.75.2a).
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 51 (32.75.2a only).
Federico Zeri. Letter. May 25, 1962, calls it the companion to a cassone panel in the Vitetti collection, Rome, stating that the subject of the Vitetti work has been identified as the legend of Aeneas and Dido and that the MMA panel must depict scenes from the same story.
Miklós Boskovits. Letter to Everett Fahy. November 23, 1968, believes it was probably painted by the "Master of the Cracow Cassone" [see Ref. Fahy 1994].
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. 60–61, ill. (32.75.2a), attribute it to an unknown Florentine painter and date it about 1410; consider the subject uncertain, but suggest that it illustrates some classical or medieval tale; note that the style recalls the late followers of Agnolo Gaddi and the Gerini, and mention the companion panel in the Vitetti collection, Rome.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 220, 541, 607, as by an unknown Florentine painter of the fourteenth century.
Miklós Boskovits. Letter to Everett Fahy. June 13, 1981, attributes it to the painter of MMA 07.120.1; reconstructs the artist's oeuvre, and argues that he must have been trained in Florence since his style "reveals connections with the Orcagneschi".
Mia Cinotti, ed. Catalogo della pittura italiana dal '300 al '700. Milan, 1985, p. 177, mentions it as the pendant to the Terruzzi panel [see Notes], which she calls "Scene from the Aeneid" and attributes to the Circle of Agnolo Gaddi.
Miklós Boskovits. "Il Maestro di Incisa Scapaccino e alcuni problemi di pittura tardogotica in Italia." Paragone 42 (November 1991), p. 47 n. 14.
Everett Fahy. "Florence and Naples: A Cassone Panel in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Hommage à Michel Laclotte: Etudes sur la peinture du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance. Milan, 1994, p. 242 n. 26, p. 243 n. 28, attributes it to the painter of MMA 07.120.1, whom he names the Master of Charles of Durazzo.
Ellen Callmann. "Subjects from Boccaccio in Italian Painting, 1375–1525." Studi sul Boccaccio 23 (1995), p. 35, under no. 3, misidentifies the panel that Zeri related to the MMA work [see Refs. Zeri 1962 and Fahy 1994].
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 16, ill. (.2a).
Jerzy Miziolek. Soggetti classici sui cassoni fiorentini alla vigilia del Rinascimento. Warsaw, 1996, pp. 32, 95 n. 41, pl. 9, believes it illustrates episodes from the story of Lucretia.
Graham Hughes. Renaissance Cassoni, Masterpieces of Early Italian Art: Painted Marriage Chests 1400–1550. Alfriston, England, 1997, p. 232.
Lorenzo Sbaraglio inFascino del bello: opere d'arte dalla collezione Terruzzi. Ed. Annalisa Scarpa and Michelangelo Lupo. Exh. cat., Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome. Milan, 2007, p. 406, under no. I.10, agrees with Miziolek [see Ref. 1996] that the panel depicts the story of Lucretia; doubts that the other two panels with similar decoration [see Notes] formed a series with the MMA work as they do not seem to depict the same story and have different dimensions; finds that the three works are stylistically very similar, but maintains some doubt concerning the attribution to the Master of Charles of Durazzo; tentatively identifies the coat of arms with the cornucopias (32.75.2b) as that of the Del Baglione family and suggests several possibilities for the one with the panther (32.75.2c).
Old Master & British Paintings. Christie's, London. April 30, 2015, p. 7, under no. 402.
These three panels were removed from a cassone that Preston Remington and John G. Phillips judged to be modern in 1938. The cassone was then destroyed.
Two cassone panels with the same undulating pastiglia decoration are often linked to the front panel (32.75.2a) of The Met's work. One was sold at Semenzata, Venice, December 9, 1984, no. 62, and is now in the Terruzzi collection (53 x 148 cm). The other was sold at Christie's, London, July 7, 1989, no. 83, and was with Fabrizio Moretti, Florence, in 2003 (53 x 150 cm).
The end panels (32.75.2b–c) are decorated with unidentified coats of arms.
Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florence ca. 1406–1469 Spoleto)
ca. 1440
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