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Saint Matthew Giovanni di Paolo

Artist

Giovanni di Paolo Siena, 1398 – Siena, 1482

Culture Italian
Date ca. 1475–1477
Object type painting
Medium, technique tempera and gold on wood
Dimensions

80.5 × 39.1 × 1.3 cm
painted surface: 70.4 × 33.2 cm

Inventory number 21
Collection Old Master Paintings
On view Museum of Fine Arts, First Floor, European Art 1250-1600, Cabinet 19

Giovanni di Paolo remained resolutely independent throughout his long career, never aligning himself with any of the main trends in Sienese painting. His unique style is characterised by distorted figures and irrational spaces. In his Budapest work, a melancholic Saint Matthew rests his head on his right hand, while his attribute, the angel, is perhaps in the act of inspiring him to write his Gospel. The painting belonged to an altarpiece whose structure represented a transitional stage between the Gothic and the Renaissance types, but this is the only known example that can be reconstructed. The upper tier consisted of a series of evangelists in an arrangement reminiscent of a Gothic polyptych, placed above a rectangular Renaissance central panel divided by a large arch. In Siena at the time the work was made, late Gothic and Renaissance structures were being combined in a variety of unique and creative ways.

References

Pigler, Andor, Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, 1-2. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1967, p. 271-272.

Sallay, Dóra, Corpus of Sienese Paintings in Hungary, 1420-1510, Centro Di, Florence, 2015, p. 146-155, no. 12.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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