Piero Della Francesca's St. Augustine Altarpiece

Piero Della Francesca's St. Augustine AltarpieceAuthor(s): Kenneth ClarkSource: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 89, No. 533 (Aug., 1947), pp. 204-209Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/869650 .

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Editorial." THE WELLINGTON MUSEUM

HE Duke of Wellington has offered Apsley House, his London residence at Hyde Park Corner, along with certain of its contents, works of art and relics

,of the First Duke, as a gift to the nation. The gift includes items from the Duke's personal possessions as well as objects comprised in the heirloom list compiled for the Iron Duke. Apsley House is to become a Wellington Museum under the control of the Ministry of Education and adminis- tered by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The principal rooms will be used periodically for govern- ment entertainment, whilst a few rooms on the ground and second floors will be set aside for the private occupation of the Duke.

The popularity of this gesture can be gauged from the fact that it has aroused almost as keen an interest as the return of treasured Eros to his accustomed site in Piccadilly Circus. Similar gestures of generosity have been recorded in the United 'States during the last half century: in London it has been rarer, and recently without parallel. It is as well to remember that by the sale of four or five choice items from his own collection, the Duke could have secured for himself a most agreeable and prosperous old age. That any man should choose gratuitously to sacrifice so many comforts and riches as he has done, is not easy to understand ; but those who have had the advantage of association with the Duke over a number of years can appreciate that a hankering after luxury cannot be numbered among his vices, and that though his love of ownership is strong, his sense of public responsibility is stronger. Of how many Dukes, in I947, can the same be said ? The intellectual stands back to survey, now with sadness, now with amusement, the slow degeneration of the aristocracy of England. He may even dream at times how, through. a series of accidents, he himself falls into

possession of a vast inheritance and how he proceeds, in the face of opposition and suspicion from the very people who stand to profit most by the transaction, to sign away his inheritance. Now the dream has come true. An intellectual and a collector, a qualified architect, a man of letters, has assumed unexpectedly the office of Dukedom. On his return from military service in the Middle- East he makes over his priceless house and works of art to the nation; and as a humble tenant in a few ordinary rooms, he goes about his normal business, turning over a portfolio of drawings, shifting a bronze from mantelpiece to table, choosing from the shelf a volume of poems and reading by the light of a flickering candle.

As these words are hardening into print, the terms of the agreement are being debated in the House. Until the Bill becomes law and until Apsley House can be made ready to receive them, a few of the most important relics and works of art from the collection are on view in the Central Court of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The sumptuous display of orders and decorations, plate, porcelain and trophies of victory belonging to the First Duke can be warmly recommended to all students of the history of taste ; and round the walls are a few masterpieces of painting as stirring as anything to be seen during this summer of stirring exhibitions. The astonishing pictures by Velasquez and the equestrian portrait of the Iron Duke by Goya are already familiar from the recent Spanish exhibition at the National Gallery. Added to these, Correggio's Agony in the Garden, the two Van der Heydens, the superb collection of large Steens, and the portrait of the Iron Duke by Sir Thomas Lawrence, are sufficient to give the public a glimpse of the treat that is in store for them, when Apsley House even- tually opens its doors.

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA'S ST. AUGUSTINE

ALTARPIECE BY SIR KENNETH CLARK N March, I941, Mr. Millard Meiss published in the Art Bulletin an article on the figure of a saint by Piero della Francesca which had recently been acquired for the Frick Collection. With

admirable learning and judgment he put forward the thesis that it was part of the altarpiece which Piero painted for the Church of S. Agostino in Borgo San Sepolcro. This altarpiece is mentioned in Vasari, and in two contemporary documents-a

commission dated 1454, and a record of payment dated I469. Mr. Meiss suggested that it was a polyptych, consisting of a Virgin and Child enthroned, with two independent panels of saints on either side. The central panel is lost; the two saints to the right, now in the Poldi Pezzoli and Frick collections, represent St. Nicholas of Tolentino and, probably, a St. John the Evangelist [PLATE II, D and c]. Of the two saints to the left, one was the St. Michael, now in the National Gallery, London

T 205 THE BURLINGTON MAOA7INE, No. 533, Vol. lxxxix, August, I947



ST. AUGUSTINE. BY PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. DETAIL OF THE PANEL REPRODUCED IN PLATE II, A.



Piero della Francesca's St. Augustine Altarpiece

[PLATE II, B] ; the other, which Mr. Meiss con- sidered would probably represent St. Augustine was presumed lost. This panel is in the Museum of Antique Art of Lisbon [PLATE II, A]. It was bought in 1936 at the Count of Burnay's sale, together with a panel of a female Saint in the style of Brea. The two pictures were believed to be pendants, and were labelled " School of Cima ". As Mr. Meiss foresaw, it represents St. Augustine. The height is the same as that of the St. Michael (133 cm.), but it is a little wider than any of the other three panels (67 cm.) as a strip has been added to the left- hand side. This strip continues the balustrade which, owing to the spread of St. Augustine's cope, is less in evidence than in the others of the series; and the pilaster is almost entirely a later addition. Since it is clearly of the same type as those in the St. Michael, the restoration was probably executed before the panels were separated. The St. Augustine is extremely dirty, but appears to be well preserved underneath. Those who remember the St. Michael before 1920 will know what to expect if ever the St. Augustine is cleaned, although the latter seems to be in better condition.

That the Lisbon panel is part of the same series as the three other saints requires no proof: it remains to ask what this new discovery tells us about Piero. First, it confirms absolutely Mr. Meiss' hypothesis that these pictures formed part of the S. Agostino altarpiece. Hitherto, this theory rested on only one piece of evidence, that the saint in the Poldi Pezzoli could probably be identified as St. Nicholas of Tolentino ; with the corollary that as St. Nicholas was an Augustinian saint, he and his companions must have been painted for S. Agostino. This is slight enough evidence (although no slighter than the flimsy foundations on which have rested half our histories of fifteenth century art), but Mr. Meiss' confidence in it has been justified. The St. Augustine also supports nearly all that he says of the aesthetic scheme of the altarpiece-the firm outside buttress, contrasted with the cursive movement of the inner figures and the ascending diagonal relation of the hands. Most remarkable of all is the support which St. Augustine gives to Mr. Meiss' treatment of that important problem, Piero's relationship with Flemish painting, and in particular with Van Eyck. He points to the individualistic portraiture of the St. Nicholas and compares it to Van Eyck's Albergati; and he parallels Piero's Brera altarpiece with Van Eyck's Van der Paele Madonna, pointing out that both take place in the apse of a church and both include a naturalistically painted, kneeling donor. These similarities alone are not entirely convincing: does not Masaccio's Trinity in Santa Maria Novella show the same setting of church and donor? But add to them a comparison between Piero's St. Augustine and the Saint in the Van der

Paele altarpiece, and Van Eyck's influence on Piero becomes very much more probable. The rich folds of St. Augustine's cope, and his stole embroidered with scenes of the life of Christ are clearly inspired by some figure similar to the St. Donatian. A pleasure in the texture of rich brocades does not, by itself, argue Eyckian inspiration, for it was common in the work of those painters influenced by the international gothic style, Gentile da Fabriano, Masolino and Domenico Veneziano, who were, from one point of view, the ancestors of Piero. But they used these brocades decoratively and, for the most part, as flat pattern, whereas in the St. Augustine the folds are modelled in colour and achieve a degree of luminous plasticity hardly to be found in the tempera tinted vision of his Italian predecessors. For this reason the St. Augustine is of all Piero's works that which most foreshadows Bellini, for example, the Saints in the Frari Altarpiece, and so supports Longhi's thesis of Piero's influence in Venice.

So much in confirmation of Mr. Meiss. The newly-discovered picture allows us to make a few further additions to our knowledge of Piero. In the first place, there is nothing else like it in Piero's surviving work. The type of the Frick Apostle can be paralleled in the Arezzo frescoes, and is remark- ably close to that of the bearded apostle on the extreme right of the Brera altarpiece. But the St. Augustine displays a combination of intellect and will which is unusual [FRONTISPIECE]. He is clearly a man of action, far more so than the St. Michael or than the immobile warriors who appear in Piero's somnambulistic battles. That he felt this vigour and firmness to be the particular attribute of St. Augustine is evident if we compare him to the two other mitred figures in Piero's work, the representations of St. Louis of Toulouse in St. Francesco and in the Museum of Borgo San Sepolcro.

But the great importance of the St. Augustine is due to the small scenes from the New Testament which are depicted on his stole. How far the actual execution of these scenes is the work of an assistant will be discussed later, but assuming that they are studio work, they still give a valuable reflection of Piero's imagery. We can estimate their relationship to Piero's original compositions from two examples. The first is the Annunciation [PLATE III, A] which is obviously derived from the fresco in the Church of S. Francesco, Arezzo [PLATE III, B]. The relationship of the figures to the architecture is exactly the same; but they are both in more conventional poses, the angel kneeling, the Virgin seated, and both have their arms folded across their breasts. The majestic aloofness of Piero's standing figures has been sacrificed and would, in fact, have been inappropriate.

In the other example, the Presentation in the Temple [PLATE III, c], Piero's original is lost, and

2o06



A--ST. AUGUSTINE. PANEL, 133 BY 67 cM.

(MUSEU NACIONAL DE ARTE ANTIGA

LISBON)

B-ST. MICHAEL. PANEL, 133 BY 58 cM.

(NATIONAL GALLERY)

C-A SAINT (ST. JOHN THE EVANGEL-

IST?). PANEL, 133 BY 58.4 CM. (THE FRICK COLLECTION, NEW YORK)

D-ST. NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO.

PANEL, 136 BY 59 CM. (MUSEO POLDI

PEZZOLI, MILAN)

PLATE II. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA'S ST. AUGUSTINE ALTARPIECE



A-DETAIL OF II, A B--THE

ANNUNCIA TION. BY PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. FRESCO. (S. FRANCESCO, AREZZO)

C-DETAIL OF II, A D-THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. SCHOOL OF PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. CANVAS, 180 BY 135 cM. (FORMERLY COOK COLLECTION)

PLATE III. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA'S ST. AUGUSTINE ALTARPIECE



Piero della Francesca's St. Augustine Altarpiece

we can only guess at it from a feeble school picture, perhaps the work of Lorentino d'Arezzo, whose wretched frescoes in S. Francesco grow more and more incompetent as they become further removed from Piero's inspiration. This is the Presentation in the Temple, formerly in the Cook Collection [PLATE III, D] which has always been recognised as a work of Piero's school. That it is probably a free copy of a lost Piero is suggested by the relics of grandeur in the design, by the beauty of the architecture and by certain reproducible details. This probability is now strengthened by the scene of the Presentation which appears on St. Augustine's stole, and which clearly derives from the same design. We can see that rather the same process has taken place as in the Annunciation. The relation of figures to architecture and the main motive have been preserved, but the figures have become less impas- sive. The Virgin turns towards the Child, and does not preserve the aristocratic detachment which is discernible in the Cook replica. The whole is conceived in a freer, more commonplace and more popular style.

Below the Presentation is an Agony in the Garden and, in the light of the foregoing similarities, we may see in it a simplified, popular version of one of Piero's most famous lost compositions, the Agony in the Garden, in S. Francesco of Sargiano, near Arezzo. But the other scenes on the stole cannot be associated with any lost originals. Two of these, the Nativity and Flight into Egypt, bear traces of Piero's style in the landscape and the tonality and may well derive from him. The Flagellation bears no relation to the picture at Urbino, although the Christ reminds us of Piero's Baptism in the National Gallery. The half covered Crucifixion is quite unlike Piero, as are the figures of Saints Peter, Paul and St. John the Baptist. On the other hand, the risen Christ on St. Augustine's mitre is worthy of Piero in tone and outline; and in fact the beautiful tone of the pearl-sewn ground must surely have engaged his personal attention.

Our survey of the scenes on the stole directs our attention to the unexplored subject of Piero's assistants. Piero's style is so entirely his own, and his mastery of it is so complete, that it is relatively easy to say when another hand has intervened; and from first to last he made full use of assistants. In his earliest work, the Madonna of the Misericordia at Borgo, where we may take as a standard of Piero's own work the Madonna herself, the Crucifixion and the damaged Annunciation, it is obvious that the predella and the small panels of saints are the work of another artist who has not even tried to assimilate Piero's style, though he has accepted some of his types. In the Arezzo frescoes, where many helpers were necessary, some of the minor episodes, such as the Jew in the Well, and figures such as the St. Louis, are wooden and toneless in execution. In

these cases the assistant was a local workman, and frescoes in other parts of S. Francesco show what such a workman could do without his master's guidance. No doubt there were also more skilful assistants, amongst them Bartolommeo della Gatta, whose two St. Rochs in Arezzo suggest that in actual collaboration with Piero his hand would be almost impossible to detect. The Perugia altarpiece, mysterious and depressing from many points of view, also shows evidence of shop-work in the lower part. The Annunciation above I believe to be largely the work of Signorellil. It is here, rather than in the Christ Church and Villamarina Madonnas, that I would find evidence of his apprenticeship to Piero. Finally, the Brera altarpiece has long been recognised as a studio work in which Piero has made use of at least two helpers.

It is therefore not surprising to find in the S. Agos- tino altarpiece evidence of very close collaboration between Piero and an assistant. We have a right to suppose that whereas Piero designed the figures and executed the heads, hands and chief passages of modelling, he left much of the ornament to his pupil: much, but not all, for the play of light on St. Michael's shoulder plates or St. Augustine's crozier seems to be beyond all but the finest powers of execution. The curious part is that this assistant is entirely different from the others, whose work has come down to us. He is not a mere duffer, like Lorentino ; nor a faithful, but lifeless, disciple like the author of the Villamarina Madonna. Nor has he Bartolommeo della. Gatta's precision of drawing. His rough, pictorial style suggests a different origin, and reminds us more of the paintings on majolica or cassoni, at a time when popular arts were often freer, and not more formalised, than the art of serious occasions.

It now remains to find the Virgin Enthroned which formed the centre of the altarpiece. She will not be hard to identify. As is well known, the step of her throne impinges on to the panels of the Frick Saint and the National Gallery St. Michael, where it has been painted over. We can therefore guess that the marble balustrade which runs through the four lateral panels will be continued in the centre, and will form the basis of one of those magnificent architectural inventions which are such an important part of Piero's genius. We may imagine a throne more austere than that of the Perugia Madonna, perhaps such a one as inspired Bellini's Coronation of the Virgin at Ancona. The Madonna herself, if she excels her surrounding saints as much as is usual in Piero's compositions, will be one of his greatest creations.

1 Compare the modelling of the Virgin's head and the placing of the ear with the Signorelli angels in the sacristy at Loreto; and her hands with any of those in early Signorellis, e.g., the Virgin and Child in the Brera,

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Piero Della Francesca's St. Augustine Altarpiece