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Paolo di Dono, called Paolo Uccello
(Florence, 1397 – 1475)
The Crucifixion
Tempera and gold on panel
23 5/8 x 13 3/8 inches (60 x 34 cm.)
Painted circa 1423
Provenance
Count Sterbini, Rome, after 1874.
By 1911 in the collection of Tomasso Lupi, Rome.
By the 1920's to Brautigam (father of Maria Louise), Stuttgart, Germany.
By 1959 to Dr. Brautigam, Donau, Germany.
By 1971, by descent to Frau Maria Louise Brautigam, Munich, Germany.
In 1992 by descent to the previous owner, her nephew in Germany, from whom purchased
privately by the current owner.
Exhibited
Prato, Da Donatello a Lippi, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, 13 September 2013 – 13 January 2014, excatalogue,pp.108-09, no.2.2, under “La giovinezza di Paolo Uccello”, illustrated in colour with detail
(catalogue entry by Andrea De Marchi).
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This deeply moving and beautifully preserved Crucifixion, datable to circa 1423, has recently
been recognised as an early work by Paolo di Dono, called Paolo Uccello (Florence, c. 1397 –
1475), and is thus a significant addition to the oeuvre of this highly important Florentine artist,
whose work embraced two distinct artistic styles, as he progressed over time from the
decorativeness of the late Gothic to the heroic new style of the early Renaissance.
The importance of this rediscovery is underscored by the fact that it was requested for inclusion
in the seminal exhibition in Prato, Da Donatello a Lippi, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, 2013-14.
Although continuing research meant that it could not actually be exhibited in Prato, it was
included as ex-catalogue no.2.2, together with nine other early works by Uccello under the label
“La giovinezza di Paolo Uccello”. The Prato exhibition marked the reopening of two floors of
the Palazzo Pretorio, home to the museum there, which had been closed for fifteen years, and to
mark the occasion the organisers of the exhibition requested a number of highly important
Florentine Renaissance paintings and sculptures, concentrating on works by masters who worked
in Prato and above all on the mature paintings of Filippo Lippi and his followers. However, the
greatest revelation was the showing together for the first time of a group of nine works by the
young Uccello, which represented a unique opportunity for art historians and lovers of
Florentine art of the early Renaissance. Of particular interest in connection with this Crucifixion
were a Saint George and the Dragon from the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (fig. 1),
datable to 1423-45; an Annunciation from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (fig. 2), datable to
circa 1425; and an Adoration of the Shepherds from the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karslruhe, datable to
circa 1436.
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Fig.1: Paolo Uccello, Saint George and the Dragon, Fig.2: Paolo Uccello, Annunciation, Ashmolean
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Museum, Oxford
All of these paintings share remarkably similar details including the punchwork in the haloes, and
are almost universally agreed to be by the same hand. All three works were believed to be by
Paolo Uccello in the past, but there then followed a considerable period when they and a number
of other, related paintings were thought to be by anonymous later artists influenced by Uccello.
However, the re-emergence of works such as this Crucifixion and a new understanding of the
evolution of Uccello’s career have resulted in their being acknowledged as his earliest surviving
productions. At the age of ten, Uccello was already an apprentice in the workshop of the
sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, who was then at work on the bronze doors of the Baptistery of
Florence Cathedral. In 1414, he joined the confraternity of painters (Compagna di San Luca)
and the following year became a member of the Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali, the official
guild to which painters in Florence belonged. Awareness of Uccello’s early activity fills what was
previously a major gap in the understanding of his career, and at the same time reveals panels
such as the Crucifixion as the brilliant prelude to his activity of the 1430s in Florence, above all
at the Chiostro Verde in Santa Maria Novella and in his fresco of Sir John Hawkwood of 1436
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in the Duomo, not to mention such later masterpieces as the three panels of the Rout of San
Romano (National Gallery, Louvre, Uffizi) and the Hunt in the Forest in the Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford.
The attribution of this Crucifixion to Paolo Uccello has been endorsed by the late Luciano Bellosi,
Laurence Kanter, Dominique Thiebaut, Keith C. Christiansen and Andrea di Marchi.
To be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonne on Uccello by Dott. Mauro Minardi
intended for publication in 2017
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