Virgin and Child

religious

This altarpiece showing the Virgin between a pope and a bishop has the appearance of a triptych; however, the form of the backing - which is made from long, horizontally placed boards rather than from assembled single panels, following a method commonly used in the 13th century - confirms the antiquity of the piece and places the artistic culture of the painter somewhere between Cimabue and Giotto. No attributes allow us to identify the saints alongside the Virgin and Child. Both men are dressed in ecclesiastical robes and were therefore members of the secular Church.

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About the Artist

Lippo Di Benivieni

Italian painter. The earliest documentary reference to the artist records the apprenticeship of a certain Nerio di Binduccio to him in 1296, which suggests that Lippo was an established figure by this date. He is further recorded as a member of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in Florence from 1312 to 1320. No documented works by him are known. The documented dates make Lippo a contemporary of Giotto, but the works attributed to him show a much stronger response to Sienese rather than Florentine painting, particularly that of the followers of Duccio. The large dossal of a Lamentation (Museo Civico, Pistoia), with its intense characterization and emotional impact, is probably the artist's finest work and shows him to have been one of the most original Florentine painters of his time. Other attributions to Lippo are still debated but should surely include the portable altar in Memphis (Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis).

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