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Italian paintings 1250-1450

John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

by Carl Brandon Strehlke (adjunct curator of the Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Fondo Oro:

Carl Brandon Strehlke’s Italian Paintings 1250–1450 is an important addition to our library because it masterfully documents the extraordinary collection amassed by the nineteenth-century Philadelphia lawyer John G. Johnson. This monumental catalogue brings a fresh, illuminating clarity to a critical two-hundred-year evolution of the gold-ground tradition. Strehlke, alongside senior conservator Mark S. Tucker, goes far beneath the surface layer of tempera to tackle complex questions of attribution, iconography, and patronage. For the true connoisseur, the inclusion of full technical reports and a specialized appendix of punch marks provides a rare, microscopic look into the genuine material practice of the early Renaissance bottega.

By embedding each magnificent panel into the context of the artist's biography and tracking its precise provenance, this work honors the living legacy of the masterworks we celebrate daily. It stands as an essential companion for any serious collector or historian seeking to understand the structural soul of early Italian painting.

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2004, 556 pages, Hardcover, ISBN: 9780876331835

When the Philadelphia lawyer John G. Johnson began to collect art in the late nineteenth century, he made Italian paintings from the early Renaissance a specialty. Eventually Johnson donated his distinguished collection to the City of Philadelphia, and it is now housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Although there have been several catalogues of these paintings, including one by Bernard Berenson in 1913, Carl Brandon Strehlke has prepared the first complete scholarly examination. His discussion of such art historical questions as attribution, iconography, and patronage is complemented by the technical study of the paintings he conducted with Mark S. Tucker, the museum’s vice chairman of conservation and senior conservator of paintings.

Strehlke’s introduction sheds new light on Johnson’s collecting and traces the history of the acquisition, conservation, and installation of the John G. Johnson and Philadelphia Museum of Art paintings. Subsequent entries situate detailed discussions of the pictures within the context of the artists’ biographies. All the paintings are furnished with a full description, technical report, provenance, art-historical commentary, discussion of related works, comparative illustrations, and bibliography.

This extensively illustrated book also provides an appendix of punch marks and a bibliography of some 2,500 entries.

Table of contents

FOREWORD

Anne d'Harnoncourt and Joseph J. Rishel

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES TO THE USE OF THE CATALOGUE

JOHN G. JOHNSON AND THE ITALIAN PAINTING COLLECTIONS AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

CATALOGUE

With conservation notes by Carl Brandon Strehlke and Mark S. Tucker

  • Allegretto di Nuzio

  • Andrea di Bartolo

  • Fra Angelico

  • Apollonio di Giovanni and Marco del Buono

  • Arrigo di Niccolò

  • Battista di Gerio

  • Benedetto di Bindo

  • Bicci di Lorenzo

  • Bartolomeo Bulgarini

  • Cenni di Francesco

  • Bernardo Daddi

  • Dalmasio

  • Fra Diamante

  • Domenico di Bartolo

  • Domenico di Zanobi

  • Duccio

  • Francesco d'Antonio

  • Francesco di Vannuccio

  • Agnolo Gaddi

  • Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

  • Giovanni dal Ponte

  • Giovanni di Francesco

  • Giovanni di Paolo

  • Giovanni di Pietro

  • Benozzo Gozzoli

  • Jacopo di Cione

  • Pietro Lorenzetti

  • Lorenzo Monaco

  • Lorenzo Veneziano

  • Martino da Verona

  • Martino di Bartolomeo

  • Masaccio

  • Masolino

  • Master of Carmignano

  • Master of the Castello Nativity

  • Master of 1419

  • Master of the Johnson Tabernacle

  • Master of Montelabate

  • Master of the Osservanza

  • Master of the Pesaro Crucifix

  • Master of the Pomegranate

  • Master of Staffolo

  • Master of the Terni Dormition

  • Neri di Bicci

  • Niccolò di Segna

  • Niccolò di Tommaso

  • Nicola d'Ulisse da Siena

  • Antonio Orsini

  • Pesellino

  • Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano

  • Pietro di Miniato

  • Priamo della Quercia

  • Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino

  • Sano di Pietro

  • Scheggia

  • Paolo Schiavo

  • Starnina

  • Zanobi Strozzi

  • Taddeo di Bartolo

  • Tommaso del Mazza

  • Giovanni Toscani

  • Ugolino di Nerio

  • Vitale da Bologna

Venetian-Adriatic School, c. 1290-1300

Paduan School, c. 1320-30

Venetian-Adriatic School, c. 1340-60

Sienese School, mid-fourteenth century

Florentine School, late fourteenth century

Sienese School, c. 1400

Umbrian School, c. 1400

Marchigian School, c. 1425-30

Sienese School, c. 1904

APPENDIX I: DOCUMENTS

APPENDIX II: PUNCH MARKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

INDEX OF ACCESSION NUMBERS

INDEX OF PROVENANCE

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS