Palmezzano that passed through his hands. My colleague Jill Dunkerton,
who uncovered this diverting little piece of misinformation, commented in
a lecture on the Entombment: “This recycling of battered old panel paint-
ings as furniture was a little joke—frequently repeated, I fear—of the
dealer, and yet another reminder of how careful we need to be in our
assessment and interpretation of any piece of evidence about a painting,
be it anecdotal, documentary, or scientific.”
No mythology is necessary for my last example. Its bizarre history
is apparent with even the most casual examination. It is the Trinity
Altarpiece, begun by Pesellino and finished by Filippo Lippi, who delivered
it in 1460 after Pesellino’s death in 1457. A set of fascinating documents
describes the commissioning of the altarpiece and what happened to it
when it was left uncompleted on Pesellino’s death. Having been assessed
by Lippi and Domenico Veneziano as just halffinished, it was taken from
Florence to Prato for Lippi to complete. Meanwhile, a financial dispute
was in progress between Pesellino’s widow and his business partner, which
complicated the final payments made to her for her husband’s work on the
painting. Which parts were by Pesellino and which by Lippi has been the
subject of intense debate ever since the altarpiece was removed from the
Church of the Compagnia dei Preti in Pistoia in the eighteenth century. At
that time, the main panel was sawn into five fragments that, apart from
the two angels, one might imagine to be so irregular in shape as to make
them unsalable. Nevertheless, they were dispersed and sold. The Crucifixion
fragment was purchased in 1863 by the National Gallery, London, which
initiated a search for the other pieces. Three other fragments were found
over the next sixty-five years. The fourth (the two saints on the left) was
discovered in the British Royal Collection, which would not part with the
piece but instead released it on loan in 1919 to be joined to the other parts.
(In theory, if the altarpiece is ever moved or treated, the queen’s restorer
should be in attendance.) The bottom part of the right-hand pair of saints,
who were found in 1929, never did surface, so a restorer was commis-
sioned to paint their lower robes and feet.
The predella panels, also sawn apart in the eighteenth century,
were bequeathed in 1937, seventy-four years after the reassembly of the
jigsaw began. This complicated and generally unsatisfactory story has a
recent and upbeat postscript. The predella—now assumed to be entirely by
Filippo Lippi and his workshop rather than by Pesellino—has always been
obviously too short for the main panel and original frame. Now the miss-
ing cental part of the predella has been identified as a panel by Filippo
Lippi ofthe Vision of Saint Augustinein the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
Everybody knew the painting existed; some even remarked on its affinities
with the Trinity Altarpiece; but until now, no one had suggested that it
had been part of the same plank as the other predella panels.
This story represents the whole checkered history of panel paint-
ing in one example. It begins with a complicated genesis, documented
with an extraordinary clarity that conjures up the immediacy of life and
death, the stop and start of the painting process, and the realities of
financial transactions and legal disputes. Next the painting enjoys an undis-
turbed existence for three centuries in Pistoia, followed by butchery and
dispersal. Finally the artwork is painstakingly reassembled during the last
two centuries (concurrent with current research on its original format),
and it finally comes to rest in the relative tranquillity of a modern
museum environment.
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