All artworks

Legends of the Greeks and Amazons: The Abduction of Antiope by Theseus, circa 1440-1450

Attributed to Domenico di Michelino

Exhibited by Brimo de Laroussilhe

Material Tempera on wood panel

Dimensions 42 × 148.2 cm

Place of Creation Florence

Status Vetted

About the Work

It was customary in fifteenth-century Florence for the father to give his daughter as a wedding gift a painted chest, or cassone, containing her trousseau. A second cassone would be presented to the new son-in-law. They would then form a pair of complementary items in the couple’s bedroom.

Their use as domestic furniture explains the damage suffered by most cassoni, which were often cut up during the 19th century in order to preserve only the painted panels.

When it was first published in 1915 by Schubring, this cassone panel was still housed with its pendant in the Chalandon collection. The second panel is now preserved in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This one, intended for the husband, depicts the Battle of the Argonauts and the Amazons. Our panel, intended for the bride, can be identified as a representation of Theseus and Antiope, the Amazon who married Theseus. The stories of the Amazons and Theseus were then known through the writings of Boccaccio. For him, the myth of the Amazons was first and foremost an occasion for making a moralising statement about women’s place in society. However strong they may have been, the defeat of the Amazons was an evident sign, according to him, that women should not pit themselves against men but peaceably attend to their homes. A subject like this is therefore particularly suited to the art of the cassone, which was conceived as a wedding gift.

When Schubring initially published this cassone and its pendant, he attributed them both to Benozzo Gozzoli, a proposal based on their style, which directly echoed the art of Fra Angelico, of whom Benozzo Gozzoli was the most famous pupil. Stylistic echoes of Fra Angelico are indeed numerous here, with some of the female figures in the procession closely resembling the Angels in the frescoes painted in the convent of San Marco in Florence. Likewise, the walls of the city and the hills are painted with a specific attention to the fall of light which can be found in numerous panels painted by the Dominican friar. Freuler was the first to put forward an attribution of the cassone to Domenico di Michelino. This attribution was accepted by Tartuferi and more recently reasserted by Neville Rowley, Everett Fahy and Laurence B. Kanter.

Domenico di Francesco, born in Florence in 1417, takes his name, Michelino, from his first master Michele di Benedetto, who was a maker of cassoni. In his Life of Fra Angelico, Vasari cites Domenico di Michelino as belonging to his disciples. Indeed, Domenico early works reveal, as seen here, the strong influence of Fra Angelico’s art

Show moreless

Provenance

Formerly collection of Albin Chalandon (1809-1885), Lyon ; private collection, Switzerland.

Literature

Schubring, P., Cassoni. Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen Frührenaissance. Ein Beitrag zur Profanmalerei im Quattrocento. Textband, Leipzig, 1915, I, p. 114, 283 cat. 281; II, pl. LXIV fig. 282.
Van Marle, R., The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, La Haye, XI, 1929, p. 238.
Freuler, G., « Manifestatori delle cose miracolose ». Arte italiana del ’300 e ’400 da collezioni in Svizzera e nel Liechtenstein, exhib. cat. (Lugano-Castagnola, Stiftung Thyssen-Bornemisza, 7 April-30 June 1991), Einsiedeln, 1991, pp. 244-247 cat. 96.
De Marchi, A., in Bentini, J., Cammarota, G. P. and Scaglietti Kelescian, D., (eds.), Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. Catalogo generale. 1. Dal Duecento a Francesco Francia, Venice, Marsilio, 2004, p. 223.
Tartuferi, A., « Domenico di Michelino: un’aggiunta e qualche riflessione sulle molte incertezze della fase iniziale », Arte Cristiana, XCIII, n°829, July-August 2005, p. 287 fig. 3, p. 288 fig. 4, pp. 289-290.
Staderini, A., « Gentile et in compositione di cose piccole eccellente » : Francesco di Stefano, detto il Pesellino (1422 - 1457), Ph. D. (Florence, Università degli Studi, n. d. [2008]) I, pp. 334-336 ; II, fig. 368-369.
Staderini, A., « Il Confronto con le novità rinascimentali : Pittori di cassoni nella Firenze di metà Quattrocento » et « Maestro dei Trionfi Landau Finaly » in Paolini, C., Parenti, D. and Sebregondi, L., Virtù d’amore. Pittura nuziale nel Quattrocento fiorentino, exhib. cat. (Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia and Horne Museum, 6 August-11 January 2010), Florence, 2010, p. 118 fig. 5, p. 122, pp. 229-230.