Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi
Portable Diptych: Madonna and Child, Christ in Pietà 1326-1328, tempera on panel
The work is a rare and precious example of a travelling altarpiece, with depictions of Madonna and Child, and the Pietà of Christ. The painting was acquired by Horne in 1906, in Castiglion Fiorentino, both for the high quality of the composition, and for its being a testimony of medieval private devotion, on which the English collector was pursuing in-depth studies.
The attribution to Simone Martini, advanced by Horne himself, was at first rejected by other art historians, perhaps because it was proposed by the owner of the work and therefore held to be biased, notwithstanding the expertise and critical skills of the English scholar. Only in 1975, when Luciano Bellosi confirmed the importance of recognising this work as an authentic Simone Martini painting, and thus opened a new debate on its attribution, did the Pietà of Christ come to be inserted in the catalog of the Sienese master, with the Madonna and Child eventually being ascribed to Lippo Memmi’s hand.
