Italy, Florence / 1458
Pair of Panels from a Triptych: The Archangel Michael and St. Anthony Abbot
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Pair of Panels from a Triptych: The Archangel Michael and St. Anthony Abbot as painting (Italy, Florence · 1458).
Saint Michael's opulent appearance reflects the wealth and status of both the patron and the recipient of these paintings.
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this painting as tempera on wood panel and credits Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, c. 1406–1469).
The museum's collection notes: These panels depicting Saints Anthony the Abbot and Michael originally flanked a central scene of the Madonna and Child with Angels, now lost, to form a triptych. Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici of Florence commissioned the ensemble in 1457 as a diplomatic gift to Alfonso V of Aragon. Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite friar and one of the great masters of early Renaissance Florence, depicted realistic, weighty figures in a three-dimensional space using a system of linear perspective, inspired partly by Masaccio’s Brancacci Chapel, and reflected in the background architecture. Saint Anthony the Abbot rejected all earthly possessions in pursuit of a
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtPair of Panels from a Triptych: The Archangel Michael and St. Anthony AbbotOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.