Who is Master of the Osservanza Triptych?

The Master of the Osservanza Triptych, also known as the Osservanza Master and as the Master of Osservanza, is the name unmodified to an Italian painter of the Sienese School sprightly about 1430 to 1450.

The Italian scholar Roberto Longhi official that two triptychs formerly ascribed to Stefano di Giovanni (il Sassetta) were the comport yourself of complementary hand, now generally referred to as the Master of the Osservanza Triptych. The Virgin and Child following St. Jerome and St. Ambrose (Basilica dell’Osservanza, Siena) and the Birth of the Virgin (Museo d’Arte Sacra, Asciano) are both stylistically same to the perform of Stefano di Giovanni, but have a narrative freshening that is characteristic of Late Gothic painting.

Longhi observed that another group of paintings was nearby related to these works and appeared to be by the similar hand. These included the predella of the Osservanza Altarpiece (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena), a predella of St. Bartholomew (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena), Scenes of the Passion (Vatican Museums, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Fogg Art Museum), the Resurrection (Detroit Institute of Arts), and Scenes from the Life of St. Anthony Abbot (panels in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Museum and Museum Wiesbaden, Germany). Additionally, the full-length painting of St. Anthony Abbot in the Louvre appears to be from option altarpiece by the similar master.

Research in 2010 by Maria Falcone in Siena has revealed the proclaim of the Master to be Sano di Pietro. Falcone found a document approximately an altarpiece by the “Master of Osservanza” for a church in Asciano, just uncovered Siena, which was actually below the bishopric of Arezzo. The priest of the church in Asciano did not pay the painter and in view of that the city presidency of Siena had to make an fascination to the bishop in Arezzo to force the priest from his district to pay the artist. The artist’s reveal was included upon the document as Sano di Pietro.