This monumental figure of St. John the Evangelist was painted between 1454 and 1469 by Piero della Francesca. Of the seven paintings by this artist in American collections, the Frick is home to four of them.
The panel showing a single saint comes from an altarpiece painted for the high altar of the Augustinian church in Borgo San Sepolcro, Piero’s hometown in the upper Tiber valley, in central Italy. The altarpiece featured four saints, which are now divided among museums around the world: a Saint Augustine in Lisbon, a Saint Michael in London, and a Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Milan. The two pairs of saints originally flanked a now-lost central compartment, depicting either an enthroned Virgin and Child or the Coronation of the Virgin. In the lower left corner of the St. John panel, you can still see the porphyry step of the Virgin’s throne.
St. John appears here majestically clad in a crimson toga-like garment, as much enveloped in it as he is in his reading. John is the author of one of the four Gospels and of the last book of the New Testament: the Book of Revelation (or the Apocalypse). His robe is decorated with jewels and pearls and gold filigree. Yet, for all this lavish ornamentation, the saint is barefoot.
The three other works by Piero and his workshop in this room are from the same altarpiece. The small Crucifixion formed part of the base of the altarpiece and was bequeathed to the Frick by John D. Rockefeller Jr. On each side of St. John are two additional panels. They are half-length depictions of a nun and monk wearing the dark habits of the Augustinian order, and they are possibly Saint Monica (the mother of Saint Augustine) and the Blessed Angelo Scarpetti, a much venerated figure in Borgo San Sepolcro, whose body was buried in the church of Sant’Agostino.
St. John the Evangelist
In 1454 Angelo di Giovanni di Simone d’Angelo ordered from Piero a polyptych for the high altar of S. Agostino in Borgo Sansepolcro. The commission specified that this work, undertaken to fulfill the wish of Angelo’s late brother Simone and the latter’s wife Giovanna for the spiritual benefit of the donors and their forebears, was to consist of several panels with “images, figures, pictures, and ornaments.” The central portion of the altarpiece is lost, but four lateral panels with standing saints, St. Michael the Archangel (National Gallery, London), St. Augustine (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon), St. Nicholas of Tolentino (Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan), and the present panel have survived. Although the venerable figure in the Frick painting was given no identifying attributes, he is presumed to represent St. John the Evangelist, patron of the donors’ father and of Simone’s wife.
Evidence from a payment made to Piero in 1469 suggests that the altarpiece was finished late that year, fifteen years after the original contract. The lengthy delay resulted no doubt from Piero's many other commitments during this period, when he traveled to towns all across Central Italy and contracted obligations to patrons more important and more exigent than the family of Angelo di Giovanni and the Augustinian monks of his own small town, Borgo Sansepolcro. But it is obvious as well from the character of his art that Piero was not a quick or facile painter. His deep interest in the theoretical study of perspective and geometry and his pondered, contemplative approach to his paintings are apparent in all his work, including the panels of the S. Agostino altarpiece.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Sant'Agostino (now Santa Chiara), Borgo San Sepolcro, 1469–1554; probably Sant'Agostino (before 1555, Pieve di Santa Maria), Borgo San Sepolcro, 1555; Bernardino Ducci, Borgo San Sepolcro, 1624; Luca and Francesco Ducci, Borgo San Sepolcro, 1680; Dukes of Cardona or Counts Folch of Cardona, eighteenth century; Molly von Miller zu Aicholz (d. 1887), Vienna; August von Miller zu Aicholz (d. 1899), Vienna; by descent to his brother Baron Eugen Ritter von Miller zu Aicholz (d. 1919), Palast Aicholz, Vienna; by descent to his son Arthur von Miller zu Aicholz, country house near Salzburg, 1935; possibly with Frederick Mont, Vienna, 1935; Knoedler and Co., New York 1935–36; acquired by The Frick Collection, New York, 1936.
Source: Piero della Francesca in America: From Sansepolcro to the East Coast. New York: The Frick Collection, 2013.
