| |  | Gentile da Fabriano |  |
| Gentile da Fabriano (circa 1370-1427). Italian painter named after his birthplace, Fabriano in the Marches. He carried out important commissions in several major Italian art centers and was recognized as one of the foremost artists of his day, but most of the work on which his great contemporary reputation was based has been destroyed. | |
His work included frescos in the Doges' Palace in Venice (1408) and for St John Lateran in Rome (1427). In between he worked in Florence, Siena, and Orvieto. His major surviving work is the celebrated altarpiece of the "Adoration of the Magi" (1423), painted for the church of Sta. Trinità in Florence, which places him alongside Ghiberti as the greatest exponent of the International Gothic style in Italy. It is remarkable not only for its exquisite decorative beauty but also for the naturalistic treatment of light in the predella (the platform on which some Altars or Holy Tables stand), where there is a night scene with three different light sources. Gentile had widespread influence (much more so initially that his great contemporary Masaccio, notably on Pisanello, his assistant in Venice, Jacopo Bellini, who worked with him in Florence, and Fra Angelico, who was his greatest heir. |
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|  | | "The Adoration of the Magi (detail)" (1422) Tempera on wood panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy. | | |
|  |  | "Scenes from the Legend of Saint Nicholas of Bari. The Saint Saves a Ship from Shipwreck" (circa 1425) Tempera on wood. | | |
|  | | "Annunciation" (circa 1425) Tempera on wood, 41 × 49 cm - 16.1 x 19.3 in. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome, Italy. | | |
|  | | "Mary Enthroned with the Child, Saints and a Donor" Poplar wood, 113 x 131 cm - 44.49 x 51.57 in. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany. | | |
|  | | "Madonna of Humility" (circa 1415-16) Tempera on panel, 41 x 36 cm - 16.1 x 14.2 in. Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, Italy. | | |
|  | | "St Francis" (1420) Tempera on panel, 87 x 62 cm - 34.3 x 24.4 in. Private collection. |
| Text source: 'Webmuseum' (www.ibiblio.org/wm). | |
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