Triptych

Attribution and Date

The triptych has been attributed to Bernardo Daddi, the 14th century Florentine painter, assisted by his workshop. Although some of Daddi's works bear the inscription 'Bernardus' or 'Bernardus de Florentia', the majority of them do not - including this triptych. The absence of a signature on paintings was not unusual with 14th century Italian art, and its presence on a painting did not actually indicate that the artist had completed it himself.

Daddi probably had a large workshop, as the volume of works produced by him and his assistants suggests. The slight variation in style within works of a similar format, completed within the same year, shows that a number of different hands were involved in the production process. However, the high technical standard and the illustrative skill shown in the Courtauld triptych have led critics to believe that it was completed mainly by Daddi himself.

The date of 1338 inscribed on the plinth of the triptych:

ANNO . DNI[M] .CCC.XXXVIII

places this work in the middle of Daddi's productive career and at the height of his development of small devotional panel paintings.

The production of a tabernacle
Carpentry