A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1109. THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN.

Niccolò di Buonaccorso (Sienese: died 1388).

Of this painter, who worked and held several offices at Siena, none of the works is traceable except this signed picture and some fragments (also signed, and dated 1387) in a little village church near Siena.

"Remarkable, amongst other things, for the wonderful elaboration of the gold ornaments on the dresses, and the attempt to give an Oriental character to the scene by the introduction of the palm-tree, the carpet, and the dark-faced player on the kettledrums. It is interesting also for its notes from real life in the figure of the child, the faces of some of the spectators in the background, the window-openings with their poles, the figures on the right under the blind, and the flower-pot on the sill on the left" (Monkhouse: The Italian Pre-Raphaelites, p. 17). For some remarks on the subject, see under 1317.