1897. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.
Lorenzo Monaco (Florentine: 1370-1425).
Don Lorenzo was born at Siena, but became a Camaldose monk of the Convent of the Angeli at Florence, his early practice being that of a miniaturist. In the principal of his known works—an altar-piece of 1413 now in the Uffizi at Florence, Mr. Roger Fry bids us note the cunning with which the painter "weaves together his flowing curves," the "rare charm in his ætherial, unstructural draperies," and "a kind of visible music" in his design (Monthly Review, June 1901).
Something of these qualities may be seen in the long and slender figures of our picture. The decorativeness of its patterns, and the architectural details, should also be noticed. The picture, formerly in a church at Certaldo, is in its original Gothic frame. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (vol. i. p. 554) suppose the picture to have formed part of a larger altar-piece of which the two wings are in our gallery, ascribed to the school of Taddeo Gaddi (Nos. 215, 216). But the different scale of the figures in them negatives this supposition.