Angel holding a curtain thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Medieval & Renaissance, Room 10

Angel holding a curtain

Relief
ca. 1320 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This is one of two angels in the V&A collection made by Tino di Camaino in ca. 1320. The angels once formed part of a tomb monument, and would have stood at the sides as though pulling back curtains to reveal the effigy. Tino di Camaino (ca. 1280 - ca. 1337) was an Italian sculptor, working in Siena, Pisa, Florence and Naples for some of the most powerful and important patrons of his day. He was also the most important and inventive sculptor of funerary monuments in Tuscany.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleAngel holding a curtain (generic title)
Materials and techniques
carved marble
Brief description
Relief, Angel holding a curtain, carved marble, attributed to Tino di Camaino, Tuscany, ca. 1320
Physical description
This carved marble relief shows an angel holding a curtain and dressed in the alb of a deacon. The angel is shown with his head in right profile, and his body turned to the right. The curtain has a decorated edge and is held across the body in the angel’s proper right.
Dimensions
  • Height: 63cm
  • Width: 32cm
  • Depth: 12cm
  • Weight: 31kg
Measured for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries 2006.
Object history
Provenance: Purchased from the Gigli-Campana Collection in 1861.

This relief and its companion piece (mus. no 7566-1861) were first given to Tino di Camaino by Wilhelm R. Valentiner (1923), an attribution which has been accepted by most scholars since (but see Weinberger 1937). Tino di Camaino, born in ca. 1280 in Siena, is documented as a sculptor in Pisa after 1311, where he was commissioned with sculpting the monument for Emperor Henry VII in Pisa Cathedral. Later, he worked in Siena (1318-20) and Florence (1321-23). In 1323-24 Tino di Camaino relocated to Naples, where he remained in the service of the Angevin court until his death in 1337.
Historical context
This relief and its companion piece (mus. no 7566-1861) originally formed part of a tomb monument and would have stood at its sides as if pulling back curtains to reveal the effigy of the deceased, similar in type to the angels on the slightly earlier tomb of Cardinal Guillaume de Braye (d. 1282) by Arnolfo di Cambio, still in situ in San Domenico in Orvieto (Italy). Some scholars have suggested that the angels may have belonged to the monument of Antonio d'Orso, Bishop of Florence (d. 1321) in Florence Cathedral, but it is more likely that they formed part of another, now dismantled Florentine tomb of about the same date.
Subject depicted
Summary
This is one of two angels in the V&A collection made by Tino di Camaino in ca. 1320. The angels once formed part of a tomb monument, and would have stood at the sides as though pulling back curtains to reveal the effigy. Tino di Camaino (ca. 1280 - ca. 1337) was an Italian sculptor, working in Siena, Pisa, Florence and Naples for some of the most powerful and important patrons of his day. He was also the most important and inventive sculptor of funerary monuments in Tuscany.
Associated object
7566-1861 (Ensemble)
Bibliographic references
  • 'Inventory of Art Objects Acquired in the Year 1861', in Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, Arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868, vol. 1, p. 35
  • Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 'Studies in Italian Gothic Plastic Art. I: Tino di Camaino', Art in America 11 (1923): 275-306, p. 294
  • Eric Maclagan and Margaret H. Longhurst, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture. Text. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1932, p. 7
  • Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 'Una statua ignota di Tino da Camaino in Santa Croce a Firenze', L'Arte n.s. 4, 36 (1933): 83-107, p. 104
  • Enzo Carli, Tino di Camaino scultore. Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1934, p. 32
  • Martin Weinberger, 'The Master of S. Giovanni', The Burlington Magazine 70 (1937): 24-30
  • Harald Keller, 'Tino di Camaino', in Hans Vollmer (ed.), Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Volume 33: Theodotos-Urlaub. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1939, p. 311
  • Wilhelm R. Valentiner, 'Tino di Camaino in Florenz', Art in America 17, II (1954): 117-32, p. 130
  • John Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Volume I: Text. Eighth to Fifteenth Century. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1964, pp. 32-34 (notes 29, 30)
  • Max Seidel, 'Studien zu Giovanni di Balduccio und Tino di Camaino. Die Rezeption des Spätwerks von Giovanni Pisano', Städel Jahrbuch 5 (1975): 37-84, p. 63
  • Gert Kreytenberg, 'Tino di Camainos Grabmäler in Florenz', Städel Jahrbuch 7 (1979): 33-60, pp. 55-56
  • Francis Ames-Lewis, Tuscan Marble Carving 1250-1350. Sculpture and Civic Pride. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997, p. 56
  • Gert Kreytenberg, 'Tre contributi all'opera di Tino di Camaino', Dialoghi di Storia dell'Arte 4-5 (1997): 132-143, p. 142 (note 13)
  • Anita Fiderer Moskowitz, Italian Gothic Sculpture c. 1250 - c. 1400. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 112
  • Francesca Baldelli, Tino di Camaino. Morbio Inferiore: Selective Art, 2007, pp. 175, 175-85 (note 18), 207, 208 (figs 226 and 227), 209, 407 (cat. no 19)
Collection
Accession number
7567-1861

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Record createdDecember 15, 1999
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