Relief, Angel holding a curtain, carved marble, attributed to Tino di Camaino, Tuscany, ca. 1320

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.

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.

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.

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.

7567-1861