This portable triptych is typical of those produced in Baldassarre degli Embriachi’s workshop c. 1410–20, on the basis of standard models designed by the Florentine sculptor Giovanni di Jacopo, which also included painted decoration (Tomasi 2010, p.82). Triptychs with two registers usually consisted of five plaquettes in the central segment and two in the side leaves. The triptychs were modular in construction and their panels with ivory listels were generally chosen by the customer (Tomasi 2010, p. 93). In the Pinacoteca di Faenza triptych, the Baptism of Christ in the central segment is not replicated in any of the workshop’s other portable polyptychs (Tambini 2007, p. 33), but the other subjects depicted are frequently repeated and are typical of serial production. The four saints in the side leaves may be identified as St. James the Greater, St. Anthony the Abbot, St. Michael the Archangel and a Sainted Deacon, probably St. Stephen, although Casadei (1991, p. 35) interprets the figure as St. Anthony of Padua. Elena Merlini (1991, pp. 54-55) has pointed out that the Faenza triptych is close in style to the caskets from the Certosa di Pavia now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art di New York (inv. no. 17.190.490).
The Florentine portable altar came to the Pinacoteca from the church in the Capuchin friars’ convent of Santa Cristina in Faenza in 1867 following the dissolution of religious houses after the Unification of Italy (Donato 1956, p. 184). It is interesting to note that the church in question was not built until after 1571, when Cardinal Girolamo Rusticucci donated five tornature (an old unit of area, equal to roughly 300 mt2.) of land for the construction of the convent (ibid., p. 121), so the triptych’s original destination remains unknown. Having said that, its clear function as an item intended for private devotion and its exquisite quality argue in favour of it having been the property of a noble family either from Faenza or some other city. The fact that the triptych flares at the bottom tells us that it must have stood on a flat surface of some kind (Tomasi 2007, p. 169).
The triptych’s moveable leaves probably served two purposes, making the portable altar both stronger and easier to carry from place to place. The triptych remained shut when it was not being used for adoration or prayer, whence the need to decorate the outside of the leaves, the subject being chosen by the customer. Tomasi (2007, p. 169) has identified three types of painted decoration commissioned by the Embriachi workshop for its portable triptychs: a plain layer of indigo paint applied using a pigment with a water-based binding agent, but without a primer layer; angels in prayer; and a monochrome anthropomorphised sunburst.
Portable altars with two facing angels similar to the Faenza triptychs are to be found in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (inv. no. 71.98), in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence (inv. no. 5A), in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid (inv. no. 52108), in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. no. 8024), in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin (inv. no. F2403) and in the Duke Museum of Art in Durham (inv. no. 1966.29, although the Durham and Berlin triptychs have only one register).
The decoration of the Faenza piece is very probably based on that of a Venetian triptych made in the 1360s now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (inv. no. 143-1866), with traces on the exterior of the leaves of two angels, which were probably made of metal or ivory but which are now lost (Tomas 2010, p. 78). Not all the angels painted on the Embriachi workshop’s portable triptychs can be attributed to the same hand; in fact, they were probably painted by different artists from the same Florentine workshop (ibid., p. 81). Basing her supposition on a comparison with the angels on a triptych in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples, Anna Tambini (2007, p. 37, fig. 9) has suggested attributing the Faenza angels to the Master of Montefloscoli. Yet recent study has tended to favour the name of Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, whose manner – particularly in the 1410s, when Lorenzo Monaco and Lorenzo Ghiberti were his chief sources of inspiration – appears to be closer to the style of the Faenza angels (Elisa Camporeale and Andrea De Marchi, verbal communication in Tomasi 2007, p. 177, note 23). Thus, the painted decoration on the Faenza triptych may very possibly be by the hand of an artist working in Rossello di Jacopo Franchi’s workshop. This also tends to bear out the hypothesis (Tomasi 2007, p. 173) that Baldassarre degli Embriachi continued to be in contact with Florentine painters, occasionally calling on their services, even after he had moved to Venice.
