Fra Angelico: 7 works

'Fra Angelico received numerous commissions from the Dominican Order in Florence, of which he himself was a member. He also had clients among the Italian elite and was summoned to Rome by Pope Eugene IV in order to decorate a chapel in the Vatican.'

'The subject of the picture is taken from the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, which relates how Saint James the Greater ordered the Christian convert Philetus to free the repentant magician Hermogenes, who had been bound by the very devils he sent to vanquish Saint James.'

'The Dominican monk Fra Angelico, whose clerical name means "Angelic Brother," was among the first to adopt Masaccio's innovative naturalism. Though he still employed a gold background, Fra Angelico used shading to model plausible figures in the round.'

'Leading scholars have attributed both the Budapest-ex Bartolini Salimbeni and the Uffizi versions to the young Dominican friar known as Fra Angelico.'

'With a style between Gothic and Renaissance, Beato Angelico depicts the moment when Christ adorns the Virgin's regal crown with a gem.'

'That allowed him to develop his own personal style: remarkably realistic, with big forms and a rather sweet quality derived from the older painting traditions of Siena and Florence.'

'A 1492 inventory of Lorenzo de' Medici's estate possibly identifies this picture as the most valuable in the collection of the powerful Florentine family, and attributes it to Fra Angelico. The Adoration of the Magi actually appears to be the product of two artists; Fra Angelico may only have started the altarpiece, the greatest part of the work having been taken up by Fra Filippo Lippi.'