A Group of Four Poor Clares (1320s) by Ambrogio LorenzettiThe National Gallery, London
Not all the works in the Gallery are paintings made on canvas or wooden panels. This painting, ‘Four Poor Clares’, painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti the 1320s, is an example of a work created using a medium we might not initially expect to see in the Gallery.
'Four Poor Clares' is actually a fragment of a fresco.
Fresco is a type of wall painting. The term comes from the Italian word for fresh because plaster is applied to the walls while still wet.
There are two methods of carrying out fresco painting: buon fresco and fresco a secco. For both methods layers of fine plaster are spread over the wall surface.
The penultimate layer is called the arriccio, where the design for a composition is drawn or painted. The final layer of very smooth plaster is called the intonaco.
In buon fresco the paint is applied to wet intonaco, and only as much plaster as can be painted in one day is spread on the wall (known as a giornata).
Lorenzetti's 'Four Poor Clares' is painted a secco. In this technicque, the paint is applied to dry plaster, either on top of the buon fresco, which has dried, or on a dry intonaco.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti was from Siena and was well known for his frescos.
His work decorates significant institutions in Siena, including the Palazzo Pubblico (the town hall) which contains Lorenzetti's best-known work, titled 'The Allegory of Good and Bad Government'.
Tap to explore
Tap to explore
A Group of Four Poor Clares (1320s) by Ambrogio LorenzettiThe National Gallery, London
Sometime after it was painted in the 1320s, 'Four Poor Clares' was actually covered over with a layer of whitewash. The fresco was later rediscovered beneath this whitewash in 1855. At this time, it was cut from the wall and was kept in the room of the church's caretaker.
When the caretaker decided to sell the fresco fragment in the 1870s there was intense competition from potential buyers.
This was partly because its attribution to Ambrogio Lorenzetti was so well documented, but also because fragments that could be hung in a Gallery were regarded as extremely precious.
In 1878 the fresco fragment was bought for the National Gallery.
Some of the colours in the fresco have now faded, but traces of brown paint remain in the tunics, identifying the nuns as belonging to the order of Poor Clares whose habit was brown.
The order of Poor Clares was founded by Saint Clare, a follower of Saint Francis of Assisi, in the thirteenth century. The nuns lived lives of poverty and penance and so were called ‘Poor Clares’.
We do not know exactly where this fragment came from in the chapter house, but it is thought that the women might be part of a larger scene that showed Saint Francis addressing his order and presenting them with the Rule by which they were to live.
A Group of Four Poor Clares (1320s) by Ambrogio LorenzettiThe National Gallery, London
Today this painting is the only work by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the National Gallery's collection, and it remains an incredible example of Lorenzetti's mastery of the fresco technique.
