Exceptional pair of carved, polychromed and gilded poplar wood torch bearing angels. Tuscany, Sienna. Italy. Circa ...

Exceptional pair of carved, polychromed and gilded poplar wood torch bearing angels. Tuscany, Sienna. Italy. Circa 1370-1400.
With a stylised silhouette, each angel holds a candle in its hand, one in the right and the other in the left hand. With beautiful, oval faces and a youthful expression, almond-shaped eyes and fleshy lips. Their hair is pulled back with a diadem, from which locks escape which form a crown at their temples.
They wear a long dress with a rounded neckline and a high, cinched waist, from which it falls, forming light and elegant drapery of great fluidity, to the floor, leaving the points of the shoes visible. The decoration of the dresses is very rich, sprinkled with a pattern of flowery angles enriched with punched decoration. They have large, extended wings fixed to their backs.
Total Heights: 118 cm and 110 cm.
Provenance: Former Guinigi family and Petrucci family collection, Sienna, Italy.
These are marvellous examples of the birth of the renaissance in the Sienna School. These two angels were part of a procession which surrounded a chapel in a private Tuscan palace.
The hieraticism, the sweetness of the faces, as well as the fleurons on the dresses, are all similar to the Annunciation at the church of Saint Mary of the Assumption, not far from Lucca, the only sculpture that is known for certain to be made by Piero d'Angelo, father of Jacopo della Quercia.
This sculptural group is part of the Neo-Pisan current which prevailed in the art in Sienna in the late 14th century. Later, the great masters such as his son Jacopo (1374-circa 1438), Francesco di Valdambrino (circa 1375-1435) or even Domenico di Niccolò dei Cori (circa 1363-1450 / 53) accentuated the elegance of the sihouette and great fluidity of the drapery even more than in this particularly elegant imagery.
The marvellous polychroming of the faces is outstanding, full of soft nuances, also the gilded reflections which are preserved in the hair, the decoration of the dresses and their trimmings.
Bibliography: Scultura Lignea a Lucca 1200-1425, National Museum of Villa Guinigui, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi, cat. C. Baracchini, 1995, Florence, pp.138-142; Exhibition Paris 2014, Le printemps de la Renaissance - La sculpture et les arts à Florence 1400-1460, musée du Louvre, cat. M. Bormand and B. Paolozzi Strozzi.