Page 251 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

formed the upright back of a piece of furniture, meo di Giovanni Corradini), who died in 1484. architecture in both panels shares a strong affinity
such as a richly decorated bench, couch, or bed. The Urbino and Walters panels have much in with the style and archaeological impulses of Giu-
Stylistically it is very close to the Urbino intarsia common. The raised and ragged lips of paint liano da Sangallo, an affinity that suggests a date
door panels, particularly with respect to the insis- around the Urbino panel indicates that it was no earlier than 1490 and an origin in Florence.
tent orthogonals of the dark bands of tiles in the removed from an item of furnishing, where it Zeri's reading of the incomplete date "149." on
piazza and the depiction of ships in the distant would have been set within an integral frame. The the tablet on the top of the right-hand palace in
seascape. Nothing in the architecture requires a filled and painted-in upper and lower borders of the Urbino panel would exclude an attribution to
later date for this panel than 1480, and it may be the Walters panel, which has been trimmed lat- Fra Carnevale and also rule out the persistent
the best of all the candidates for attribution to the erally, indicate a similar original setting, as do the association of the panel with Piero della Fran-
shadowy architect-painter Fra Carnevale (Bartolo- nail holes in its right margin. The classicizing cesca. This tablet also contains traces of a hybrid

250 CIRCA 1492