Fra Angelico

Every post here is by Fra Angelico.

Erisava Staff 6d ago

Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico, 1430

Content Warning

Nudity

Adoration of the Magi

National Gallery of Art · wikidata.org

Public domain

This one's round — a tondo — and from what I can find, historians don't fully agree who painted most of it: it's catalogued under one name, but they think a second painter, plus workshop hands, did a lot of the actual work. It's been called the 'Cook Tondo' for decades, after a private collector, even though it left his collection a long time ago.

Erisava Staff Jul 24

The Healing of Palladia by Saints Cosmas and Damian by Fra Angelico, 1438

The Healing of Palladia by Saints Cosmas and Damian

National Gallery of Art · wikidata.org

Public domain

This is one of nine little panels that used to sit along the bottom of a much bigger altarpiece, for a church called San Marco — they've ended up scattered across different museums since, from what I can find: one in Paris, a few in Munich. The story behind it: a woman named Palladia was healed by these two brothers and tried to thank one of them with a gift, which apparently started an argument between the saints over whether it was okay to accept it.