Beschreibung:

A pair of "tavolette" wooden book covers, 380 x 280 mm each, tempera and gilt on carved wood, with remnants of calf binding, painted roughly in the manner of Giovanni di Paolo, both covers gilt and with framed panels carved and set with gilt floral and foliate decoration over a painted black field, gilt wooden bosses carved in relief at each corner, brass clasps partially present, upper cover with painting depicting Archangel Michael with spear in one hand slaying a dragon at his feet, a set of scales in the other hand, the lower cover with 12 painted armorial shelds carved in relief, above and surrounding the gilt-lettered legend: "Inventario de le cose de la sacrestia del duomo e del altre cose mobili del uopara rifatto la sico[n]da volta al tempo di missere Giovanni di Paolo hoparaio di Siena di dicie[m]b[re] 1446," [late 19th century], several repaired cracks, paint somewhat rubbed, one shield with several scratches excising image, but very good, set in velvet matte and framed. Icilio Federico Joni called the "prince" of Siennese forgers, had read of the Siennese "tavolette" covers used in the 13th through 17th centuries and decorated by such artists as Renaissance master Giovanni di Paolo, but he had never actually seen them before he began to re-create them. Joni was proud of his work and even wrote an autobiography in 1936 about his efforts at recreation, though he never passed his painted covers off as originals. Some unscrupulous dealers were not so circumspect and they were occasionally offered as Renaissance originals in the late nineteenth/ early twentieth century. Provenance: Arthur Tooth & Sons with his dealer label pasted to verso of frame, dated September 8th, 1884. See illustration.