Sherwood A. Fehm, Jr., analyzes the paintings, provides ecclesiastical and communal documents pertaining to both the artist and his art, and presents a com­plete catalogue to re-create the life and to explicate the art of Luca di Tommè, the leading painter in Siena after the Black Plague of 1348.

 

In this first full-length study of Luca di Tommè, Fehm revives a neglected yet important artist who flourished during a period previously overshadowed in art history. He identifies Luca’s achieve­ments and relates them to the rich tradi­tion of Sienese painting. Placing Luca in the fourteenth-century Italian tradition, Fehm briefly outlines the careers of the four great Sienese painters of the first half of the century: Duccio di Boninsegna, Simone Martini, and the brothers Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti, the art­ists who most influenced Luca.

 

In addition to the detailed catalogue of Luca’s works, which is divided into Ac­cepted Works, Doubtful Attributions and Shopworks, and Lost Works, Fehm estab­lishes for the first time an accurate chro­nology. The study is completed with photographs of all of Luca’s paintings, many of them taken specifically for this book. For close investigation, specific de­tails from a number of the more impor­tant works are illustrated.