FRANCESCA PAINTING NOW ON EXHIBITION IN FOGG MUSEUM

The Fogg Art Museum has again received from an anonymous lender in New York an important 15th century oil and tempera painting, attributed by Bernhard Berenson '87 to Pietro Dei France chi, called Piero Della Frances. The picture comes from the collection of the Colonna family in Rome, and was formerly in that of the Doria family in Milan. It is now exhibited at the Museum for the second time.

Piero Delia Francesca, who was born about 1406 at Borge San Sepulcro, city situated between Arezzo and Urbino and who died in 1492, was one of the leaders of the Umbrian school. Pierro, besides being an artist of distinction, has a great reputation as a mathematician. In 1439 he was apprenticed to Domenic Veneziano, and assisted him in painting the chapel of Sant Egidio in Santa Mari Novella, Florence. He was engaged in painting a fresco in Rimini in 1451. His most important series of frescoes are those in the choir of San Francesco, in Arezzo, depicting the history of the Cross.

The picture now in the Fogg Art Museum is extremely beautiful in color. Mr. Berenson believes that it bears favorable comparison with the famous Arezzo frescoes, and of the color he said, he should be at a loss to point to any other. Italian work that is of a color at once so powerful and yet neither warm nor cold, but fused in a manner soft as harmonious."

The picture will be on exhibition at the Fogg Museum for about a week.