Giovanni di Corraduccio

Archival documents place Giovanni di Corraduccio's career between 1404 and 1437, working chiefly in and around Foligno, in Umbria. No birth date survives, and the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani notes only that he was probably a native of Foligno. Art historians, following Pietro Scarpellini, place his early training hypothetically in the circle of the Maestro della Dormitio di Terni, a leading Spoleto area painter of the late fourteenth century, based on the archaizing style of his surfaces rather than any surviving apprenticeship record.

Documentary evidence for his career begins in 1404, though the specific commission behind that earliest record is not detailed in accessible primary sources; some accounts suggest he may also have worked in Assisi and Spoleto, but this rests on attribution rather than documentation. His most securely dated surviving commission is a fresco cycle, now deteriorated, for the Chapel of Santa Croce in San Venanzio, the Duomo of Fabriano, executed in 1415 and 1416. Frescoes at Palazzo Trinci in Foligno and at Santa Maria di Pietrarossa in Trevi are attributed to him on stylistic grounds. His name appears for the last time in a document dated 29 June 1437. Three years later his son Pietro signed a workshop rental contract alone, which scholars, including Scarpellini, take as circumstantial evidence that Giovanni died around 1437, most likely in the Foligno area, though no death record has been located. A separate, less authoritative source gives birth and death years of 1370 to 1440, but this conflicts with the archival evidence behind the Treccani entry and should be treated with caution.

Scholarship on Giovanni di Corraduccio is specialist and largely Italian language, anchored by Pietro Scarpellini's 1976 monograph and photographic exhibition catalogue and by the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani entry that synthesizes the archival record. His 2024 auction record renewed attention to his oeuvre, and the art historian Andrea De Marchi has dated the record triptych to around 1415. No verbatim assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for this profile, so none is quoted here.

Giovanni di Corraduccio's market is exceptionally thin, consistent with a documented but non celebrity painter of the early Italian Gothic period. His auction record is a large gold ground triptych, "The Virgin and Child enthroned, with Saints and Scenes from the Lives of the Virgin and Saint Clare," which sold at Sotheby's London on 3 July 2024 for GBP 348,000 (approximately EUR 411,000). The buyer was the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Foligno, which displays the triptych in the former church of Santissima Annunziata in Foligno. The panel's documented provenance includes an earlier sale at the American Art Association, New York, 31 March to 2 April 1927 (lot 377), where it sold for USD 1,600, catalogued at the time generically as Umbro-Sienese, fourteenth century. There is no gallery or estate representation for the artist.

Because no catalogue raisonne exists, attribution rests on archival documents from 1404 to 1437 and on connoisseurship, most recently Andrea De Marchi's dating of the 2024 record sale. The auction history is essentially one panel that has traded twice over nearly a century, which means the current record price reflects a single, well documented transaction rather than a broad market. Collectors should weigh provenance and documentation as heavily as any price signal, and should expect very low liquidity for this artist.