Expressionist Master of Santa Chiara

In the right transept of the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Assisi, the church built to hold the body of Saint Clare, a set of damaged frescoes shows the Flight into Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents and the death and funeral of Clare herself. Their painter left no name. In 1904 the German art historian Henry Thode grouped them as the work of one hand, and in 1963 the Italian critic Roberto Longhi called that hand a bittersweet expressionist, which is where the label comes from.

He came out of Giotto's workshop at Assisi, and his hand has been traced in the chapel of Saint Nicholas in the Lower Basilica of San Francesco, painted before 1306. Since 1977 some scholars have identified him with Palmerino di Guido, a painter documented alongside Giotto at Assisi in 1309, though the identification is not settled. The Louvre holds two small panels by him, the wings of a diptych with the Crucifixion and the Virgin enthroned.