Saint Louis of Toulouse and Saint Clara

Lippo d'Andrea's Saint Louis of Toulouse and Saint Clara, dated around 1425 and now in the Yale University Art Gallery, is a panel from a polyptych by a minor Florentine painter working in the late Gothic tradition. The pairing of Louis of Toulouse — the Franciscan bishop who renounced his claim to the throne of Naples to become a friar — and Saint Clara of Assisi, the founder of the Poor Clares — creates a specifically Franciscan devotional panel. Lippo d'Andrea worked in the circle of Lorenzo di Niccolò and represents the conservative Florentine Gothic tradition that continued to produce devotional panels for Franciscan institutions even as the Renaissance was transforming public art in the city.

Lippo d'Andrea employs a gold ground with the standard Florentine Gothic figure style: warm flesh tones, clearly legible attributes, and robes with decorative Gothic drapery folds. Louis in his bishop's vestments and Franciscan habit contrasts with Clara in the habit of the Poor Clares. The figures are rendered with clear devotional legibility.