LIPPO DI BENIVIENI
Italian painter. The earliest documentary reference to the artist records the apprenticeship of a certain Nerio di Binduccio to him in 1296, which suggests that Lippo was an established figure by this date. He is further recorded as a member of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in Florence from 1312 to 1320. No documented works by him are known. The documented dates make Lippo a contemporary of Giotto, but the works attributed to him show a much stronger response to Sienese rather than Florentine painting, particularly that of the followers of Duccio.
The large dossal of a Lamentation (Museo Civico, Pistoia), with its intense characterization and emotional impact, is probably the artist’s finest work and shows him to have been one of the most original Florentine painters of his time. Other attributions to Lippo are still debated but should surely include the portable altar in Memphis (Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis).