DOMENICO DI NICCOLÒ - b. ~1363 Siena, d. ~1453 Siena

Domenico di Niccol� dei Cori, Italian sculptor, designer, and architect. He is known primarily for the large number of carved and polychrome wood statuettes of the Virgin, Virgin and Child, Christ and saints that he produced throughout his career for churches in and around Siena.

The works attributed to his early career (c. 1395-1400) are characterized by broad, architectonic forms, suggestive of Nicola Pisano; however, such elements were superseded c. 1414 by an elegance of gesture and expressive drama that marked the beginnings of Domenico’s mature Gothicizing style. His rekindling of the Gothic spirit is strongly evident in the Mourning Virgin and the Mourning St John executed for Siena Cathedral (1414-15). These ‘ Dolenti’ reveal a new emotionalism and suggest a direct rapport with Sienese painting of the early 15th century.

Around the same time Domenico executed intarsia choir-stalls for the new chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (1415-28). His exceptional skill in this intricate and complex art form brought him high praise and the appellation ‘dei cori’. The abstract, calligraphic quality of the intarsia is pronounced, and their sophisticated expressiveness is comparable to that of the ‘Dolenti’.

The Risen Christ (1442) made for the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala (Collection Chigi-Saracini, Siena) is one of his last known works and perhaps his most powerful. From at least 1394 Domenico was employed in various capacities by the Opera del Duomo in Siena; in 1402 he became a master of the cathedral’s fabric and in 1413 was promoted to capomaestro.