The Met's big exhibit for the fall was its Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 show, featuring a one-time assemblage the surviving back-side predella paintings of Duccio's Maesta masterpiece. As member and guest we got to do an early viewing, October 12th, before the riff-raff got in. The show requires a few background notes. 1) The title is fairly misleading: people rose to painting before Medieval Siena...some did it in caves 35,000 years ago...Greeks did it, Romans did it, even Byzantines did it (let's do it, "let's fall in love") ...plenty of painting was going on in Italy 1300-1350 outside Siena, e.g., Giotto, who surpassed Duccio and Siena in every important way. 2) Thus, it can be assumed a major point of the exhibit is to again defend the Met's 2004 acquisition of Duccio's Stoclet Madonna, an 8.3"x11" tempera/gold on panel painting, typical of International Gothic, purchased for $45MM. 3) The achievement of the exhibit is the rounding-up from various museums of the surviving back-side bits of the Maesta's predella, which had been cut up and dispersed diversely five centuries ago. A predella is common in early altarpieces, presenting miniature scenes from the life of whatever god or demi-god is being glorified. Altarpieces commonly have front and back sides, the front being the main thing and the back, often in grisaille, folding over it when the front is not on display. The Maesta itself is of course still in Siena, not likely to leave, and the frontal bits and pieces of the predella are still at large. There is plenty more to the exhibit, interesting if you're really into the antecedents of early Italian Renaissance art. I'll present mostly the Duccio predella items and a few samples of the Lorenzettis and Martinis. Especially the Martinis. There's also a Margarita for those interested.
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| Drum roll, please... |
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| Ta-da... |
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| The Stoclet Madonna; first thing you see upon entering the exhibit |
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| Official story; takes a lot of donors to raise that much money; according to my calculations, the Stoclet Madonna is the most valuable painting, per square inch, ever purchased, that is, $492,880/square inch; imagine what a Rothko or Cy Twombley would fetch at that rate...the whole thing an instance, if you ask me, of museum FOMO |
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| Representation of The Maesta, front and back, noting the front and back predellas (lower bits) as they originally appeared, way back when, in 1300; study caefully: will be on the quiz; the Maesta was intended to be the altarpiece for Siena's cathedral, which was planned to be the largest in the Christian world; Siena was blowin' and goin' in those days... until 1348...the plans for the super-cathedral were never realized |
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| My 2011 photo of The Maesta, clandestinely shot in the museum of the Siena cathedral; note lack of (front) predella; the back side of the Maesta is rarely if ever displayed |
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| Two items from the front predella, an Annunciation, from the National Gallery of Art, London |
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| And a Nativity, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| And now, the Met's reconstruction of the back-side predella, all in a row; first, Christ's Temptation on the Temple, from the City of Siena |
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| Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, Frick, NYC |
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| The Calling of Peter and Andrew, National Gallery, Washington |
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| Wedding at Cana, City of Siena |
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| Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Healing of the Man Born Blind, National Gallery, London |
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| Transfiguration, National Gallery, London |
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| Raising of Lazarus, Kimball, Ft. Worth ("Foat Wuth, Ah Luv Ewe") |
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| All in a row |
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| Moving right along, some of the wooden sculpture being done in Siena, Gano di Fazio, early 14th; Musei di Maritime |
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| Simone Martini, Palazzo Pubblica Altarpiece, early 14th |
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| A textile piece, St. Margarita Bonking a Devil, early 14th |
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| Pietro Lorenzetti, Christ before Pilate (Vatican Museum) and Crucifixion (Met), the generation following Duccio...definitely beginning to look more like Renaissance work |
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| Martini, Virgin and Child with Four Saints and a Dominican Nun, 1325, Isabella Stewart Granger Museum, Boston; progress, such as it is, is rarely in a straight line...it would be another century and a half before the Byzantine/International Gothic "golden halo" types fell out of fashion; witness, e.g., Fra Angelica, mid-15th, who was a master of both styles...IMHO |
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| Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Annunciation, 1344 |
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| Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Stories from the Life of Saint Nicholas, 1330s; nothing at all about the elves or Rudolf the Red-Nosed... |
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| Ditto; these four paintings from the Uffizi; Ambrogio did his work mostly in Florence, not Siena |
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| Artsy-fartsy out-take by yours truly, documenting God's approval of the exhibit; or possibly suggesting that whoever thought it up should be crucified |
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| With nearly everything in the exhibit coming from some place else, there is ample opportunity to look at some of the historic registration labels on the backs of the paintings |
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| Duccio, Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea and Assorted Prophets and Patriarchs, 1312, National Gallery, London |
