Art Eyewitness Review: Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art

 October 13, 2024 to January 26, 2025

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art may be surprised to learn the identity of the most expensive art work ever purchased by The Met. It was not a landscape by Van Gogh or – as I thought - the portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velasquez.

Back in 2004, The Met paid $45 million for a painting “no bigger than a sheet of typing paper.” That was how, in the lead paragraph of its article, the New York Times reported the purchase of a late-medieval Madonna and Child created in the Italian city-state of Siena,.

The Times’ description of Madonna and Child was a case of being accurate to a fault. Yes, the painting is modest in its measurements, but masterpieces are not determined by size. Moreover, the Met’s acquisition was a work by one of the great innovators of art history, Duccio di Buoninsegna.

                                          

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Duccio's Madonna and Child, 1290-1300

                                                                                     

Twenty years later, Duccio's Madonna and Child is a “keystone” work in a brilliant exhibition at The Met, Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350. Over a hundred works of art are on view, opening the gates - and our eyes - to the paradise-like realm that was the Bel Commune or Republic of Siena located in Tuscany.

Of these exhibited works, an astonishing number were created by Duccio or the handful of other Sienese masters who made the first half of the 1300's, Siena's golden age. Others, by little known or mysterious, yet to be identified,  artists testify to the influence of Duccio or of Pietro Lorenzetti on the art and culture of their times.

   Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Goro di Gregorio's sculpture of the Enthroned Virgin

An especially notable member of the supporting cast of Siena: the Rise of Painting is Enthroned Virgin by Goro di Gregorio. The curators believe that this rare work of art - the only surviving terracotta sculpture from Italy during the early 1300's - was created as a working model for a goldsmith's commission to make an altapiece.

This is very likely to be the correct explanation of the Enthroned Virgin's function. Goro di Gregorio was both an accomplished goldsmith as well as the leading sculptor of Siena during this era.

Yet, it should be noted that the basic pose of Enthroned Virgin closely follows that of The Met's Madonna and Child. It lacks the figure of the Christ Child, an important detail for a  finished devotional statue. But the right hand of the Virgin is missing and the left badly damaged. Might a separate Christ Child have been modeled and kiln-fired to be placed in the Virgin Mary's now missing hands? If so, this beautiful statue may well be a three-dimensional version of The Met's $45 million "typing paper" masterpiece.

Siena: the Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 is a joint endeavor of The Met with the National Gallery in London. The curators of the exhibition - Joanna Cannon, Caroline Campbell, Stephen Wolohojian, Imogen Tedbury and Laura Llewellyn - have combined their efforts to assemble an array of top-tier works of religious art from the fourteenth century, the trecento as it is called in Italy.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

Duccio di Buoninsegna’s The Virgin & Child with Saints Dominic & Aurea

Here, the use of the term “iconic” is accurate.        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

        Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Gallery view of Siena: the Rise of Painting,

    The Chalice of Peter of Sassoferrato in the foreground       

The galleries of Siena: the Rise of Painting are so richly endowed with masterpieces that Duccio’s “small wonder” almost gets lost in their company. 

Almost. 

Duccio, along with his younger contemporary from Florence, Giotto di Bondone (c.1267-1337), was the founder of Western painting as it has developed since the Middle Ages. This was the moment of the rise of painting – characterized by professional artists whose works were signed or otherwise documented - alluded to in the exhibition title.

This pivotal moment in the story of human creativity is immortalized by the proud inscription on one of the exhibition's truly "signature" works:

"Petrus pictor, quondam Lorenzetti qui fuit de Senis” (“The painter Pietro del fu Lorenzetti who was from Siena”)

There are no paintings by Giotto in the Met’s exhibition. But direct comparison of the works of Duccio and Giotto is possible. The Met is one of the select group of U.S. museums with at least one painting by each of these masters in its collection.

 On view in Gallery 601 at the Met is Giotto's The Adoration of the Magi, painted around 1320. It is a small masterpiece, too, but in theme and style it is very much in the spirit of Giotto's famous narrative scenes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua.

     Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Giotto's Adoration of the Magi at The Met        

Giorgio Vasari, writing in the late 1500’s, gave the lion’s share of credit to Giotto for pioneering “the great art of painting as we know it today …” 

Many modern historians, while acknowledging that Vasari was biased in favor of fellow artists from Florence, have followed his lead. Works by artists from Sienalike Simone Martini's Virgin and Child with Four Saints and a Dominican Nun are held to illustrate the prevailing "medievalism" of Siena in contrast to the bold explorations of pictrial space by their rivals in Florence.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Simone Martini's Virgin and Child with Four Saints & a Dominican Nun

A pilgrimage to The Met’s Gallery 999, where Siena: the Rise of Painting is on view, hopefully will lead many art lovers to take a second look at Siena's role in the “rise of painting.” Wisely, the exhibition curators do not belabor the issue of Siena vs. Florence. There were multiple paths to the Renaissance and the road leading from Siena was an important one indeed.

If Duccio led the way, other Sienese artists of genius followed in quick succession. Siena: the Rise of Painting focuses on four major artists who formed a dynasty of achievement which would not be equaled until a century later in Florence during the era of Donatello. 

Ed Voves, Photos (2024)

 A collage of paintings from Siena,(clockwise from top left)

 Duccio, Simone Martini, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Pietro Lorenzetti

The Siena quartet - Duccio, Simone Martini, Pietro Lorenzetti and his brother, Ambrogio Lorenzetti - contributed strokes of technical mastery to the development of painting that established its primacy in the Western canon of art.

The Met exhibition reveals contributions by Siena's "big four" to innovations usually credited to Florence in the 1400's: fresco painting and one point (or vanishing point) perspective.

Among the rarest works on view in Siena: the Rise of Painting are two sinopia designs for fresco paintings of the Annunciation. These, dating to the mid-1330's, were created by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (active 1319–47). 

Sinopia was the red-brown highlight color brushed on to the wet plaster base to delineate the underlying composition of the picture. This would then be painted with colored pigments before the plaster could harden. Ambrogio's designs were over-painted later by a less accomplished hand. During modern-day restoration, his sinopia designs were rediscovered and preserved.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Angel Gabriel and the Annunciate Virgin,

sinopia on plaster for frescoes, c. 1334-36

 Normally, a fresco would be based on a single design (as imagined above)  not separated into two components. But Ambrogio created a pair of designs because they would be placed on either side of a chapel window. Sunlight, beaming down between the images of the Angel Gabriel and Mary into the church interior, would symbolize the glow of divine light associated with the incarnation and birth of the Messiah.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti reused this Annunciation design for his last signed painting, dating to 1344. He chose a square format, very unusual for the 1300's but much favored by later painters.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Annunciation, 1344

This tremendous work of art was graced with all the technical skill that Ambrogio could muster. This is especially notable in the way he treated the floor under Gabriel's and Mary's feet. The black and white tiles appear to diminish in size as they recede into the background.

Here we see one of the first, perhaps the very first, demonstrations of linear, one-point, perspective. Here, in Siena, the Italian Renaissance may be said to have begun.

Ironically, the great breakthrough in art which led to the "rise" of painting in Siena resulted from a masterpiece of sculpture. This was a monumental pulpit carved in marble by Nicola Pisano between 1265-1268. Narrative scenes from the New Testament adorned the sides of this pulpit, made for the cathedral of Siena. 

Sculpting in a deep, almost three-dimensional, relief, Pisano brought the sacred history of Christianity to life. His pulpit also revealed the potential of narrative depiction in other genres of art. One young artist from Siena artist evidently was very inspired: Duccio di Buoninsegna.

Little is known of Duccio's early life until 1285 when he painted the Ruccelai Madonna for a church in Florence. This powerful work was greatly influenced by Byzantine icons.The art of the Christian East would continue to influence Duccio, but when he was commissioned to paint a massive altarpiece for Siena's cathedral, he embellished it with narrative scenes drawn from Pisano's pulpit.

 

 The Nativity scene from Nicola Pisano's pulpit for the Siena Cathedral

 compared to Duccio's later version on the Maestà Altarpiece

Duccio's moment of triumph came on June 9, 1311 when the huge altarpiece was installed in Siena Cathedral to great acclaim. Today, it is very difficult to grasp the revolutionary impact of Duccio's Maestà because of the shocking mistreatment it has received over the centuries.

Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Maestà  (1311), as it appears today

When Duccio's Maestà was first exhibited, its height approached sixteen feet, with the central image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child measuring fourteen feet. Many of the heavenly host of saints and angels surrounding Mary were rendered "life-sized" in human terms. 

Back in 1311, the Maestà was a considerably bigger, double-sided painting. Two bands of narrative paintings, called predella panels, were positioned at the bottom of the work, one on each side, front and back. These predella pictures depict incidents in the life of Jesus or his mother, Mary.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Predella paintings from the Maestà: The Nativity with Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel (front predella panels); The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew and The Wedding at Cana (back)

Above the Maestà's back predella sequence, forty more paintings of episodes from the life of Christ were displayed, chiefly for the spiritual edification of the clergy.  

Over the centuries, the Maestà lost its commanding position on the altar of Siena's cathedral. As artistic styles and popular tastes changed, the Maestà lost its place in the hearts of the city's people, as well. 

In 1506, the Maestà was taken down from the altar. Two hundred years later, it was treated with what amounts to an act of sacrilege. The huge panel was sawn down its entire length, separating the back from front. As illustrated above, the central part of the front was preserved, but the narrative predella panels below it were removed. All the scenes of Christ's life on the back were removed. Some of these were kept in Siena. Others, along with predella paintings, were sold or lost.

By the mid-1800's, the extent of this tragedy was realized. Scholars and collectors searched out the widely-separated panel paintings and a number returned to Siena. British and American collectors, some of whom possessed great wealth like Henry Clay Frick, purchased those available on the art market. Several of these were bequeathed to the National Gallery in London and to U.S. museums.The Met, the National Gallery in Washington and the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth each have one; the Frick Gallery has two.

Gallery view of Siena: the Rise of Painting, showing predella paintings from the Maestà. (Photo, the Metropolitian Museum of Art)

In an incredible feat of planning, organization and transport, two of the front predella paintings from the Maestà and all eight of the known back predella paintings have been reunited for the exhibition. (The ninth has long been missing.)

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Gallery view showing predella paintings from the Maestà. Visable in this photo are The Wedding at Cana and Christ and the Samaritan Woman 

With becoming modesty, the Siena: the Rise of Painting gallery caption notes that "this exhibition is the first time in centuries that the elements of the back predella can be seen together."

To stand before these predella paintings of episodes in the life of Jesus and see them as Duccio intended them to be seen, is truly a moment to be treasured.

Duccio, however, envisioned these separate scenes as parts of a whole sensory experience. His altarpiece, and later ones by Sienese artists, was intended to serve as a backdrop to the sacred rites of the Christian Mass and to help the members of the clergy and congregation to comprehend what was taking place during the Mass.

Might it still be possible to reassemble all of the surviving components of Duccio's masterpiece, if only for the length of this special exhibition?

Alas, no. It would have been absolutely impossible to bring the central panel of the Maestà with its fourteen-foot Madonna to New York and later to London to display in tandem with the predella paintings. But the curators have performed a second Coup de théâtre by securing the loan of a smaller, yet equally stunning, altarpiece.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Gallery view of Siena: the Rise of Painting, showing the Pieve Polyptych

      

In an act of unprecedented generosity, the Roman Catholic bishop of the city of Arezzo, Italy, has permitted the altarpiece known as the Pieve Polyptych to travel to The Met and, later, to the National Gallery in London for display in the exhibition. Arezzo, located in Tuscany to the east of Siena, was an important city-state like Siena during the 1300's.

The Pieve Polyptych is also known as the Tarlati Altarpiece. It is composed of several painted and gilded panels joined together to form an ornate altarpiece, still in use today. The overall structure of the Pieve Polyptych is similar to Duccio's Maestà and both were dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Detail of Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych, showing the Annunciation in the upper register and Mary's Assumption in the pinnacle, above

In 1320, the powerful archbishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati, commissioned Pietro Lorenzetti to paint an altarpiece bearing the images of the Infant Jesus, the Virgin Mary and various saints of special significance to the people of his city. Pietro Lorenzetti was the elder of two immensely talented brothers and is believed to have been a member of Duccio's team worked with him on the Maestà.

Vasari, who was born in Arezzo, wrote that the Pieve Polyptych had a band of predella paintings at its base like the Maestà. Unfortunately, Vasari did not specify if these predella paintings were narrative scenes or portraits of saints or church officials.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych (Tarlati Altarpiece), 1320

Even if the predella paintings of the Pieve Polyptych were narrative scenes, Lorrenzetti was clearly tasked to create a "portrait-driven" altarpiece for Bishop Tarlati, who wanted to emphasize the importance of Arezzo's patron saints. 

The portraits of the four saints who stand to the left and right of the Virgin Mary are imagined likenesses. Lorenzetti had no way of knowing what St. Donatus looked like back in the early days of Christianity nor did he have much awareness of historical details of clothing. He depicted St. Donatus in the garb of a contemporary bishop, which likely pleased Bishop Tarlati.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Detail of the Pieve Polyptych, showing the portrait of St. Donatus

Human Psychology was a different matter. Donatus is portrayed as a distinct person, an individual with his own thoughts and concerns. So too were the other three saints, especially St. John the Baptist. It is impossible to believe that Lorenzetti did not use actual persons to model for these striking portraits.

With the Virgin Mary, Lorenzetti had to adhere to a more traditional likeness, for Christian teaching maintains that the mother of Jesus was born without the taint of sin.Thus, she remains untouched by the blemishes and wrinkles to which everyone else, including saints like Donatus, are subject.

Never-the-less, Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych is a revolutionary work of art. A major turning point in Western culture had occurred. 

For nearly a thousand years, Christian art had identified saints by a code of symbolism. The keys of Saint Peter, for instance, provided instant recognition for the leader of the Apostles. Lorenzetti took a different approach. He conceived the heroes and heroines of Christianity as flesh and blood human beings, like the members of the congregation worshiping before the altar.

The true significance of this would not be fully apparent for a long time to come. Pietro Lorenzetti's portraits, however, were expressive and populist images, well-suited to Siena's democratic government and the social dynamism rising throughout Tuscany during the 1300's.

And then, first as rumor and then as terrifying fact, bubonic plague, the Black Death, struck Siena. Thousands died in the pestilence, including both of the Lorenzetti brothers. The half-century of Siena's noble aspirations and solid achievements, 1300-1350, was over.

This is the point in time where the Met's splendid exhibition ends - by necessity, abruptly. We will close this review in like fashion and for the same reason. 

Siena deserved a better, kinder fate. It deserves, too, a more just and accurate assessment in the pages of history, as well.

This is a task which the curators of Siena: the Rise of Painting have taken upon themselves to achieve. With skill, conviction and brilliant insight, they have gone far to "acknowledge and probe the achievement of Siena's trecento artists - in painting, sculpture and metalwork ..."

As the above quotation from the exhibition catalog affirms, the artistic achievement of Siena extended to other genres beyond painting. This last was, of course, the most important, which is why I have emphasized painting in this review to the exclusion of almost everything else. 

In a future, follow-up essay in Art Eyewitness, we will examine more - and more widely - of the fantastic array of treasures on view in Siena: the Rise of Painting.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                          

Original photography, copyright of Ed Voves

Introductory Image: Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Detail of Pietro  Lorenzetti’s Pieve Polyptych (the Tarlati Altarpiece). Measurements below.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Madonna and Child, 1290-1300.Tempera and gold on wood: 9 3/8 x 6 1/2 in.(23.8 x 16.5 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art #2004.442

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Goro di Gregorio's sculpture of the Enthroned  Virgin.Terracotta:  Overall: 17 5/8 x 10 x 9 1/2 in. (44.8 x 25.4 x 24.1 cm) Met Cloisters 1998.214

 Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Duccio di Buoninsegna’s The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea. Tempera and gold on panel: Framed: central panel 24 3/16 x 15 3/8 in.(61.5 x 39 cm); left wing 17 11/16 x 7 1/16 in.(45 x 18 cm); right wing 17 11/16 x 8 1/16 in.(45 x 20.5 cm) National Gallery, London.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of Siena: the Rise of Painting exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Chalice of Peter of Sassoferrato from the collection of The Met Cloisters Museum appears in the foreground.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gallery 601. Giotto's Adoration of the Magi appears in the foreground.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Simone Martini's Virgin and Child with Four Saints and a Dominican Nun. Tempera and gold leaf on panel: 11 3/16 × 7 15/16 in. (28.4 × 20.1 cm) Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Photo collage of paintings from Siena, 1300-1350: Duccio di Buoninsegna, The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain. Tempera & gold leaf on poplar panel: 17 × 18 1/8 in. (43.2 × 46 cm) Frick Collection; Simone Martini, Detail of Christ Discovered in the Temple. Tempera & gold leaf on panel.19 1/2 × 13 13/16 in. (49.5 × 35.1 cm) Walker Art Museum, Liverpool; Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Stories from the Life of Saint Nicholas. Tempera and gold leaf on panel: 37 13/16 × 20 7/8 × 2 3/16 in. (96 × 53 × 5.5cm) Uffizi; Pietro Lorenzetti, Silhouetted Cross.Tempera on panel: 57 7/8 × 35 15/16 in. (147 × 91.3 cm) Museo Diocesan no, Cortona

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Angel Gabriel and the Annunciate Virgin. Plaster sinopie for frescoes: 94 15/16 × 68 1/4 in. (241.1 × 173.4 cm)95 7/16 × 68 1/16 in. (242.4 × 172.8 cm) San Galgano a Montesiepi

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Annunciation, 1344. Tempera and gold on panel: 50 × 47 in.  (127 × 120 cm) Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena.

Comparitve study of the Nativity scene from Nicola Pisano pulpit for Siena Cathedral and nativity scene from Duccio's Maestà: (from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Pulpito_del_duomo_di_siena_06.JPG) and Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

Duccio di Buonisegna (Italian, 1255-1319) Maesta, 1308-1311. Tempera and gold on wood: 84 x 156 in. (213 x 396 cm.)  Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duccio_maesta1021.jpg

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery views of the Siena: the Rise of Painting exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, showing predella paintings from the Maestà:

Duccio di Buoninsegna, (Italian, active by1278–died 1318 Siena) The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel Tempera and gold leaf on single poplar panel Overall, including original frame, 18 7/8 × 343/16 × 3 1/8 in. (48 × 86.8 × 7.9 cm); painted surface: center image 16 15/16 x 17 5/16 in.(43 x 43.9 cm), left side image 16 15/16 x 65/15 in (43 x 16 cm), right side image 16 15/16x 6 5/16 in. (43 x 16 cm) National Gallery of Art; The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew. Tempera and gold leaf on panel: painted surface 16 13/16 x 1715/16 (42.7 x 45.5 cm) National Gallery of Art; The Wedding at Cana. Tempera and gold leaf on panel17 1/8 × 18 5/16 in. (43.5 × 46.5 cm) Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo

Eileen Travell, Photo (2024) Gallery view of Predella Paintings from Duccio's Maesta. © Metropolitan Museum

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych, 1320. Tempera and gold on panel Overall: 9 ft. 9 11/16 in. × 10 ft. 4 3/16 in. × 39/16 in. (299 × 315.5 × 9 cm) Center panel height: 10 ft. 4 3/16 in. (315.5cm) Flanking panels height: 94 1/2 in. (240 cm)

Margaret Anne Logan, Photo (2024) Gallery showing Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych, 1320.  Photo taken for Art Eyewitness.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Angel Gabriel and the Annunciate Virgin. Plaster sinopie for frescoes: 94 15/16 × 68 1/4 in. (241.1 × 173.4 cm)95 7/16 × 68 1/16 in. (242.4 × 172.8 cm) San Galgano a Montesiepi

Art Eyewitness Review: Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits in the Renaissance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits in the Renaissance 

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art
April 2, 2024 - July 7, 2024

Reviewed by Ed Voves

On June 9, 1311, the populace of the Italian city-state of Siena celebrated the installation of a magnificent altarpiece in the city’s cathedral. Trumpeters, pipers and a lone castanet player led a throng of citizens and clergy to see the dazzling new work of Christian art. 

Created by Duccio di Buonisegna, this altarpiece, known as the Maesta, is dominated by a towering, 14-foot high likeness of the Virgin Mary. Surrounding  Mary is a retinue of angels and saints, each depicted with reverence and discernment.Yet, there is a baffling omission among this heavenly host.

Except as a young child cradled on the lap of his mother, Jesus is nowhere to be seen!

Duccio di Buonsegna, Maesta (main alter panel), 1308-1311

Appearances are deceiving. The Maesta actually had numerous painted images of Jesus. But these were placed on wooden panels on the back of the altarpiece, blocked from the sight of the congregation.

Why the mystery? Why conceal scenes from the life of Jesus from devout Christians in one of the premier churches of Christendom?

The answer, for the Maesta and for many other Renaissance paintings, involves grasping a mindset fundamentally different from that of our times. Cultivating an air of mystery and mysticism, expressing issues and ideals through the agency of allegory, this is how the Renaissance mind dealt with matters, both sacred and profane.

   Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition at The Met

A brilliant new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits in the Renaissance, investigates the practice of creating works of art that were both inspiring and cryptic - by design.

Embellished with symbolism drawn from Christian scripture and Classical myths, these painted portraits were often mounted behind decorated covers and screens. 

 

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Cover with a Mask, Grotteschi,

 and Inscription, ca. 1510

One such portrait and cover, inhabited by mythical animals called grotteschi, was painted around 1510 by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. A cryptic message looms above the mask which the grotteschi defend.

Suo Cuique Persona. Taken from ancient Roman texts, the inscription reads "to each his own mask."

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Portrait of a Woman (La Monaca), ca. 1510

When the cover is lifted, the moment of revelation can be very disconcerting. In place of the grotteschi and the unnerving mask, we are confronted with the expressionless face of an unknown woman, possibly a widow named Caterina Antinori. She is known as La Monaca and her face is her "own mask."

On the backs of many of these these portraits were more examples of message-coded imagery - a family coat of arms, a personal motto, sometimes faux images of precious materials like marble or porphyry. One of the most significant portraits in Hidden Faces displays a skillful rendition of a vase of flowers, the earliest still life in European painting.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition, showing a carved

 wooden canister by Meister der Dosenkopke, 1525 

Most of the works of art on view in Hidden Faces are portraits painted in oils, the great technical innovation of the Renaissance in northern Europe. Among the exceptions is a pair of carved wooden canisters showing the faces of Friedrich the Wise (1461-1525) and his mistress, Anna Rasper (above). These are believed to based upon sketches by Albrecht Durer.

The real standout among the unconventional treasures of Hidden Faces Is a small, wooden devotional shrine. It comes from the German province of Swabia, 1490. 

Distinctly medieval in appearance, this triptych is a rare work, one of the treasures of The Met's Cloisters collection. Surviving the centuries intact, it perfectly illustrates how religious images were kept behind "closed doors" for most of the time. Then for prayer sessions or holy days, the doors would be opened. 

House Altarpiece (triptych showing St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child  and various saints), from Swabia, Germany, ca. 1490. 

The central figure of the triptych is a figure of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary and, therefore, the grandmother of Jesus. Greatly revered in Germany, St. Anne holds the infant Jesus and a diminutive Mary. She is depicted as a young girl in her blue dress - but smaller in proportion to Jesus. Quite a switch from the 14-foot Madonna of the Maesta!

In some cases, clever design features of the frames holding the paintings added new meaning to the proverb, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." 

An Italian mirror frame, carved in the shape of a tabernacle during the mid-1500's, appears at first sight to be one of the more prosaic objects on view in the Hidden Faces galleries. But an accompanying video loop documents how, by pulling on sliding shutters, two concealed images would be revealed.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Tabernacle Mirror Frame, Ferrara, Italy, 1540-60

The first is an allegory, based on Michelangelo's The Dream, while lurking below is the real object of devotion, the image of a "lady love." 

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Sequence of video images, showing the operation of the

 Tabernacle Mirror Frame (above) and hidden pictures. 

Video presentation created by the Metropolitan Museum of Art staff.

This juxtaposition of images (above) is hypothetical, created by the Met curators to show how the ingenious "mirror" worked. There is no connection between Michelangelo's The Dream, a drawing of a youth summoned to a life of virtue by an angel's trumpet call, and the portrait of the ill-fated Venetian beauty, Bianca Capello. But this superbly mounted display certainly demonstrates how the skill of artists and artisans could help safeguard evidence of romantic passion and forbidden love.

Was this a case of playing coy, erotic parlor games or something more serious? At its most profound, Hidden Faces reveals the power of images during the Renaissance as something so potent that each needed to be accorded special recognition and treatment.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Hans Memling's Allegory of Chasitity, 1479-1480

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Works of art, especially portrait paintings, had to conform to staunchly-held Christian convictions. Likewise, the authoritarian political structures of Europe kept the first stirrings of individualism largely in check during the 1400's and 1500's.

People aiming to climb a few steps higher on the social ladder or just have their portrait painted had to be careful as they charted their course through the labyrinth of dues and obligations of a society, only partly liberated from feudalism.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Press preview for the Hidden Faces exhibit. At right is Alison Manges Noguera, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This process of self-expression and social conformity is at the heart of Hidden Faces.The exhibition is a brilliant successor to previous Met explorations of early portraiture, Renaissance Portraits (2011-12) and Medici Portraits (2021).

Hidden Faces tells the story of little known, arcane aspects of the Renaissance, rescued from history's footnotes. For this we have to thank the lead curator, Alison Manges Nogueria, for her outstanding research and organizational skills.

To untangle the often obscure details of the fascinating works of art presented in Hidden Faces, Nogueria and her colleagues have followed the wise policy of the scholars who studied the Maesta. The Met curators have paid as much attention to the backs of these Renaissance paintings, as they did to the portraits painted on their fronts.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition, showing 

Hans Memling's Portrait of a Man in a two-sided display frame.

What is more, Nogueria and her team have utilized a double-sided display technique that enables visitors to Hidden Faces to inspect these fascinating works of art in like fashion. 

Of the numerous portraits on view in Hidden Faces, we will look at three. Each is a notable work in its own right. While not forgetting their unique insights, it is important to be conscious of how these paintings illustrate the overarching themes of this wonderful exhibition. 

The portrait, Francesco d’Este, created by Rogier van der Weyden and assistants, ca. 1460, exemplifies the continuing importance of heraldry and other badges of aristocratic power and privilege.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Rogier van der Weyden’s Francesco d’Este, ca. 1460

The identity of the sitter for this portrait took considerable scholarship to confirm. The coat of arms painted on the reverse showed that he was a member of the noble house of D'Este from northern Italy. That was the easy part of the process.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Reverse of Francesco d’Este, by Rogier van der Weyden and assistants, showing detail of lynxes on the coat of arms, ca. 1460

The confusing point was the presence of lynxes among the heraldic symbols, a deliberate feline reference to "Leo" in the name Leonello. This clearly makes the coat of arms that of Leonello d'Este, Marquess of Ferrara (1407-1450). Yet, historical detective work ultimately resolved that the portrait was of Francesco d'Este, the illegitimate son of Leonello. 

With a compromised pedigree, Francesco d'Este was apprenticed to serve as a soldier to the powerful Duchy of Burgundy, the celebrated stronghold of Chivalry and rival power base to the court of the kings of France. The dukes of Burgundy were leading patrons of the "new art," especially Flemish painters like Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Detail of jousting hammer on Rogier van der Weyden’s Francesco d’Este

The details, front and back, of this important work deserve the rigorous, exacting study which has been devoted to it. For instance, Francesco d'Este is shown holding a small hammer used in jousting tournaments and a ring, possibly a prize which he won for a successful joust. As a soldier of Burgundy, d'Este would have had plenty of opportunities to engage in these chivalrous, mock combats - too many, in fact.

The Burgundian army in which Francesco d'Este served was top-heavy with armored cavalry. At the Battle of Grandson in 1476, the arrogant Burgundian knights attacked a force of tough, pike-wielding Swiss foot soldiers. The result was an unmitigated disaster for the Duchy of Burgundy and the ideals of Chivalry.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) 

Reverse of Rogier van der Weyden's Francesco d’Este,

 showing the D’Este coat of arms. 

The battle of Grandson may have been a personal disaster for Franceso d'Este, who commanded one of the Burgundian regiments. The evidence is unclear but it appears that d'Este did not survive the encounter with the Swiss pikemen.

A puzzling inscription was added to the upper left-hand corner of the d'Este coat of arms. It reads "Entirely yours Marquis of Este no longer Corcelles." Corcelles was a village near to the Grandson battlefield. D'Este may have  died there from wounds sustained in the battle.

The second of our case studies also illustrates a dramatic story related to symbolism and heraldry in Renaissance portraiture. As I mentioned above, people of ambition "had to be careful as they charted their course through the labyrinth of dues and obligations of a society, only partly liberated from feudalism."

Johann von Ruckingen, somehow, did not learn that lesson, until bitter experience taught him otherwise.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Portrait of Johann von Ruckingen, 1487, by Wolfgang Beurer 

Johann von Ruckingen was a prosperous merchant from Frankfurt, Germany, ennobled in 1468. In 1487, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, then a dangerous undertaking. While there, he joined two chivalric orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulcher and the Cyprian Order of the Sword. 

The insignia of the two chivalric orders were added to the frame of von Ruckingen's portrait. This had been painted in April 1487 just before he left for the Holy Land. Von Ruckingen's portrait formed one side of a diptych, the other no doubt bearing the likeness of his wife, Agnes.

Von Ruckingen must have thought he had joined the top tier of German society after surviving his trip to Jerusalem. He began to dress in extravagant fashion, violating the sumptuary laws. These rules restricted the degrees of color and style for clothing and quality of cloth, fur and jewelry according to rank. Von Ruckingen exceeded the dress code allowed to his level of nobility and was imprisoned until he relented.

Perhaps a key to von Ruckingen's rash behavior can be found on the reverse of his portrait. There we see his coat of arms, with a Wild Man lurking behind it. 

Ed Voves (2024) 

Wolfgang Beurer's Wildman with von Ruckingen Coat of Arms, verso of above portrait of Johann von Ruckingen

The Wild Man was a heraldic motif used in numerous European cultures. For a nobleman, whose family tree had roots in the ancient past, the Wild Man may have been an appropriate symbol. For a very new and junior member of the nobility like Johann von Ruckingen to make use of the Wild Man seems a reckless and foolhardy thing to do.

With the third portrait selected for our analysis, Hans Memling's Portrait of a Young Man, we lack the most basic item of information: his name. 

 

Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man (recto), 1485

Yet, there is much to be discerned from closely studying this work. For example, the young man's clothing and hair style are clues that he was a member of the Italian mercantile community in Bruges. These bankers and cloth merchants were important clients for Memling. The Italians knew talent when they saw it and Hans Memling was one of the premier painters of his era.

The pious Italian was portrayed on a panel which joined by hinges with another to form a diptych or to a pair of panels, to make a triptych. In both cases, the praying man would almost certainly been facing the image of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus. The third, right-hand, panel (if it existed) most likely showed the wife of the Italian merchant. She would have been posed, hands-clasped in prayer like her husband.

Intelligent guesswork and careful scholarship have enabled us to to come close to fully appreciating this brilliant work by Memling, even without a positive ID of its subject. But the most intriguing detail, painted on the reverse of the portrait, remains tantalizingly just beyond our grasp.

Hans Memling, Flowers in a Vase (verso),1485

Here we see a glazed majolica jug, filled with flowers and displayed on a richly-tectured table cloth. Scholars believe that this is the first still life in art history, making it a very significant work of art.

The people for whom Memling painted this "still iife" would not have understood the concept at all. The jug is inscribed IHS, the monogram of Jesus. The flowers it holds symbolize key religious ideals related to the mother of Jesus: the lilies represent Mary's purity, the irises proclaim her as the Queen of Heaven and mater dolorosa, the "mother of sorrow." The very small flowers are aquilegias, associated with the Holy Spirit. And the table cloth was woven with the motif of stylized crosses.

Memling's "still life" is composed in the setting of a devotional altar. When the diptych or triptych was closed, this was the image which would have been seen. Unlike the shimmering gold and costly pigments used by Duccio to create the Maesta, all the artifacts depicted are common, almost "humdrum", objects of everyday life. It is a heavenly vision brought down to a family living room.

Hans Memling’s Flowers in a Vase (detail), 1485

The early Renaissance was the age of devout groups of Christians such as the Brethren of the Common Life, the Beguines, the Gottesfreunde or Friends of God. Their religious lives centered on the Devotio Moderna, a form of Christianity founded upon meditation, mysticism and charitable deeds.

For the most part, these “friends of God” were middle-class people living in Flanders, Holland and the Rhineland. But Italian merchants in these regions, like Memling’s praying man, would have known them well. And what is more, some may have joined them.

The shift from public religious ritual to an emphasis on personal spirituality led in time to Martin Luther and the Reformation. Many of the features of medieval art and Christian liturgical practice, which are brilliantly examined in this Met exhibit, were discarded or "reformed" away.

As artistic conventions changed in response to the Protestant Reformation and to the Catholic Counter-Reformation, portrait painting increasingly favored realism over symbolism, emotions over allegory. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2024)

 Jacometto Veneziano’s Portrait of a Boy, ca. 1475-80

When the features of  Renaissance worthies were brought to life by masters like Raphael and Titan, there was no need to resort to a code of arcane imagery to illustrate or define human character traits. Portrait painters became ever more skillful in depicting the facial features of their subjects and, in the process, increasingly proficient in probing the secrets of their souls. 

By the time of the emergence of Caravaggio at the end of the Renaissance, a great artistic revolution had transpired. Once locked away behind wooden covers and interpreted through cryptic symbolism, portrait painting now spoke with a voice - and a vision  - of its own.

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Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                     

Introductory Image: Ed Voves, Photo (2024 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio‘s Cover with a Mask, Grotteschi, and Inscription (detail), ca. 1510.

Duccio di Buonisegna (Italian, 1255-1319) Maesta, 1308-1311. Tempera and gold on wood: 84 x 156 in. (213 x 396 cm.)  Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena, Italy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duccio_maesta1021.jpg

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Ridolfo Ghirlandaio‘s Cover with a Mask, Grotteschi, and Inscription, ca. 1510.Oil on panel: 28 3/4 × 19 7/8 in. (73 × 50.5 cm). Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Ridolfo Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of a Woman (La Monaca), ca. 1510. Oil on wood panel: 25 9/16 × 18 15/16 in. (65 × 48.1 cm) Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition, showing a carved wooden canister by Meister der Dosenkopke, 1525.

Unknown German Sculptor from Swabia. House Altarpiece (triptych showing St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child and various saints), ca. 1490. Oil and gold on wood; metal fixtures: Overall (open): 13 3/16 × 11 7/8 × 2 15/16 in. (33.5 × 30.2 × 7.5 cm)The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, #1991.10

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Tabernacle Mirror Frame, Ferrara, Italy, 1540-60. Walnut: Overall: 16 5/16 × 15 3/16 in. (41.5 × 38.5 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, #1975.1.2090

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Sequence of video images, showing the operation of the Tabernacle Mirror Frame (above) and hidden images. Video presentation created by the Metropolitan Museum of Art staff.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Hans Memling’s Allegory of Chasitity (cover for a lost portrait?), 1479-1480.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition showing  Metropolitan Museum curator, Alison Manges Noguera.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Gallery view of the Hidden Faces exhibition, showing Hans Memling's Portrait of a Man in a two-sided display frame.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Rogier van der Weyden’s Francesco d’Este, ca. 1460.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Reverse of Francesco d’Este, by Rogier van der Weyden and assistants, showing detail of coat of arms.

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Rogier van der Weyden’s Francesco d’Este, ca. 1460 (detail of jousting hammer, ring)

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Reverse of Francesco d’Este, showing of d’Este coat of arms. 

Ed Voves (2024) Portrait of Johann von Ruckingen, 1487, by Wolfgang Beurer (German, active 1480–1500)

Ed Voves (2024) Wolfgang Beurer's Wildman with von Ruckingen Coat of Arms, verso of above.

Hans Memling (Netherlandish, active by 1465–died 1494 ) Portrait of a Man (recto); Flowers in a Vase (verso), 1485. Oil on panel: 11 1/2 × 8 7/8 in. (29.2 × 22.5 cm) Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (284.a (1938.1.a); 284b (1938.1.b))

Ed Voves, Photo (2024) Jacometto Veneziano’s Portrait of a Boy, ca. 1475-80. Tempera and oil on wood panel: 9 × 7 3/4 in. (22.9 × 19.7 cm). National Gallery, London.