Scholarly Article

Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Enthroned Madonna and Child, c. 1250/1275

Part of Online Edition: Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Miklós Boskovits

Publication History

Published online March 21, 2016

A woman sits on a wide, high-backed throne with a child on her lap against a gold background in this vertical painting. Their peachy skin is deeply shadowed with greenish gray. To our left of center, the woman’s body nearly fills the panel as she sits with her shoulders angled slightly to our right. She tilts her head in that direction as she gazes at us from the corners of almond-shaped, hazel eyes under arched brows. She has a slender face with a long nose and a petite coral-red mouth. A marine-blue mantle covers her head and wraps around her body. The mantle has fallen open at the neckline and the right knee to reveal her dark, navy-blue robe underneath. The child sits upright in the crook of her left arm, on our right. Her left hand cradles the child’s bottom while her other hand, to our left, rests delicately on his knee. The child faces our left and tilts his head to look up at the woman while reaching his far hand to her with two raised fingers. A bone-white scroll is clutched in his near hand. He has wavy, chestnut-brown hair and large, dark eyes. He wears a tomato-red robe and thin, black sandals. A spruce-blue sash wraps around the shoulders and waist of the robe. The folds and creases of their garments are suggested by densely spaced gold lines that bend in angular curves around their knees, legs, and arms. In pointed red shoes, the woman rests her feet on a stool just before the wide, ginger-brown throne, which is decorated with inset camel-brown and tan squares and rectangles. The back of the throne alternates between bands of carved decoration and spindles. Teardrop-shaped finials line the back. The woman and child have halos incised into the gold background beyond them. The child’s halo is divided by three, wide, garnet-red rays. Winged angels with gold halos in brick-red circles hover in the upper left and right. The glimmering gold background is worn in some areas and is cracked throughout. — Byzantine 13th Century, Enthroned Madonna and Child, c. 1250/1275, tempera on poplar panel, Gift of Mrs. Otto H. Kahn, 1949.7.1

Entry

The painting shows the Virgin seated on an elaborate wooden throne with openwork decoration. She supports the blessing Christ child on her left arm, according to the iconographic tradition of the Hodegetria. Mary is wearing a purple dress and a deep blue mantle highlighted with brilliant chrysography. Bearing a scroll in his left hand, the child is wearing a red tunic fastened around his waist with a blue fabric belt supported by straps that encircle his shoulders. This motif perhaps alludes to his sacerdotal dignity. In the upper corners of the panel, at the level of the Virgin’s head, are two circular medallions containing busts of archangels , each wearing a garment decorated with a loros and with scepter and sphere in hand.

Art historians have held sharply different views on not only the attribution of the painting but also its origin and even its function. Apart from Osvald Sirén’s attribution to Pietro Cavallini (1918), the critical debate that developed after its first appearance at a sale in New York in 1915 (where it was cataloged under the name of Cimabue) almost always considered the painting together with Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne. For a discussion of the problems surrounding both panels and some further proposals, see the catalog entry for the latter painting.

Technical Summary

The support is a three-member poplar panel with the grain running vertically. Thinned and cradled during an undocumented treatment, the panel is still set in part of its original engaged frame, which has probably been reduced from its original width. The studs decorating the frame molding are original, although they have been overpainted. The white gesso ground is applied over a fabric that covers not only the painted surface but also the engaged frame. The gold leaf was laid over an orange bole. Incised lines were used to outline the figures, and a green underpainting is visible in the flesh tones. The incised decoration of the halos apparently was executed freehand, and the additional decoration of the halos was created by dripping a resinous material onto the gold, as opposed to punchwork. The panel has a convex warp. A vertical crack runs from the top of the painting to the Virgin’s nose. Two additional cracks appear on the left side of the panel, running through the bust of the angel on the left. The join of the two boards on the right side, passing through the face of the angel, has opened from the top to the bottom. Worm tunneling is evident both on the surface of the panel and in the x-radiographs. The painting is in a generally fair state, although there is inpainting in the various small losses in the gilding overlaying the damages of the wooden support, as well as some lacunae in the Virgin’s cloak. The head and dress of the angel to the right and the area of gold ground above the Virgin’s head are also inpainted. In addition, the inpainting extends to the cloak covering the Madonna’s head.