Maestà (Madonna and Child with Four Angels)

c. 1290

Master of Città di Castello

Painter, Italian, active c. 1290 - 1320

A woman cradling an upright male child sits on a semi-circular throne surrounded by four winged angels in this vertical painting, which comes to a shallow, triangular point at the top. The people and angels have pale skin tinged with green, and all have flat, disk-like gold halos. The woman wears a voluminous, navy-blue mantle covered in a dense pattern of gold lines, which drapes over her head and wraps around her rose-pink gown. A sliver of a pumpkin-orange cap covering her hair peeks out from under the mantle. Her body is angled to our right and her head tilts in that direction. She looks up and to our left with large hazel-brown eyes under arched brows. Her long nose and closed, peach-colored mouth are set in an oval face. The boy’s shoulders and legs are wrapped in a rose-pink robe that leaves his torso bare. He sits in the curve of the woman’s left arm, to our right, so his body is angled toward her. He has brown hair and adult-like facial features. He reaches one hand toward the woman’s throat with his index and middle fingers raised, while she points to him with her other hand, on our left. The cream-white, stone throne curves around the pair. The back has three levels of recessed panels above a band of brick red, where it meets the wider base. The base has two levels of inset panels, and the seat is covered with a scarlet-red cloth. The front of the arms and the top of the curved back are lined with ruby-red finials. Two angels stand on each side, with one positioned higher than the other, and all four are angled inward to look at the woman and child. The angels on the bottom wear slate-blue gowns while the ones on top wear robes in the same rose pink as the child. The background in the upper zone of the painting is gold. Some areas of gold in the background and in the halos have partially worn away. The painting is in a dark wooden frame that follows the angles along the pointed top.

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The Sienese artist who made this panel is named for the town—Città di Castello— where another of his paintings, bearing another image of the Virgin and Child in “majesty” (maestà in Italian), remains today. The Maestà--especially in this tall format--was frequently commissioned for the meeting places of lay brotherhoods. In Siena, where devotion to the Virgin was particularly strong, it was a highly visible image, dominating the city’s most prominent works of art: a fresco by Simone Martini in the town hall and Duccio’s magnificent Maestà altarpiece in the cathedral. (The National Gallery of Art is fortunate to own two panels from the latter: link and link. Similarities to this artist’s style can be seen in the almond-shaped eyes and lyrical drapery folds.) The anonymous master of our Maestà was probably one of Duccio’s students, but it is likely that his painting is earlier than that of either his teacher or Simone (commissioned 1305 and 1315, respectively). It may, in fact, be the first work of the Master of Città di Castello to have survived, certainly a product of his early career.

What suggests this? This artist is interested in abstraction and in capturing the spiritual world, not in making the Virgin and her divine child conform to what we see around us. Although Mary’s unusual semicircular throne—which relates to her as the Throne of Wisdom—could be found in the few decades on either side of the turn of the 14th century, and the gold striations in her robe would typify Sienese style until the middle of the 1320s, a preference for abstraction over naturalism points to an earlier date for this painting.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 230 × 141.5 cm (90 9/16 × 55 11/16 in.)
    overall: 240 × 150 × 2.4 cm (94 1/2 × 59 1/16 × 15/16 in.)
    framed: 252.4 x 159.4 x 13.3 cm (99 3/8 x 62 3/4 x 5 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.77

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Maestà (Madonna and Child with Four Angels), c. 1290

This horizontal painting is made up of three parts: in the center square panel, a woman reclines under a wooden shelter set into a rocky cave, which is surrounded by angels, and narrower wings to either side are each occupied by a standing man. All the people have pale skin, which is tinged with faint green. The three panels are joined with a gold frame, and the gold background behind the central scene and the men in the side panels are covered with a noticeable network of cracks. In the central panel, a cobalt-blue robe nearly envelopes the reclining woman’s body; this is Mary. It covers her head and falls open where she crosses her wrists over her chest to show a pink garment underneath. A flat gold halo encircles her head ,and her body is surrounded by a field of crimson red, almost like an aura. She rests under a wooden structure with a pitched roof, which is surrounded by craggy, barren rock. A swaddled infant lies in a rectangular, tray-like manger. The infant’s head is also surrounded by a gold halo. Fine gold rays emanate down into the structure from a star just above the peak of the roof. A bull and a donkey look down at the baby from the far side of the manger. The interior of the structure behind them is black. In a smaller scale, two women wash a haloed infant in a tub in front of the rocky cave near the lower left corner of this panel. A man with a white beard and hair sits to our left of Mary, holding a pink cloak at his throat and looking toward the infant. Above and around the rocks, seven winged and haloed angels cluster on each side. One angel to the right presents a scroll with black writing to two men accompanied by a dog and several sheep in the lower right. The man in the panel to the left, Isaiah, has a gray beard and long, wavy hair, and he wears a lilac-purple cloak draped over a coral-orange robe. In his right hand, on our left, he holds an unfurled scroll with large black lettering. His other hand is raised with one finger pointing upward. He looks to our left, away from the central scene. On the right, Ezekiel, echoes Isaiah's pose. Ezekiel holds an open scroll with his left hand, on our right, and his other hand is raised. He also wears a coral-colored robe, but his is overlaid with a blue cloak. His receding hair is short and brown, as is his beard. Like Isaiah, he takes up most of the height of the panel and gazes to our left, toward the central panel.

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly the church of San Francesco in San Quirico d’Orcia (Siena).[1] Pompeo Lemmi (or Lammi?), San Quirico d’Orcia; Giacobbe Preziotti, San Quirico d’Orcia, by c. 1930;[2] (Italian art market);[3] Baron Alberto Fassini, Tivoli; Corinna Uberti Trossi, Livorno, by 1949; (Ettore Sestieri, Rome), by 1951;[4] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence), by 1953;[5] sold 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[6] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The panel’s original provenance is uncertain. It was recorded by Johann Anton Ramboux (1798-1866) in the first half of the nineteenth century, whose Sammlung von Umrissen dienend zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste des Mittelalters in Italien in den Jahren 1818-1822 und 1833-1843 aufgenommen, consisting of ten volumes of copies and sketches and now in the library of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main, contains the drawing (vol. 3, fol. 20, no. 507) of the Washington painting. During his first Italian visit (1818–1822) Ramboux was able to visit Siena and neighboring territories only briefly; therefore, the sketch of the NGA painting probably dates to his later visit in the years 1833–1843 (see Hans Joachim Ziemke, “Rambiux und die sienesische Kunst,” Städel Jahrbuch N.S. 2 [1969]: 255-300). Ramboux notes the painting as present in a cloister of the principal church of San Quirico (“Tafel . . . welche sich in einem Kreuzgang der Hauptkirche zu S. Quirico befindet”), probably referring to the Collegiata. This church, however, never had a cloister (see A. Canestrelli, “La Pieve di S. Quirico in Osenna,” Siena monumentale 1 [1906]: 5-21). On the other hand, in the early decades of the twentieth century the panel was considered to have come from San Francesco in San Quirico d’Orcia, a church situated in the center of town and originally provided with such a structure. The Franciscans are known to have established a community at an early date in San Quirico; their presence there is recorded ever since the thirteenth century (Luigi Pellegrini, Insediamenti francescani nell’Italia del Duecento, Rome, 1984: 179). Their convent was suppressed in 1783 (Laura Martini, “Le vicende costruttive della chiesa di San Francesco,” in San Quirico d’Orcia. La Madonna di Vitaleta: arte e devozione, San Quirico d’Orcia [Siena], 1997: 19). The panel may then have been transferred to the Collegiata, or to some other site, but in fact, we have no further information about it until c. 1930.
Describing the works of art contained in the church of San Francesco in 1865, Francesco Brogi (Inventario generale degli oggetti d’arte della provincia di Siena, Siena, 1897) fails to cite the Gallery's painting, nor is it included in the list relating to the church of the Collegiata of San Quirico that he himself drew up. Evidently by that time the panel had been removed from the church and was either in private hands or in some small oratory; because it was the property not of the church but of a lay confraternity, its owners could have moved it from its former location. The arrival of the painting in (or its restitution to) San Francesco is conceivable after 1865, when the bishop of Montalcino entrusted the church to the Pia Commissione di Santa Maria di Vitaleta to undertake the necessary work of restoration and refurbishment of the building, later renamed Santa Maria di Vitaleta. This same commission later brought a suit against the possessors of the painting in 1930, claiming its restitution. The panel, therefore, which does not figure among the sacred furnishings entrusted by the Curia of Montalcino to the Pia Commissione at the time of the transfer of the church (in 1865), could have been reinstated to it only some time later and could have remained there for a number of years, sufficiently long enough for the inhabitants of the town to remember it (see Martini 1997).
[2] The “tavola preduccesca” cited in the documentation in the archive of the Soprintendenza of Siena is described as “presso il Sig. Lemmi”; Fern Rusk Shapley (Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:173) speaks of Pompeo Lammi. In the suit brought to claim property rights over the painting, however, the owner of the painting is named as Giacobbe Preziotti (Martini 1997, 19 n. 6).
[3] In November 1936, again according to the information gleaned by Laura Martini, the Ministry for National Education notified the Soprintendenza that property rights had been confirmed to belong to the private citizens who then owned the painting, and its export authorized. Probably following this decision, the restoration of the panel began and the painting was offered for sale on the Italian art market.
[4] Shapley 1979, 1:173 places the panel in the Fassini collection and with the dealer Ettore Sestieri. A catalogue of the collection, then only recently formed, of barone Alberto Fassini exists, published without a date in the early 1930s, but it does not include this painting among those distributed among his various houses. Gertrude Coor Achenbach (“The early nineteenth-century aspect of a dispersed polyptych by the Badia a Isola Master,” The Art Bulletin 42 [1960]: 143), who places the painting “shortly after World War II in a private collection near Tivoli,” refers, probably, to that of Alberto Fassini. Elisa de Giorgi (L’eredità Contini Bonaccossi, Milan, 1988: 197) reports the presence of the painting in the Uberti Trossi collection.
[5] The date of the painting’s purchase by Contini Bonacossi is unknown, but it must have been in his possession by 1953, when he proposed, with some insistence, to sell it to the Kress Collection (see De Giorgi 1988).
[6] On 7 June 1954, the Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi for sixteen paintings, including NGA 1961.9.77, which was listed as Madonna and Child and Four Angels by Master of Badia a Isola. In a draft of one of the documents prepared for the count's signature in connection with the offer, this painting is described as one "which came from my personal collection in Florence." Contini Bonacossi accepted the offer on 30 June 1954; the final payment for the purchase was ultimately made in early 1957, after his death in 1955. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files and The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1350). The painting was not given to the NGA until 1961, and in a letter to Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà of 1 August 1960 (copy in NGA curatorial files), Fern Rusk Shapley continues to express doubts about it, wondering whether the Maestà was “good enough to warrant our making an effort . . . to get it for the National Gallery.”

Associated Names

Bibliography

n.d.

  • Ramboux, Johann Anton. Sammlung von Umrissen dienend zur Geschichte der bildenden Künste des Mittelalters in Italien in den Jahren 1818-1822 und 1833-1843 aufgenommen. 10 vols. Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main, n.d.: 3:fol.20, no. 507.

1960

  • Coor, Gertrude. "The Early Nineteenth-Century Aspect of a Dispersed Polyptych by the Badia a Isola Master." The Art Bulletin 42 (1960): 143 n. 6.

1961

  • Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools. 2nd ed. London, 1961: 177.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 44.

  • Carli, Enzo. "Ricuperi e restauri senesi. I. Nella cerchia di Duccio." Bollettino d’arte 50 (1965): 97, 99 n. 22, fig. 39.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 14-15, fig. 27.

1967

  • Zeri, Federico. "Early Italian Pictures in the Kress Collection." The Burlington Magazine 109 (1967): 474.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 37, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 2:120.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 68, 315, 647, 667.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 381.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 112, repro.

1977

  • Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. I Dipinti dal XII al XV secolo. Genoa, 1977: 86.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:172-174; 2:pl. 118.

  • Stubblebine, James H. Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School. 2 vols. Princeton, 1979: 1:89-91, figs. 198-200, 595.

1981

  • Conti, Alessandro. La miniatura bolognese: scuole e botteghe, 1270-1340. Bologna, 1981: 53 n. 39.

1982

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Review of Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School by J. H. Stubblebine; and Duccio di Buoninsegna by J. White." The Art Bulletin 64 (1982): 497.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 137, repro.

1986

  • Bacchi, Andrea. "Pittura del Duecento e del Trecento nel Pistoiese." In La Pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento. Edited by Enrico Castelnuovo. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 1:317, 318.

1988

  • Davies, Martin, and Dillian Gordon. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. Rev. ed. London, 1988: 75.

  • De' Giorgi, Elsa. L’eredità Contini Bonacossi: l’ambiguo rigore del vero. 1st ed. Milan, 1988: 197, 206-209.

1990

  • Torriti, Piero. La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: i dipinti. 3rd ed. Genoa, 1990: 46.

1996

  • Panzeri, Matteo. "La tradizione del restauro a Bergamo tra XIX e XX secolo: Mauro Pellicioli, un caso paradigmatico." In Giovanni Secco Suardo: la cultura del restauro tra tutela e conservazione dell’opera d’arte. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Bergamo, March 9-11, 1995. Bollettino d’Arte, Supplemento al N° 98. Rome, 1996: 105, figs. 17-18, 111-112.

1997

  • Martini, Laura. "Le vicende costruttive della chiesa di San Francesco." In San Quirico d’Orcia. La Madonna di Vitaleta: arte e devozione. Edited by Laura Martini. Exh. cat. Chiesa di S. Maria in Vitaleta, San Quirico d’Orcia, 1997: 13-14, 15 (repro), 19 n. 5.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 489.

1999

  • Gardner, Julian. "Duccio, ‘Cimabue’ and the Maestro di Casole: Early Sienese Paintings for Florentine Confraternities." In Iconographica: mélanges offerts à Piotr Skubiszewski. Edited by Robert Favreau and Marie-Hélène Debiès. Poitiers, 1999: 112.

2003

  • Bagnoli, Alessandro, Roberto Bartalini, Luciano Bellosi, and Michel Laclotte, eds. Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico. Exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala, Siena; Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2003: 297, repro. 298, 302 n. 23, 366.

2005

  • Schmidt, Victor M. Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250-1400. Florence, 2005: 181, 202 n. 44, 348.

2010

  • Bagnoli, Alessandro. "La cappella funebre del Porrina e del vescovo Ranieri e le sue figurazioni murali." In Marco Romano e il contesto artistico senese fra la fine del Duecento e gli inizi del Trecento. Edited by Alessandro Bagnoli. Exh. cat. Museo Archeologico e della Collegiata, Casole d’Elsa. Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2010: 100.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 264-273, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20172954

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