Madonna and Child, with the Blessing Christ [middle panel]

probably 1340

Pietro Lorenzetti

Artist, Sienese, active 1306 - 1345

Shown from the hips up, a woman to our left holds a baby upright in her arms to our right, both against a gold background on a panel shaped to come to a sharp point at the top of this vertical painting. The pale skin of both people is faintly tinted with green. The woman’s body is angled to our right and she looks at the child she holds. She has wide, hooded, light brown eyes under faint brows, a long, straight nose, and her pale pink lips are closed. She wears a sapphire-blue mantle that covers her head and drapes down past her shoulders over a crimson-red dress. Edges of a white veil are visible long the edge of the blue robe. She holds a bunch of red cherries in her right hand by the child’s hip. The baby’s body is angled toward the woman, and he turns his head back to look over his left shoulder, off to our right. He has short, tight blond curls and pale brown eyes. Pale pink flushes his cheeks and his mouth is slightly open. He holds a bunch of three cherries close to his mouth with one hand and reaches toward the fruit the woman holds with the other. He wears a daffodil-yellow garment with a tight bodice, long sleeves, and fabric loosely draped over his legs to show the toes of one bare foot. A swath of fabric wafts from his left shoulder, to our right, like a pennant. Bands of geometric designs made with black lines decorate the cuffs, waist, and neckline of the tunic. Disk-like halos are incised into the gold background the woman and child. Above them, narrow molding affixed to the panel creates a rounded but pointed arch set under the sharp point at the top of the panel. Between the arch and the triangular tip, a man with a honey-brown beard and hair surrounded by a gold halo holds up his right hand with the index and middle fingers raised. Seen from the waist up, he wears an ultramarine-blue tunic with a rose-pink robe, and he looks off to our right. The surface of the painting is cracked and chipped, especially in the gold areas.

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Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena painted me in 1340. This inscription is the signature of the Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti, which survives on a fragment of the original frame (now incorporated in a modern support and located beneath this painting). While Pietro and his brother Ambrogio are often noted for the inventive ways in which they defined three-dimensional space and incorporated details from everyday life to expand the realism of their figures and settings, they also painted icon-like devotional pictures, such as this one. During this period, Pietro seems to have been especially influenced by Giotto, as seen in the quiet solemnity of the composition, in which massive figures fill nearly the entire panel, along with the simple, pointed arch of the panel itself. The figures’ clothing also typifies Giotto's style: heavy fabrics fall perpendicularly in a few simplified or pointed folds to emphasize the figures' solidity.

The central group of the Madonna and Child proposes an unusual variant of the Hodegetria Madonna type, which can be found in a number of the Gallery's paintings from this period (the Byzantine Enthroned Madonna and Child and Lippo Memmi’s Madonna and Child with Donor are just two). The Christ child is supported on his mother’s left arm and looks directly at the observer, but Mary does not point to her son with her right hand, as is typical, and instead offers him cherries. It is thought that this painting may have been commissioned for a church not in Siena but in Pisa, where apparently the motif of the Christ child eating cherries was then popular.

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Artwork overview

Associated Artworks

Three panels of an altarpiece are each filled by a woman shown from the hips up against a gold background. The central woman, Mary, also holds a baby. Narrow molding affixed to each panel comes to a rounded but pointed arch set under a sharp point at the top. The people all have pale skin tinged with green or gray, light brown eyes, and their heads are surrounded with disk-like halos. The women also have almond-shaped eyes, long, straight noses, and their bow-shaped lips are closed. In the center, Mary looks at the blond-haired baby she holds. Mary’s head and shoulders are covered by a sapphire-blue mantle over a crimson-red dress. She supports the baby’s bottom with one hand and holds a bunch of red cherries in her other by the child’s hip. The baby’s body is angled toward the woman, and he turns his head back to look over his left shoulder, off to our right. Blond hair curls tightly against his head. Pale pink flushes his cheeks, and his mouth is slightly open. He holds a bunch of three cherries close to his mouth with one hand and reaches toward the fruit the woman holds with the other. He wears a daffodil-yellow garment with a tight bodice, long sleeves, and fabric loosely draped over his legs to show the toes of one bare foot. A swath of fabric flutters from his left shoulder, to our right, like a pennant in a breeze. In the space between the pointed arch and the pointy top of the panel, a man with a honey-brown beard and hair surrounded by a gold halo holds up his right hand with the index and middle fingers raised. Shown from the waist up, he wears an ultramarine-blue tunic with a rose-pink robe, and he looks off to our right. In the panel to our left, the woman holds an ivory-white, cylindrical jar and wears a tomato-red mantle that covers her head and drapes down past her shoulders and over her matching dress. Locks of blond hair show under the mantle on the sides of her face. Bands of geometric designs made with black lines decorate the edges of her mantle and the neckline of her dress. The woman holds her left hand under the jar and her right hand holds onto its peaked lid. In the panel to our right, the woman wears a crown and braces a wooden wheel under one elbow. Her dress and cloak have gold leafy patterns against ivory white, and are edged with brick red. She wraps the cloak around her left elbow, to our right, and grips the fabric in that hand. She holds a palm frond with the hand draped on the wheel. An angel occupies the areas between the rounded arches and pointed tops of both flanking panels. Both angels have yellow wings and blond hair, wear red robes with yellow cloaks, and hold palm fronds. The bodies face us but both look in toward the center so we see the angels almost in profile. The surface of all three panels are cracked and chipped, especially in the gold areas. 

Madonna and Child with the Blessing Christ, and Saints Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Alexandria with Angels [entire triptych]

Pietro Lorenzetti

1340

Shown from the hips up, a woman holds an ivory-white, cylindrical jar against a gold background on a panel shaped to come to a sharp point at the top of this vertical painting. The pale skin of the woman is faintly tinted with green. Her body faces us, and she looks at or past us with wide, hooded, light brown eyes under faint brows. She has a long, straight nose, and her pink bow-shaped lips are closed. The woman wears a tomato-red mantle that covers her head and drapes down past her shoulders and over her matching dress. Locks of blond hair show under the mantle on the sides of her face. Bands of geometric designs made with black lines decorate the edges of her mantle and the neckline of her dress. The woman holds her left hand under the jar and her right hand holds onto its peaked lid. A disk-like halo with a floral pattern is incised into the gold background behind the woman. Above the woman, narrow molding affixed to the panel creates a rounded but pointed arch set under the sharp point at the top of the panel. Between the arch and the triangular tip, an angel with harvest-gold wings and blond hair is shown from the chest up. The angel’s body faces us but the head is in profile to our right. A narrow palm frond is held by one shoulder, and a butter-yellow cloth drapes over a cardinal-red gown. The surface of the painting is cracked and chipped, especially in the gold areas. 

Saint Mary Magdalene, with an Angel [left panel]

Pietro Lorenzetti

1340

Shown from the hips up, a woman wearing a crown braces a wooden wheel against a gold background on a panel shaped to come to a sharp point at the top of this vertical painting. The woman’s pale skin is faintly tinged with green and gray. Her body faces us, and she looks at us with light brown, almond-shaped eyes. She has a long, straight nose, full cheeks, and her pink lips are closed. Her blond hair sweeps back from her face under the gold crown, which is set with blue and red gems. Her dress and cloak have gold leafy patterns against ivory white, and are edged with brick red. She wraps the cloak around her left elbow, to our right, and grips the fabric in that hand. The other elbow is slung over the wooden wheel, and she holds a palm frond in that hand. A gold halo is incised onto the background. Above the woman, narrow molding affixed to the panel creates a rounded but pointed arch set under the sharp point at the top of the panel. Between the arch and the triangular tip, an angel with yellow and blue wings and blond hair is shown from the chest up. The angel’s body faces us but the head is almost in profile to our left. A narrow palm frond is held by one shoulder, and a butter-yellow cloth drapes over a cardinal-red gown. The surface of the painting is cracked and chipped, especially in the gold areas. 

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with an Angel [right panel]

Pietro Lorenzetti

1340

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Madonna and Child, with the Blessing Christ [middle panel], probably 1340

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

Probably the art market, Florence, by 1924;[1] (Alessandro Contini, Rome), by 1926;[2] sold 1927 to Felix M. Warburg [1871-1937], New York;[3] by inheritance to his wife, Frieda Schiff Warburg [1876-1958], New York; gift 1941 to NGA.
[1] Raimond van Marle (The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1924: 2:363) reports, rather imprecisely, “A short time ago . . . half-length figures [similar, according to NGA systematic catalogue Miklós Boskovits, to Pietro’s panels nos. 79, 81 and 82 in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena] were offered for sale in Florence.” Nonetheless, adds the author, “these may have been products of Pietro’s bottega only.” Miklós Boskovits did not know of other panels of half-length saints attributable to the elder Lorenzetti on the art market at that time and thought it very likely that van Marle was referring to the NGA paintings.
[2] Contini (later Contini Bonacossi) gathered expertises (in NGA curatorial files) on the triptych in 1926, so it must have been in his possession by then.
[3] Correspondence about the panels among Warburg, Contini, Paul Sachs (Warburg’s advisor), and the restorers Hammond Smith and Stephen Pichetto began in 1926, but stops in 1927, the year Warburg probably bought the three panels (correspondence in NGA curatorial files). When Ernest Theodore De Wald published the triptych in 1929 (Art Studies: Medieval Renaissance and Modern [1929]: 34 n. 1, and figs. 99-101), it already belonged to the Warburg collection.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 221, pl. 5.

Bibliography

1929

  • DeWald, Ernest T. "Pietro Lorenzetti." Art Studies 7 (1929): 162 n. 1, pl. 100.

1930

  • Cecchi, Emilio. Pietro Lorenzetti. Milan, 1930: 37, pl. 105.

1932

  • Marle, Raimond van. Le scuole della pittura italiana. 2 vols. The Hague and Florence, 1932-1934: 2(1934):361.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 293.

1933

  • Sinibaldi, Giulia. I Lorenzetti. Siena, 1933: 175.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Translated by Emilio Cecchi. Milan, 1936: 252.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 251, repro. 135.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 25 n. 1.

1960

  • Becchis, Michela. "Lorenzetti, Pietro." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 65(2005):809.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 77.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 68, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 2:221.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 109, 312, 429, 646.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 198, repro.

1976

  • Frinta, Mojmir Svatopluk. "Deletions from the Oeuvre of Pietro Lorenzetti and Related Works by the Master of the Beata Umilità, Mino Parcis da Siena and Iacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 20 (1976): 290.

  • Laclotte, Michel. "Un ‘Saint Evêque’ de Pietro Lorenzetti." Paragone 27 (1976): 18 n. 7.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:269-270; 2:pl. 185.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 232, repro.

1989

  • Volpe, Carlo. Pietro Lorenzetti. Edited by Mauro Lucco. Milan, 1989: 195-196, fig. 175.

1991

  • De Benedictis, Cristina. "Lorenzetti, Pietro." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 7(1996):884, 892.

1994

  • Skaug, Erling S. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330-1430. 2 vols. Oslo, 1994: 1:226, 228; 2:punch chart 7.5.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 61, 97, 336, 483.

2002

  • Monciatti, Alessio. "Pietro Lorenzetti." In Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Edited by Chiara Frugoni. Florence, 2002: 80, repro. 82.

2003

  • Christiansen, Keith. "Paul Delaroche’s Crucifixion by Pietro Lorenzetti." Apollo 157 (2003): 14 nn. 17, 19.

2004

  • Hiller von Gaertringen, Rudolf. Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300-1550: Toskana und Umbrien. Kataloge der Gemälde im Städelschen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main. Mainz, 2004: 152 n. 44.

2006

  • Hoenigswald, Ann. "Stephen Pichetto, Conservator of the Kress Collection, 1927-1949." in Studying and Conserving Paintings: Occasional Papers on the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 2006: 30 (repro.), 37.

2008

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and Johannes Tripps, eds. Maestri senesi e toscani nel Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg. Exh. cat. Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, 2008: 42.

2010

  • Kanter, Laurence B., and John Marciari, eds. Italian Paintings from the Richard L. Feigen Collection. Exh. cat. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 2010: 20.

Inscriptions

across the bottom edge, on a fragment of the old frame set into the present one: [PETRUS] L[A]URENTII DE SENIS [ME] PI[N]XIT [ANNO] D[OMI]NI MCCCX...I [1]

Wikidata ID

Q20173147

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