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Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011), “Duccio di Buoninsegna/The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel/1308-1311,” Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/10 (accessed May 18, 2021).

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Overview

This panel is one of two owned by the National Gallery of Art from one of the most important monuments of Western painting: the towering, two-sided altarpiece known as the Maestà by Duccio di Buoninsegna (Sienese, c. 1250/1255 - 1318/1319). The Maestà dominated the main altar in Siena’s cathedral for nearly two centuries. The National Gallery of Art is the only institution in the United States to own two panels from this masterpiece. The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew is the second panel from the Maestà in the Gallery’s collection.

Standing on either side of this Nativity are two Hebrew prophets, whose writings—quoted on the scrolls they hold—are thought by Christians to foretell Jesus’s birth. The Gallery's Nativity joined other scenes from Jesus’s childhood (and other prophets) that unfolded along the front horizontal base of the altarpiece called the “predella” below a monumental image of the Madonna and Child in majesty, enthroned in a crowd of saints and angels (see Reconstruction). The Virgin was Siena’s patron saint, and devotion to her had a strong civic as well as religious dimension. Before it was installed in June 1311, Duccio’s altarpiece was paraded triumphantly through the streets. Musicians were hired to accompany it, along with all the priests and monks of Siena. A procession of city officials and citizens was followed by women and children ringing bells. Shops were closed all day and alms were given to the poor.

The visibility and authority of the Maestà, along with Duccio’s importance as a teacher, help explain Siena’s sustained taste for the gold and abstraction of the Byzantine style even as artists elsewhere in Tuscany adopted a more naturalistic approach. This Nativity blends Byzantine elements with more contemporary and local trends. The Virgin’s recumbent pose and out-of-scale size recall icons of the Nativity, and like many icon painters Duccio has included two midwives who wash and tend the new infant and confirm his virgin birth. The cave setting also comes via the Greek East, but the manger roof is similar to ones found in the Gothic art of northern Europe. While the effect of gold and brilliant color is highly decorative, Duccio’s elegant lines and flowing brushstrokes soften the austerity of the Byzantine style.

Completed in less than three years, the Maestà was a huge undertaking, for which Duccio received 3,000 gold florins—more than any artist had ever commanded. Although he must have had substantial help from his pupils and workshop assistants, the design and execution indicates that Duccio exercised control over the whole project. Moved to a side altar in 1506, the altarpiece was sawn apart in the 1770s and individual panels subsequently dispersed. This makes it impossible to determine its dimensions with certainty, but it must have been about 15 feet wide, with the gables rising to as much as 17 feet high. In all, there were probably more than 70 individual scenes.

Entry

The Nativity is flanked by the full-length figures of the two prophets who foretell the birth of Christ [fig. 1] [fig. 2]. Isaiah, to the left, as revealed by the text of his scroll and his leftward-turned gaze, is thematically linked to the previous scene of the front predella, representing the Annunciation [fig. 3], now in the National Gallery of London. The iconography of the Nativity follows the figurative tradition of Byzantine art, combining the scene with the subsidiary episodes of the Glad Tidings to the Shepherds and the First Bath of the Child. Mary is shown semirecumbent on a mattress inside the cave setting, into which a simple wooden hut with sloping roof is inserted. At the center of the hut, in the background, we see the manger with the child and two animals. In the foreground the episode of the First Bath occupies a central position, with the two midwives portrayed in slightly smaller proportions than the Madonna.[1] To the left we see Saint Joseph seated on a rock, sunk in meditation, while to the right appear the two shepherds conversing with one of the fourteen angels that throng the upper part of the scene.

The painting was the second of seven scenes ([fig. 4] [fig. 5] [fig. 6] [fig. 7] [fig. 8]) interspersed with standing figures of prophets that formed the predella of the front side of the two-sided altarpiece placed over the high altar in Siena Cathedral [fig. 9] (see also Reconstruction). For a discussion of the multipart complex of which this work has always been recognized as an integral part, see the entry on The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016

Inscription

left section, on the scroll of Isaiah: ECCE VIR / GO CONCI / PIET [et] PA / RIET FILIU[M] / [et] VOCABI / TUR NOM / EN EIUS / [E]MANUE[L] (Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel; from Isaiah 7:14); middle section, on the scroll of the announcing angel: A[nnunti]o / Vobis / Gaudiu[m] / Magnu[m] (Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy; variant of Luke 2:10); right section, on the scroll of Ezekial: VIDI PORTA[M] / I[N] DOMO D[OMI]NI / CLAUSA[M] / VIR / NO[N] TR[AN]SIBIT / P[ER] EA[M] DOM / IN[US] SOLUS / I[N]TRAT ET[?] / IT [?] P[ER] EA[M] (I saw a door in the house of the Lord which was closed and no man went through it. The Lord only enters and goes through it; variant of Ezekial 44:2)

Provenance

NGA 1937.1.8 formed part of the front predella of Duccio's double-sided altarpiece the Maestà, which was in the course of execution by October 1308 and was placed on the high altar of the Cathedral of Siena on 30 June 1311;[1] the altarpiece was removed from the cathedral in 1506, first stored by the Cathedral authorities, and then later displayed on the wall of the left transept, close to the altar of Saint Sebastian, but probably by this time the predella and gable panels had already been separated from it;[2] the altarpiece was moved to the church of Sant'Ansano in 1777, where its two sides were separated and returned to the cathedral;[3] in 1798 the gables and eight panels of the predella were reported as being kept in the sacristy of the cathedral, whereas the rest, including NGA 1937.1.8, must already have been in private hands.[4] probably with Charles Fairfax Murray [1849-1919], London and Florence, in the early 1880s,[5] who seems to have been the seller, in 1884, to the Gemäldegalerie der Königliche Museen, Berlin; deaccessioned 1937[6] and exchanged with (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[7] purchased 26 April 1937 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[8] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The documents are published in Jane Immler Satkowski, Duccio di Boninsegna. The Documents and Early Sources, ed. Hayden B.J. Maginnis, Atlanta, 2000: 69-81, and in Allesandro Bagnoli et al., eds., Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, Siena, 2003.: 577-579.

[2] See Alessandro Lisini, “Notizie di Duccio pittore e della sua celebre ancona,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 5 (1898): 24-25. According to this author, in 1506 the altarpiece "venne confinata in certi mezzanini dell'Opera [del Duomo]...e per introdurvela fu necessario di togliere tutte le cuspidi e gli accessori" ("was stored in certain passages in the Opera del Duomo...and to enter there it was necessary to cut off all the pinnacles and accessories"). This latter term presumably comprises the predella. Lisini stated that only "sulla fine del secolo" - i.e., at the end of the sixteenth century - was the painting brought back to the cathedral. In Giovanna Ragionieri's opinion, however, the altarpiece had already been returned to the cathedral in 1536 and installed near the altar of Saint Sebastian. See Giovanna Ragionieri, in Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. Alessandro Bagnoli et al., Siena, 2003: 212.

[3] See Pèleo Bacci, Francesco di Valdambrino, Emulo del Ghiberti e collaboratore di Jacopo della Quercia, Siena, 1936: 185-186. The author did not mention the gables and predella; these had probably been separated earlier from the rest of the altarpiece (see the previous note). After the separation of the two sides of the main panel, the front with the image of the Madonna and Child enthroned in majesty surrounded by saints and angels was hung in its former place in the left transept, and the narrative scenes of the back were hung in the opposite transept.

[4] See Bacci 1936, 187. Vittorio Lusini specified that, apart from the twelve scenes of the gable, eight panels of the predella were present in the sacristy at this time, i.e., one more than the predella panels now preserved in the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana del Duomo in Siena. The identity of this eighth scene is uncertain, but presumably it was different from those that reappeared in private hands in the second half of the nineteenth century. See Vittorio Lusini, Il Duomo di Siena, 2 vols., Siena, 1911-1939: 2:77. The seven predella panels now in the Siena cathedral museum represent the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into Egypt, and Christ among the Doctors from the front predella, and the Temptation on the Temple and the Wedding at Cana from the rear predella. James Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, around the mid-nineteenth century, were only able to see six predella panels in the sacristy of the cathedral: the much damaged Temptation on the Temple and the eighth panel of unknown subject were no longer there. See Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle, A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, 3 vols., London, 1864: 2:44 n. 1. Curt H. Weigelt discovered Temptation on the Temple in the storerooms of the Opera del Duomo in 1909, whereas the eighth panel has so far not been identified. See Curt H. Weigelt, “Contributo alla ricostruzione della Maestà di Duccio di Buoninsegna nel Museo della Metropolitana di Siena,” Bullettino senese di storia patria 16, no. 2 (1909): 191–214. The predella, its many panels now divided among various museums in the world, was probably disposed of by the Opera del Duomo during the eighteenth century, and was at first privately owned in Siena.

[5] No source, as far as Miklós Boskovits knows, claims that Fairfax Murray actually owned the painting; however, James Stubblebine plausibly suggests this (Duccio di Buoninsegna and his school, Princeton, 1979: 37). In fact, in 1883 the English painter-dealer sold two other panels of the predella of the Maestà to the National Gallery in London, those representing the Annunciation and the Healing of the Man Born Blind (nos. 1139, 1140). In 1886 he sold four additional panels of the predella to Robert Benson in London (one of these is NGA 1939.1.141). It seems that he initially had hoped to sell them all to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin and had tried to convince the gallery to purchase them, offering to give one of the panels as his gift. Significantly, Eduard Dobbert (“Duccio’s Bild 'Die Geburt Christi' in der Königlichen Gemälde - Galerie zu Berlin,” Jakrbuch der Berliner Museen 6 (1885): 153-163) thanked Fairfax Murray for having helped him with information in his hypothetical reconstruction of the Maestà.

[6] Königliche Museen zu Berlin, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Berlin, 1891: 77, as no. 1062A. The painting is mentioned as having been relinquished by the Gemäldegalerie ("1937 abgegeben") in the museum's Gesamtverzeichnis, Berlin, 1996: 601. Helmut Ruhemann, The Cleaning of Painting, London, 1968: 41, remembers that the painting was "exchanged [...] for an average Holbein," and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:172 n. 12, quotes a letter of the same restorer to the National Gallery of Art, according to which the Duccio predella panel "was exchanged in the 1930s by the Gemäldegalerie for a painting by Cranach." This was evidently a slip of the pen; the exchanged picture was the Portrait of a Man with Lute by Holbein, no. 2154 in the Berlin gallery, which came from an American private collection and was acquired by the Gemäldegalerie in 1937 (Gesamtverzeichnis, Berlin, 1996: 60); see the following note.

[7] Duveen Brothers wrote to the director of the paintings department at the Berlin museum on 26 February 1937, offering the portrait by Holbein (then “said to be . . . of Jean de Dinteville,” from Henry Goldman’s collection) in exchange for two paintings in Berlin, this painting by Duccio and the Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna and Child, also in the National Gallery of Art (NGA 1939.1.290; Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown, Italian paintings of the Fifteenth Century, Washington, D.C. and New York, 2003: 401-405). Bernard Berenson’s opinion about the painting came in a letter dated 15 March 1937. By April, Duveen’s offices in Paris and New York were exchanging messages concerning conservation work on the painting, and David Finley had seen the painting for Andrew Mellon by early May. Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: reel 48, box 139, folder 4; reel 92, box 237, folder 23; reel 189, box 334, folder 2; reel 192, box 237, folder 23; copies in NGA curatorial files. See also Duveen Brothers, Inc., Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America, New York, 1941: 6.

[8] The Mellon Trust purchase date is according to Mellon collection records in NGA curatorial files and David Finley's notebook (donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in Gallery Archives).

Technical Summary

This is one of the few early Italian panels in the collection that has not been cradled. The wooden support is a two-member poplar panel [1] of remarkable thickness (6 cm), with horizontal grain; engaged to this is a simple gilded molding that demarcates the three areas of the support to be painted. The panel and moldings were prepared with a fine fabric followed by gesso. A thin, orange bole was applied under the gilded areas. The ornamental border along the edges of the gold ground, the halos, and the contours of the figures of the prophets were incised in the preparation before painting. Mordant gilding is evident in the robes of the Virgin and of the angels. Infrared reflectography reveals a simple underdrawing.[2]

A photograph taken in or shortly before 1885 [3] suggests that the painting was subjected to a rather drastic restoration, of unspecified date but probably carried out before the acquisition for the Gemäldegalerie der Königliche Museen in Berlin, in order to integrate the abrasions and render the image more pleasing by extensive retouching. The inscriptions were also reinforced. Helmut Ruhemann treated the painting in 1929;[4] photographs made after this treatment show the worn areas of the painting. The figures of the prophets in particular are damaged by abrasion and by small flaking paint losses as well as by sharp craquelure. Dr. Max Friedlander “cleaned” the painting at some point between 1929 and 1937.[5] According to information in the William Suhr archives at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, William Suhr removed a varnish, inpainted, and revarnished the painting.[6] On the whole the painted surface, in spite of some abrasion, is fairly well preserved. Numerous small areas of inpainting affect the faces of the angels, the hair and beard of Isaiah, and the face of the Virgin.

Bibliography
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1885
Thode, Henry. Franz von Assisi und die Anfänge der Kunst der Renaissance in Italien. Berlin, 1885: 75.
1890
Schubring, Paul. Moderner Cicerone, vol. 1, das Kaiser Friedrich-Museum, Berlin. Stuttgart [u.a.], 1890: 81, repro. 83.
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Meyer, Julius, Hugo von Tschudi, and Wilhelm von Bode. Beschreibendes Verzeichniss der Gemälde. Königliche Museen, Berlin . 3rd ed. Berlin, 1891: 72, repro.
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Pératé, André. "Études sur la peinture Siennoise. Duccio, 1." Gazette des Beaux-Arts S. 3, v. 9 (1893): 89.
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Pératé, André. "Études sur la peinture Siennoise. Duccio, 2." Gazette des Beaux-Arts S. 3, v. 10 (1893): 178, 200.
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Lisini, Alessandro. "Notizie di Duccio pittore e della sua celebre ancona." Bollettino senese di storia paria 5 (1898): 25, 27.
1909
Posse, Hans. Die Gemäldegalerie des Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums: vollständiger beschreibender Katalog mit Abbildungen sämtlicher Gemälde, vol. 1, die romanischen Länder. Berlin, 1909: 15 (repro.), 16.
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1941
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Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 59, no. 8.
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1960
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Related Content
Altarpiece Reconstruction

Click on any panel in the altarpiece reconstruction below to see an enlarged version of the image. Color reproductions in the reconstruction indicate panels in the National Gallery of Art collection.

Reconstruction of the front of the predella of Duccio di Buoninsegna's Maestà:

a. The Annunciation (Entry fig. 3)
b. The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel
c. The Adoration of the Magi (Entry fig. 4)
d. The Presentation in the Temple with Salomon (or David?) and the Prophet Malachi (Entry fig. 7)
e. The Massacre of the Innocents (Entry fig. 6)
f. The Flight into Egypt with the Prophets Jeremiah and Hosea (Entry fig. 8)
g. Christ among the Doctors (Entry fig. 5)