Overview
The composition of this Virgin and Child is loosely based on the Hodegetria, one of the more powerful and enduring icon types of the Orthodox Christian church. The Virgin gestures toward the child to show him as the “way” (hodos in Greek), the source of salvation. The throne and her red shoes present her as the Queen of Heaven, and the archangels in the roundels beside her hold imperial regalia, which are typical attributes of archangels. The first of this type, housed in the Hodegon monastery in Constantinople, was an active part of civic and religious life in the Byzantine capital. Said to produce miracles daily, it was taken out of the monastery every Tuesday so the public could see it. It was invoked against plague and carried by imperial armies as a talisman in battle.
Expert opinion differs about the origin of this painting (known as the Kahn Madonna after an earlier owner) and the National Gallery of Art’s
Byzantine art made a powerful impact on 13th- and 14th-century Italian painting, which emphasizes the spiritual world of Paradise, with elongated and weightless figures, more like spirits than physical human beings, skies of heavenly gold, and flat, stylized patterning of drapery. The gold striations that define folds in clothing, the round volume of Mary’s veiled head, and Jesus’s frontal pose—looking more like a miniature adult than a child—are all part of the Byzantine tradition.
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
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),
Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)
March 21, 2016
Provenance
Said to have come from a church, or convent, in Calahorra (province of La Rioja, Spain);[1] (art market, Madrid), in 1912. (Herbert P. Weissberger, Madrid).[2] (Emile Pares, Madrid, Paris, and New York); (his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 18-19 February 1915, 2nd day, no. 306, as by Giovanni Cimabue); (Emile Pares, Madrid, Paris, and New York);[3] sold 26 November 1915 to (F. Kleinberger & Co., New York).[4] Otto Kahn [1867-1934], New York, by 1917;[5] by inheritance to his widow, Addie Wolff Kahn [d. 1949], New York;[6] gift 1949 to NGA.
Exhibition History
- 1917
- Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives, F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York, 1917, no. 69, repro., as The Madonna and Child by Pietro Cavallini.
Technical Summary
The support is a three-member poplar panel
Bibliography
- 1917
- Sirén, Osvald, and Maurice W. Brockwell. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives. Exh. cat. F. Kleinberger Galleries. New York, 1917: 178, repro. 179.
- 1918
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- 1921
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- 1921
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- 1923
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- 1923
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- 1924
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- 1949
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- 1961
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- 1962
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- 1963
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- 1964
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- 1965
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- 1965
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- 1966
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- 1967
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- 1972
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- 1975
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- 1976
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- 1979
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- 1982
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- 1982
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- 1984
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- 1985
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- 1985
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- 1986
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- 1987
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- 1990
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- 1991
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- 1991
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- 1992
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- 1993
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- 1995
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- 1995
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- 1996
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- 1996
- Schmidt, Victor M. "Die Funktionen der Tafelbilder mit der thronenden Madonna in der Malerei des Duecento." Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 55 (1996): 60-63, fig. 15.
- 1997
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- 1997
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- 1997
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- 1997
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- 1997
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- 1998
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- 1999
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- 1999
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- 2000
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- 2000
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- 2002
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- 2002
- Polzer, Joseph. "The ‘Byzantine’ Kahn and Mellon Madonnas: Concerning their Chronology, Place of Origin, and Method of Analysis." Arte cristiana 90 (2002): 401-410, repro. 402,
- 2003
- Pasut, Francesca. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Supplementary Volume. Vol. 2: Ornamental Painting in Italy (1250–1310). An Illustrated Index. Edited by Miklós Boskovits. Florence, 2003: 125 n. 20.
- 2004
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- 2004
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- 2005
- Corrie, Rebecca W. "The Khan and Mellon Madonnas and their Place in the History of the Virgin and Child Enthroned." In Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Edited by Maria Vassilaki. Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT, 2005: 293-300, pl. 20, fig. 24.1, fig. 24.3.
- 2005
- Folda, Jaroslav. Crusader Art in the Holy Land: From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291. New York, 2005: 457, 557, fig. 299.
- 2006
- Herbert, Lynley Anne. "Duccio di Buoninsegna: Icon of Painters, or Painter of “Icons"?." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, Newark, 2006: 11, fig. 6.
- 2008
- Folda, Jaroslav. Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099-1291. Adershot, England, and Burlington, VT, 2008: 9, repro. 129, 130, 163 n. 28.
- 2013
- Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 246, 250.
- 2015
- Folda, Jaroslav, with a contribution by Lucy J. Wrapson. Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child "Hodegetria" and the Art of Chrysography. Cambridge, England, 2015: 105, 115-122, 128-131, 193-194, pl. 19, 323-329 notes.
- 2016
- Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 38-43, color repro.
- 2016
- National Gallery of Art. Highlights from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Washington, 2016: 35, repro.
- 2020
- Castiñeiras, Manuel. "Un nuovo contesto per la Madonna Kahn? Michele VIII, l'unione delle Chiese e la sconcertante connessione con Calahorra." Arte Medievale serie 4, 10 (2020): 261-282, figs. 1, 3, 5 (detail), 10a (x-ray image), 10b (detail), 11 (reconstruction), 12, 14 (detail), and 15a-d (details).
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