Italian Medieval and Renaissance Paintings and Sculptures

On View: West Building, Main Floor

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366 artworks on view.

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Shown from the knees up, a seated woman and two winged, nude children gather at the center of this vertical painting. They all have pale, peachy skin. At the center of the composition, the woman, Venus, sits with her body angled slightly to our right as she turns her head back to our left, gazing into the distance with brown eyes under thick brows. She wears a jeweled headpiece over her upswept, honey-blond hair, and delicate ringlets frame her brow. Her cheeks are tinged with dusty rose-pink, and she has a long nose and a ruby-red, bow mouth. She wears an amber-yellow gown trimmed with white lace at the neckline. The short sleeve we can see is slashed to reveal cream-white fabric puffing out of the openings. A wide, gold chain inset with gleaming pale aquamarine-blue jewels the size of thumbprints drapes over her far shoulder and across her chest like a sash. She wears a pearl necklace and teardrop-shaped earrings, and more pearls and gems adorn the gold bracelets on her wrists. One child, in the lower right corner of the painting, stands in front of her with his back to us. He holds an arrow in his left hand, which he rests on the chocolate-brown cloth draped across Venus’s lap. He turns head to the right, and his face is partially obscured by one of his small, charcoal-gray and cream-white wings. Venus holds two ends of an off-white cloth tied around his head as a blindfold. Just beyond him is another person, visible from the hip up, who fills the height of the composition but is mostly cropped by the right edge. We see the left arm, shoulder, and edge of the hip as they stand with their back to us. The arm we can see is raised to hold what appears to be a metal bowl. On Venus’s opposite side, to our left, the second winged child stands on the ledge on which Venus sits. He leans one hand and his chin on Venus’s shoulder and gazes off to our right. He has chestnut-brown hair and eyes, and a round nose in a pudgy face. Loosely painted cranberry-red drapery hangs from the upper left corner and falls in cascading folds behind him. An azure-blue sky with tan clouds is visible beyond the drapes.

Venus Blindfolding Cupid

Italian 16th Century, Anonymous Artist

c. 1566/1570 or c. 1576/1580

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1952.2.12

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M23
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Three men, one woman, and three camels gather around the stone ledge of a well in this horizontal landscape painting. Along the left edge of the composition and on the far side of the well, a man with brown skin and short, black hair faces away from us as he reaches for the reins of two camels, one of which looks at or toward us. This man wears an emerald-green shirt under a canary-yellow tunic, which is tied in place with a strap over one shoulder. With her back to that man, a woman with pale, white skin stands angled toward the two light-skinned men who stand to our right, in the center of the painting. Light falls across this trio, and the woman’s face is especially bright against the muted blues of the sky behind her. Her blond hair is braided and coiled at the back of her head. Her white shirt has puffy, short sleeves, and is covered with sheer, gold fabric, like a vest. Salmon-pink fabric wraps across her shoulders and under her bust, and the light glints off the folds of her full, pink skirt. She touches her left wrist, to our right, with her other hand, and wears bracelets on both arms. A copper-colored pot sits on the ledge next to her, to our left. She looks toward a man who kneels as he holds up a handful of gold coins or jewelry. His body is angled away from us, and we see him in profile facing our left, the bottom of his face hidden by his raised arm. He wears a tunic striped with fawn brown and white, and short, teal-green pants come to mid-thigh. His knees are bare, and he wears peach-colored, shin-high boots. A buttercup-yellow robe is tied over one shoulder and around his waist, and he wears a close-fitting green cap, the same color as his pants. Just beyond him, a balding man with a trimmed, gray beard leans toward and looks at the woman. He wears an apricot-orange tunic under an ocean-blue cape. He gestures with one hand to the gold and props his other hand on a tall walking stick. A camel behind him faces our right in profile with coral-pink fabric draped over its hump. The camel’s head is near a tree with a bush growing at its base. A chest with a rounded top sits near the tree. Another camel peeks its face into the scene from the upper right corner, and a fifth drinks from another copper-colored vessel in the lower right. Gray rocks are scattered on the earth along the bottom edge of the painting, and a stick leans against the side of the well close to us. Beyond the tree and the camels to our right, a town with oyster-white buildings lines the horizon in the distance. The sky above is streaked with navy blue, steel gray, tan, and mauve pink. The weave of the canvas is visible in some areas, especially the sky.

Rebecca at the Well

Veronese, Italian 16th Century

c. 1582/1588

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1952.5.82

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M24
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A nearly nude man with peachy skin stands next to and looks up at a man with ashen, ivory-colored skin, wearing armor and riding a bright white horse in this vertical painting. The horizon line comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition, and the sky behind the men and horse is vivid, aqua blue with a few silvery-gray and pale, yellow clouds floating along the top edge of the composition. The painting is created with long, blended brushstrokes, and the limbs and features of the two men and horse are elongated and have delicate, dark outlines. The horse’s body is angled to our right but it looks at us from the corners of its dark eyes. One front leg is raised. The rider looks down toward the man on foot at his side, to our left. The rider has dark, arched eyebrows, a long, straight nose, a pointed chin, and short, copper-orange hair. Wide ruffs pleated into figure-eights encircle his neck and wrists. His chest and arms are covered with plates of steel-gray armor edged and decorated with gold bands and medallions. He wears crimson-red pantaloons and stockings with mustard-yellow boots. With his right hand, to our left, he holds the gold hilt of a long, thin sword along the horse’s body. With his other hand, he holds a swath of lime-green fabric, which drapes down the side of the horse and across the hips of the man standing next to the rider. The sheen of the fabric is suggested with canary-yellow highlights where it catches the light. The standing man has short, dark brown hair and eyebrows. He looks to our right in profile, toward the rider, with pink lips parted. He holds the green fabric with his left hand, to our right, and he has a bandage around his leg near his right ankle. The horse and man stand on a spit of dark brown land, with a landscape of trees, buildings, and mountains deep in the distance beyond.

Saint Martin and the Beggar

Greek 16th Century

1600/1614

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1937.1.84

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M28
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Portrait of a Man

North Italian 15th Century

c. 1475/1500

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1939.1.357

Not on view
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A man hangs on a cross flanked by small groups of people against a shiny gold background in this vertical panel painting. The people all have pale skin tinged with gray. The man on the cross, Jesus, has long blond hair and a beard, and he wears only a translucent white cloth wrapped around his hips. Blood trickles from nails driven through his hands and one driven through both feet. Blood also spurts from a wound over his right ribs. A halo surrounds his head, which hangs down, eyes closed. The wood cross is about twice as tall as the people standing around it, and a panel at the top has the letters “ICXC” written in gold. A woman with long, unbound blond hair and wearing a vibrant red cloak wraps her arms around the foot of the cross. That woman and four people in the group of five to our left also have halos. There, two people support a woman who has swooned between them. That woman wears a black cloak, and her supporters cry, their brows furrowed and eyes squinted. Two people behind this group, one of whom has a halo, look up at Jesus. To our right, three bearded men also look at the cross. The man closest to us wears a white hood and a canary-yellow cloak over a moss-green robe. He holds both hands up high. A man behind him wears a helmet and a red cloak over sky-blue armor, and we only see the lined face of the third man, who has a white beard and hair. Three angels catch the blood trickling from Jesus’s two hands and the wound on his side in shallow gold cups. Each angel has blond hair, wears a topaz blue, long-sleeved garment, and has two pairs of wings – one coming from their backs and another crossing in front of their torsos. The cross stands on a low mound on a rocky ground. A small human skull is tucked into an opening below the mound. The bright gold background is punched with lines to create an inner border behind the scene, and the panel is framed with gold molding.

The Crucifixion

Bernardo Daddi

c. 1320/1325

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1961.9.2

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M1
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This painting shows a person standing, their head slightly tilted to the left. They have a pale complexion, and short, wavy blonde hair adorned with a thin red crown. They have rosy, pink cheeks, arched eyebrows, a straight nose, and small lips set in a neutral expression. The individual is wearing a long red robe over a black tunic or dress and is holding a long black quill-like object in one hand, and what looks like a thin staff with a red loop at the end in the other. A detailed golden halo surrounds their head, and the background features an ornate gold pattern which is slightly worn and peeling in some places. The painting is bordered by a golden frame.

Saint Apollonia

Sassetta

c. 1435

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1943.4.5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3
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Shown from the chest up, a clean-shaven young man with pale, peachy skin looks off to our left against a cloudy sky in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he gazes in that direction with dark eyes under thick, arched brows. He has a long nose, smooth cheeks, and a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his closed, peach-colored lips. Chestnut-brown hair is covered by a black headdress with two long tails. One end drapes over the front of his right shoulder, farther from us, and the other end hangs down his back. He wears a brick-red garment that falls in vertical pleats from a high collar. A white undergarment peeks out from the top of the neckline, and the collar is fastened with a small clasp at the throat. Behind him, tan-colored clouds float across a blue sky.

Portrait of a Young Man in Red

Giovanni Bellini

c. 1480

Oil and tempera on panel  Accession ID  1937.1.29

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M12
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A winged, nearly nude woman with ivory-white skin, partially wrapped in a crimson-red cloak, delicately holds up the reins of a gray horse as it rears toward her in this vertical painting. They stand on a roughly oval-shaped disk of gray rock carpeted with mustard-yellow growth. Stubby brown branches jut out from its sides. To our right, the woman’s body faces us as she looks toward the horse, to our left. The woman’s honey-brown hair is braided and wound into coils over her temples. The rest is pulled back, and tendrils frame her face and fall over her shoulders. A strand of pearls drapes along her hairline between the braids. Her hazel-brown eyes and slightly parted pale lips are set in a round face. Tall wings edged in earth brown and filled with a blend of ivory, caramel brown, and mustard yellow reach up along either side of her head. Her long cloak is knotted on at her right shoulder, on our left, and drapes across her clavicle, over her other shoulder, and down her back. One corner wraps across her hips and mid-section, and drapes over her outstretched left arm, on our right, revealing bare legs. A cream-white and caramel-brown striped sash under the cloak is tied over one shoulder and knotted under her bare breasts. She holds a short, dark brown tree branch covered with spiky leaves in her left hand, our right. The other hand is raised to daintily hold one end of the thin gold string wound around the horse’s neck. The horse balances on its hind legs with its front hooves dangling in mid-air. His body is angled toward the woman, but his head turns back as he faces us with his mouth hanging open. The horse's head and tail seem too small for its large body. Along the bottom edge of the composition, in front of the spit of land, a mermaid with long blond hair and two charcoal-gray tails swims with arms extended in front of her. The water is pale beige closest to us and transitions to a light blue as it recedes into the distance, where it blends into the milky white sky. Birds fly over ghostly, powder-blue headlands studded with caramel-brown trees in the distance to our left. A boat sails in the water in the distance to our right.

Allegory

Piero di Cosimo

probably c. 1500

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.160

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M20
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A light-skinned man wearing a voluminous, ocean-blue, hooded robe sits at a cloth-draped writing table and looks up, fingers splayed over an open book and a pen held in his other hand, in this vertical painting. The man and desk take up most of the composition, which has an arched top. The man’s shoulders and body are angled to our right, and he looks off in that direction in profile. His balding head is rimmed with white hair curving over the large ear we can see, and he has a trimmed white and gray beard and mustache. His prominent nose is pointed, and his lips are closed. Light glints off the robe he wears so it shimmers in shades of topaz, aquamarine, and midnight blue. Voluminous white sleeves emerge under the mantle and are edged with narrow lace cuffs. His left hand, to our right, rests on an open book, which is propped against one or two other tomes. Near the edge of the table, two quills stand in the corners of a lidded inkwell, and a round, silver blotter, shaped like an upside-down chalice, and a lidded silver box sit nearby. The man’s chair has a tall post next to his shoulder to our left with a teardrop-shaped, gold finial. A second post, near his wrist, is lower and topped with a gold orb. The chair is draped in the same deep, raspberry-pink of the square table at which he sits. The tablecloth is edged with a wide band of gold along the bottom, and filigree-like gold decorations line the seams or folds at the corners. Brushstrokes are visible in many areas, especially in the colorfully charged blue and pink fabric. Beyond the man, to our right, a statuette of a person wearing a long, white robe over a white dress holds a baby. The clothing is edged with gold, and she wears a sphere-like gold crown. The baby also wears white and holds up one hand. The statuette stands on a platform supported by S-shaped corbels, and could have a projecting, squared awning over the top. This area is more loosely painted so some details are difficult to make out. In the background to our left, a wooden door stands open next to a dark space just behind the man’s head, so his profile is picked out against the shadow. The floor beneath is earth brown.

Saint Ildefonso

El Greco

c. 1603/1614

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1937.1.83

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M28
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A woman holds and looks toward a nude, young child, who sits on her lap and looks out at us, smiling, in this vertical painting. They both have pale skin and thin, gold halos floating above their heads. The clear sky behind them deepens from teal blue along the top edge to ice blue behind their shoulders. To our right, the woman is shown from the lap up with her body angled to our left, toward the child she holds. She looks down at the child almost in profile with dark eyes under faint brows. She has a long, straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her petal-pink lips are closed. Her blond hair is braided and twisted back from her face under a sheer, gold-trimmed, white veil, that flutters as if in a breeze. Her rose-pink dress has a wide neckline and the elbow-length sleeve we can see falls loosely over a tighter, spring-green sleeve. The neckline is trimmed with gold decorations and an inscription: “MDVIII.R.V.PIN.” A peacock-blue robe drapes over the shoulder farther from us and across her lap. That arm wraps around the child’s back, and she holds her other hand to her chest, near where the child grips the neckline of her dress. The child sits on a white pillow with one leg flung across the woman’s lap and the other, closer to us, dangling between her knees. Slightly slouched, his body is angled to our right, toward the woman, but he looks over his shoulder at us with dark eyes. He has faint eyebrows, a delicate nose, a dimpled chin, flushed cheeks, and his pale pink lips curl into a smile. He has wispy blond hair and pudgy, toddler-like cheeks and body. His other hand rests on the pillow between his legs. A band of gauzy, sheer fabric decorated with gold stripes wraps around one shoulder and around his upper chest.

The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna

Raphael

1508

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1937.1.25

Not on view
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A woman sitting on the floor and cradling a nursing baby in her lap is flanked by two winged angels and a kneeling woman, beneath a bearded man supported on a third angel in this vertical painting. The seated woman, Mary, and the infant, Jesus, have pale, peachy skin, blond hair, and hazel eyes. Mary sits facing us on a long cushion on the floor with her body angled to our right, taking up about half the height of the composition. Her round face is tilted to our right as she gazes up under faint brows. Her marine-blue mantle is trimmed with gold and has a star on her right shoulder, to our left. The mantle covers most of her head and wraps around her tan and bronze-brown robe. The baby swaddled in a rose-pink cloth and reaches for her exposed left breast, which emerges from a place near her shoulder. Jesus lies across a white cloth that also drapes over her left arm. His head is turned slightly away from her breast as he looks up and to our left while his left arm reaches toward the neck of her dress. He has adult-like facial features but a pudgy body, and his ankles are crossed with the toes of his bottom foot flexed. Two winged angels floating to each side are smaller in scale, and are painted entirely in pumpkin orange. They face in toward Mary and Jesus, and wear long, flowing garments. The angel to our left crosses arms over the chest, and the angel to our right holds hands up in prayer. A third orange angel floats above them, seen head-on, gazing down. Above it is the torso of a young man with brown hair and beard, wearing a rose-pink cloak over a peacock-blue robe. He faces us with one hand held up, index and middle finger extended. He holds a closed book the same color blue as his robe in his other hand. Mary, Jesus, the bearded man, and the angels all have halos incised into the gold background, which comes to a point above the bearded man. In the bottom quarter of the painting, the burnt-orange floor is covered with a brocade-like pattern in gold. Set against it in the lower right corner, a woman, much smaller in scale than Mary and Jesus, kneels with her raised hands pressed together as she gazes up at them in profile. She is completely covered by a bone-white, long-sleeved garment, wimple, and long mantle, leaving only her face visible. The inner edges of the panel, including along the pointed top, are punched with floral and geometric patterns. The upper corners of the wooden panel to either side of the point are filled in with gold.

Madonna of Humility, The Blessing Christ, Two Angels, and a Donor [obverse]

Andrea di Bartolo

c. 1380/1390

Tempera on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.20.a

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3
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This painting shows a person standing, their body turned to us, with their head looking downward to the left. The person has pale skin, round, rosy cheeks, and wavy yellow hair surrounded by a golden halo with intricate patterns. They are wearing a dark robe over a dark red dress or tunic and holding a long, thin red cross in one hand, while the other hand holds a closed red book. At their feet lies a black dog-like animal with wide yellow eyes. The scene is set against a golden textured background within a gilded border.

Saint Margaret

Sassetta

c. 1435

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1943.4.4

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3
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