Italian Medieval and Renaissance Paintings and Sculptures

On View: West Building, Main Floor

Gallery number

367 artworks on view.

Three scenes showing the same person, Saint Anthony, are spaced along a path that winds from the lower right corner and around hills and trees into the distance in this vertical painting. In all three scenes, Saint Anthony has pale skin, a long white beard, and a halo framing a fringe of white hair around a balding head. He is barefoot and wears a black monk’s robe, and wears or carries a coral-pink cloak. Closest to us, in front of the mouth of a dark cave, Saint Anthony embraces a light-skinned, bearded man with long, curly blond hair. That man wears cream-white robes and also has a halo. Two walking sticks lie on the ground at their feet. The pebble-lined path disappears between stylized trees painted with smooth dark brown trunks and canopies created with pine and spring-green dots over a ground of forest green. To our right and farther along the path as it rises along the ridge of a hill, Saint Anthony meets a centaur, which has the torso and head of a man and the body and legs of a horse. The centaur holds a palm frond, and Saint Anthony raises one hand. On the opposite side of the hill, in the distance to our left, Saint Anthony walks along the path with a walking stick, and his pink robe hangs over a second long stick slung over his shoulder. Trees running along the background come nearly to the top of the panel, but a sliver of sky is painted gold, and the top edge is punched or embossed with a decorative pattern. Pale red shapes beyond the trees could be a building, perhaps a church, rising in the distance.

The Meeting of Saint Anthony and Saint Paul

Master of the Osservanza, Sano di Pietro

c. 1430/1435

Tempera on poplar panel Accession ID 1939.1.293

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3

The sculpture is a detailed bust of a young man with pale skin and wavy brown hair that almost reaches to his shoulders, seen from the chest up. He has thin, arched eyebrows, a long, straight nose, and thin red lips that are partially open. A dark red and green cloth or cloak is draped over his shoulders and tied near his left arm, and it appears to cover a light brown garment with the texture of fur. The sculpture has no base.

Saint John the Baptist

Florentine 15th Century

c. 1490

Painted terracotta Accession ID 1937.1.130

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M9

Shown from the shins up, a pale-skinned, balding, bearded man wearing a voluminous rust-red robe lined with black-speckled white fur looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. The man sits in a wood-framed chair with a curving seat. His body angled slightly to our left, but his face turns to us. He looks out with dark gray eyes under a lined forehead, one eyebrow slightly cocked. He has a rounded nose, thin lips, and paunchy cheeks. A few wisps of gray hair are suggested across the top of his mostly bald head, and his gray beard is trimmed. His left hand, to our right, rests on the terminus of the chair’s arm, and his other hand rests in front of his belly, presumably with that elbow on the other arm. His robe falls heavily in deep folds, and the wide openings of the sleeves continue down and off the bottom edge of the canvas. The front of the robe and the insides of the sleeves are lined with white fur dotted with black. A scarf-like band of fabric brocaded with dark red-on-red drapes over one shoulder. The background is charcoal gray except for a dark, olive-green shape suggesting a doorway over the man’s left shoulder.

A Procurator of Saint Mark's

Jacopo Tintoretto

c. 1575/1585

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1952.5.79

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M24

Enclosed within the pale, peach-colored walls of a courtyard, two women with two children and three men line up before a man with a gold halo standing in the lower right corner in this vertical painting. All the people have pale or olive-toned skin except for one man, to our left, who has a light brown complexion. The cleanshaven man to our right, Saint Anthony, has light skin, short blond hair, and he wears a gold-trimmed, burgundy-red cloak and pale green hose. His disk-like gold halo has a band of rings near its perimeter. In his left hand, closer to us, he holds a white cloth purse by its strings, as he offers coins with his right right hand. The boy receiving the coins in a shallow bowl has blond hair and is dressed in a spring-green cloak, with yellow hose and black shoes. He stands next to a woman wearing a patched, caramel-brown dress and a cream-white veil over her head, neck, and shoulders. She holds a blond infant wearing sky blue. Another woman, stooped with age, hair also veiled, stands with them. This group of four all have pale skin. Behind this group and to our left is a man with an olive complexion and a black beard and hair. He wears a fraying black robe. His chemise pokes through a hole in his right sleeve and he leans forward on bare feet. He holds an ivory-white object, perhaps a cloth or bread, by his mouth with the hand farther from us. Behind him a taller, older man, with white hair and beard walks to our left with his eyes closed, steadied by a staff and led by a small black and white dog on a rope. He wears a green cap, topped with black fur, and a pale blue cape over a brown robe. A bearded man with light brown skin enters the scene from our left, walking staff in hand. He wears a turban-like cap, a brown robe, and black shoes. Through an open, arched doorway to our right, beyond Saint Anthony, a second image of the saint is shown descending a staircase with purse in hand. Also with a gold halo, he approaches another arched opening with a stout wooden door, through which piles of gold coins are heaped. The arcade of the second level of the courtyard fills the top quarter of the painting and extends off the top edge. A shield-shaped coat of arms is shown over the doorway closest to us to our right, with three stars across a gray band against a golden yellow background.

Saint Anthony Distributing His Wealth to the Poor

Master of the Osservanza, Sano di Pietro

c. 1430/1435

Tempera on poplar panel Accession ID 1952.5.20

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3

In a landscape with chiseled, rocky mountains beyond a grassy meadow and stream, two men wearing dove-gray robes react to a flame-red cross in the sky in this nearly square painting. Both men have pale skin and their hair has been cut into a ring around each head. Their loose robes are cinched at the waist, and both have bare feet. The man to our left, with hands raised, kneels with his body angled to our right, facing the red cross in the sky, in the upper right corner of the painting. He has gray or blond hair and a flat gold halo edged with red. Five thin gold lines emanate from the red cross to touch the man’s hands, feet, and the right side of his chest. There is a red spot where one gold ray touches the palm of his right hand, closer to us. The second man, to our right, sits and leans back on one hand and holds his other hand to his brow as he looks up at the cross. He has dark hair. A small book with yellow pages and a red cover sits on the grass nearby. In the background, each of the three tall, pointed mountains nearly touch the top edge of the composition, and each is a different color, with icy, pale blue to our left, shell pink at the center, and light laurel green to our right. A stream running in front of the mountains turns a corner and comes our way in the lower right corner of the panel. The green meadow has a line of dark pine green trees and bushes behind the kneeling man and along the bottom left edge of the panel, near us. Wisps of white clouds float in the violet-purple sky above.

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Domenico Veneziano

c. 1445/1450

Tempera on poplar panel Accession ID 1939.1.140

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M4

A man wearing a dark ring of thorns around his head hangs from a wooden cross as two kneeling people look on in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin with a greenish cast, and all three have gold, disk-like halos. On the cross, Jesus’s head tips forward, his gaze downcast. Bright red blood runs down the man’s arms from where his palms are nailed to the cross. Blood also pours from a gash over his right ribs, to our left, and from his feet, which overlap and are nailed to the cross. He is nude except for a transparent white cloth tied across his hips. Behind his shoulder-length blond hair and goatee, a scarlet-red cross is embedded in his halo. A red scroll above the across has the letters, “INRI,” and above the scroll, a long-necked, white bird set within a dark green nest pecks at its own chest, wings outstretched. Both of the men kneeling at the foot of the cross look up at Jesus. Both are barefoot and have bald heads with a fringe of hair. The man to our left wears a deep V-necked, ivory-white tunic that pools on the ground. His arms cross over his torso and he holds a string of beads in his left hand and a rock in the other. There is a red mark on his chest. The man to our right wears a long, brown hooded cloak. Blood trickles from the base of the cross onto the rose-pink, chisel-cut ground, to where a skull and two bones sit between the men. The land steeply rises to a jagged, barren pink mountain to our right, and dips down to a field with rows of dark green plants and a few trees to our left. Buildings cluster behind a mauve-pink city wall in the distance, and one of the buildings has a gold dome. The sky deepens from ice blue along the horizon to teal along a band of clouds that stretch behind Jesus’s torso. Charcoal-gray clouds fill in the space above the cross. Lines flicker off of a flaming, ruby-red orb in the sky to our left and a black orb hangs to our right.

The Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Saint Francis

Pesellino

c. 1445/1450

Tempera on poplar panel Accession ID 1939.1.109

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M4

A woman kneels in front of a baby under a stone structure to the right as a man sits and dozes in front of a landscape to the left in this wide, horizontal painting. All three people have pale, peachy skin with rosy cheeks and gold, flat, disk-like halos. To our right, the woman’s head and shoulders are covered with a white cloth as she crosses her hands across her chest. She wears a rose-pink dress under a voluminous, sky-blue robe lined with spruce green. The robe puddles on the floor behind her feet, and one section has been pulled forward to be used as a blanket for the baby. The child has blond hair and round cheeks, and is swaddled in white under the robe. He is propped up against stacked rolls of hay. A room-like space with pale pink stone walls stretches back beyond the woman. The wall to the left is pierced with an arched opening. A trough lines that wall on the woman’s side of the opening, and another is perpendicular to it, just beyond the baby. An ox pokes its head through the opening, and an ass looks across the second trough. To our left, the man sits with at least one knee pulled up. He has long blond hair, a white beard, and wears a sapphire-blue tunic and red robe. He leans one elbow on his bent knee and rests his head in that hand, his eyes closed. A staff with a sack tied to the end rests against his other shoulder. He sits on a flat, green area at the foot of sheer-cut, green, rocky hills. More hills, trees, and a path lead back into the distance to towns along the horizon. The upper and lower edges of the panel are painted with pale pink similar to the building, making it seem that we look through a partial frame at the scene.

The Nativity

Fra Filippo Lippi, Italian 15th Century

probably c. 1445

Oil and tempera (?) on panel Accession ID 1939.1.279

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M4

Saint Sebastian

Matteo Civitali

c. 1492

Painted terracotta Accession ID 1943.4.76

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M5

Shown from the chest up against a black background, a man with peachy skin wears a gold and rose-pink cloak in this vertical portrait painting. With his shoulders pulled back, the man’s body is angled to our left, and he looks in that direction with gray eyes under pointed, furrowed eyebrows. There are wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and he has a five o-clock shadow along the jowls lining his jaw. He has a rounded nose, and the corners of his thin, pale pink lips turn downward. The hint of closely cropped, dark hair is seen around his ear under his tall, brimless, cobalt-blue cap. His cloak has a stylized floral pattern around pineapples in gold, against a dusky-rose pink background. The high neck of his cloak is lined with white.

Giovanni Emo

Giovanni Bellini

c. 1475/1480

Oil on panel transferred to canvas mounted on panel Accession ID 1939.1.224

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M12

Portrait of a Man

Andrea Mantegna

c. 1470

Tempera on hardboard transferred from canvas transferred from panel Accession ID 1952.2.5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M13

Scenes from the Passion of Christ: The Agony in the Garden [left panel]

Andrea di Vanni

1380s

Tempera on panel Accession ID 2014.79.711.a

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3

Scenes from the Passion of Christ: The Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and the Descent into Limbo [entire triptych]

Andrea di Vanni

1380s

Tempera on panel Accession ID 2014.79.711.a-c

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3

Italian Medieval and Renaissance Paintings and Sculptures