Italian Medieval and Renaissance Paintings and Sculptures

On View: West Building, Main Floor

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367 artworks on view.

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Shown from the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin looks out at us from the corners of her wide-set hazel eyes in this vertical painting. Against a nearly black background, her body is angled to our left and wavy, auburn hair cascades down her back. Her hair is arranged into a bow shape over a thin, pale pink ribbon, and delicate tendrils frame her face and fall over her shoulders. She has thin brows, and her long, straight nose is wide at the bridge. Her pale, coral-pink lips are closed in a slight smile. She is lit from our left so shadows engulf the corners of her eyes and lips, and her far cheek, to our right, is shaded. Her moss-green gown has a golden-brown panel across the chest and voluminous, puffy sleeves. The green sleeves fall back over the deep folds of the white garment she wears underneath, and the dress is tied with a pink sash just below her bust. She holds the flaring foot of an oyster-white lidded vessel, like a miniature urn, with one hand and tips the conical lid up with the other.

The Magdalen

Bernardino Luini

c. 1525

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1961.9.56

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M18
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The sculpture is a candlestick featuring a central figure of a seated man adorned with classical garb. The candlestick is made of ceramics with a cream or off-white base color, detailed with brown and green accents. The design includes intricate patterns and figures, such as naked putti or cherubic figures on the side and decorative faces on the base. Swirling leaf motifs accompany these figures. The sculpture stands upright with a wide base for stability and tapers upward to support the candleholder at the top.

Candlestick

French 16th Century

c. 1547/1559

Lead-glazed fine earthenware  Accession ID  1942.9.352

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M25
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This painting shows a woman sitting and cradling an infant on her lap. The woman faces slightly left and looks down at the child with a slight smile. She has pale skin and golden hair covered by a semi-translucent white veil. She wears a red garment with gold embroidery and a dark blue cloak with gold trim and a star-shaped brooch on her shoulder. The infant has curly golden hair and is dressed in a sheer garment, looking up towards the woman. Surrounding these two people are more people with wings and cherubic children with the bodies of red-and-gold birds. All of these people have pale skin and golden hair, and they wear colorful robes in shades of red, white, and light blue. Everyone in the painting has a golden halo around their head, and the background is a decorative golden surface with intricate patterns around the edge of the painting.

Madonna and Child with Angels and Cherubim

Matteo di Giovanni

c. 1460/1465

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1937.1.9

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M8
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A thin, haggard, olive-skinned, nearly nude man is nailed to a wooden cross in this vertical painting. His body is stretched and elongated between wide-spread hands. Blood trickles from where each hand has been nailed to the cross and from a gash over his right ribs, on our left. The blood from the nail in his overlapping feet drips down the shallow platform on which they rest, down the foot of the cross, and onto the ground. His head droops down to our left, eyes closed and shaded under deeply furrowed brows. Blood also seeps from the ring of thorns around his long, coppery-red hair. He has a long, straight nose, a short beard, and his lips are slightly parted. The man wears a sheer white cloth loosely draped low on his hips. The background is streaked with tawny brown, burnt orange, and gold.

Christ on the Cross [reverse]

Andrea di Bartolo

c. 1380/1390

Tempera on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.20.b

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M3
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Shown from the waist up, a woman behind a stone ledge and in front of a landscape holds a chubby baby tucked into one elbow in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and blond hair surrounded by gold-edged halos. The woman looks down and to our left with hooded eyes. Her pink lips are closed over a pointed, cleft chin. A translucent white veil brushes across her high forehead and is covered by a marine-blue mantle that drapes over her head and shoulders. The mantle is edged in gold, and the plum-purple lining is visible where it is rolled back over her head and forearms. Her apple-red dress is cinched at the waist and falls in vertical folds. She holds her left hand, to our right, up with the palm facing in and the fingers gesturing toward the child. He half sits in the crook of her other elbow and rests his feet on a white pillow, which is on the gray stone ledge. The child wears a translucent white, long-sleeved garment under a pine-green tunic, and a butter-yellow cloth is wrapped around his hips. A purple banner hanging behind the woman is about the width of her collarbone, and a deep landscape to each side has trees, cliffs, and walking paths leading into the distance under piles of white clouds drifting across a watery blue sky.

Madonna and Child

Bartolomeo Vivarini

c. 1475

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1939.1.118

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M13
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A young person with dark blond hair, wearing a knee-length, pale yellow toga, stands playing a violin-like instrument at the center of this long, horizontal landscape painting. A pair of people are to the left and another pair to the right. Most of the people have pale skin, and two of the men have slightly darker, tanned complexions. The person at the center, Apollo, nearly spans the height of the painting. He tips his head back and to our right, toward the instrument on his shoulder, and he looks at us with dark eyes, lips parted. With his other hand, he holds a bow to the instrument’s strings. A dark green wreath of leaves encircles his long hair, and a quiver of arrows is tied with a pine-green ribbon across his chest. His legs are bare, and he wears sandals. An archer’s bow lies on the dirt ground behind his feet. To our right, a man with a dark beard and hair, Marsyas, sits on a rock playing a bagpipe. He faces our left in profile, looking up at Apollo, and he wears a red robe over a royal-blue tunic. Behind him and to our right, near the edge of the panel, a blond woman wearing a rose-pink dress also plays a bagpipe as she looks down onto her reflection in a pool below, in the lower right corner of the composition. Her left foot rests on a white and gold shield, and a golden helmet sits next to her other foot. Marsyas and Apollo appear again as a pair to our left. Marsyas is now nude and tied to a tree, his body facing us, near the left edge of the panel. His mouth is open and he looks toward Apollo, who approaches from our right. Apollo grabs Marsyas’s left wrist, on our right, and holds a knife to the nude man’s upper arm. The set of bagpipes, the quiver of arrows, Marsyas’s clothing, and Apollo’s instrument are strewn on the ground around the men’s feet. The scenes take place in a rocky landscape with dark green shrubs along the bottom edge of the composition and behind the people. A river runs across the land beyond, and people walk along dirt roads in the distance. Trees, craggy cliffs, and a town in the deep distance are painted with icy blue under a blue sky.

Apollo and Marsyas

Sienese 16th Century, Bartolomeo di David

c. 1540

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.350

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M19
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A woman wearing a crimson-red brocade dress and gold jewelry fills most of this vertical portrait, but her right hand, on our left, rests on the shoulder of a young boy tucked into the lower left corner of the panel. The woman and boy both have pale, white skin, and both face and look out at us against an emerald-green curtain that falls behind them. The woman has brown eyes, a straight nose, full pink lips, smooth cheeks, and a long neck. Her brown hair is pulled back under a turban densely embroidered with gold. The woman’s dress has puffed shoulders and decorative slashes on the sleeves. One gold chain rests on her throat and the other falls over her chest. She wears long gold earrings, a gold belt, and two gold rings. She holds a brown leather glove in her left hand. The boy’s face is even with the woman’s waist, and he raises his left hand to hold hers, which is draped over his shoulder. He has curly blond hair and dark eyes, and he wears black with a ruffled white shirt just visible at his collar.

A Young Woman and Her Little Boy

Agnolo Bronzino

c. 1540

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1942.9.6

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M21
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Two women, a man, and two pudgy children create a close-knit group against a dark brown background in this vertical painting. The people all have pale skin with rosy cheeks, blond or copper-colored hair, and delicate gold rings as halos. One child, Jesus, sits on a stone surface at the center of the composition. He leans onto one hip so his feet rest off to our left. His right arm reaches across his chest as he holds up the first two fingers of that hand. He turns his head back to our left to look up at Mary, who stands behind him to our left as she bends down close to the child. She tips her head to our left, and she looks down and off in that direction with brown eyes. A spring-green cloth loops around a white headdress and drapes around her neck. She wears a teal-blue robe over a cranberry-pink dress. In front of her and to our left, Saint Anne, leans toward Jesus from next to the stone. Saint Anne’s skin is notably pale, and wrinkles line her eyes and lips, which are parted. Her face tips up as she gazes heavenward with deep-set eyes. A white cloth drapes over her head and around her shoulders over a lilac-purple garment. She holds a broken staff like walking stick with the hand we see in the lower left corner of the painting. In the lower right and in front of the stone, the second child, Saint John the Baptist, looks at us with wide-set, serious eyes as he points up to Jesus. Saint John has brown curls and pudgy cheeks. A fawn-brown cloth drapes over his far shoulder. Finally, a young man with a wispy beard stands back-to-back with Mary so he fills the upper right corner of the composition. He turns his head to look down over his right shoulder. A gray-blue cloth wraps around his head, and he also holds a broken staff.

The Holy Family

Agnolo Bronzino

c. 1527/1528

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.387

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M21
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Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman in front of a gold background wears a rose-pink cloak over a sky-blue dress and holds up a tooth in a pair of pincers in this vertical painting. Her body faces us but she looks slightly off to our left with pale brown eyes under faint, arched brows. She has a long nose and her thin, coral-pink lips are closed. Her wavy, auburn-brown hair falls closely around her neck. Her light blue dress has narrow, V-shaped neckline and the high waistline is gathered under a white belt or sash to create the impression of vertical pleats. Her deep pink cloak is fastened with a cord at the neck. It falls over her shoulders and arms, and she holds up the opposite hem with her left hand, on our right. In her right hand, on our left, she holds up a pair of iron-colored pincers holding a small, white object, a tooth. The surface of the painting is noticeably cracked, especially in the shiny gold background behind the person.

Saint Apollonia

Piero della Francesca

c. 1455/1460

Tempera on poplar panel  Accession ID  1952.5.19

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M4
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Winding from our right to left, a procession of dozens of people, mostly men and many in black and gray armor on foot and horseback, weaves through rocky hills to the gates of a city in this long, horizontal painting. The people we can see have light skin, and they are small in scale against the landscape. Throughout the procession, dogs nip at the heels of horses that walk, rear, or buck. Many of the armored men carry tall spears. The men not wearing armor mostly wear crimson-red robes over black stockings or short black tunics over stockings with one white leg and one mauve-pink leg. To our right, a man wearing black armor and a black wreath around his blond hair rides a gold throne on a large, gold platform being pulled by two cream-white horses. A gold canopy hangs over his head. Facing our left in profile, he points a scepter down at a person sitting in front of him, lower down on the base. That person wears a simple, lilac-purple tunic and slouching, denim-blue boots as he turns and looks up at the crowned man, hands raised. Three men and one woman sit in alcoves on the side of the base facing us with their hands behind their backs. The men wear black armor while the woman wears a muted sea-green dress. The letters “SPQR” are written in gold across the chest of a rider to our right. The procession in front of the throne passes around a tall golden structure like a fountain. At the top of that structure, a woman surrounded by gold rays to create an ellipse. The soldiers at the front of the procession cross a short, arched bridge leading into the city, and one rider carries a gold banner with a stylized, splayed black bird. Towers and domes in shades of cream, coral, and pink peek above the crenelated city wall. To our right, the landscape beyond the procession is dotted with trees leading to rocky mountains in the deep distance. The horizon line comes four-fifths of the way up the composition. A few wispy white clouds float across a sky that deepens from white along the horizon to lapis blue across the top edge of the panel.

The Triumph of Camillus

Biagio d'Antonio, Italian 15th Century

c. 1470/1475

Tempera on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.153

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M7
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A man draped in a white cloth steps toward us onto a ledge as he holds a red staff with a white banner in one hand and holds up the other hand to show a wound on the palm in this vertical painting. His pale face has a yellow cast but he has rosy cheeks, and his body is eggshell white. Near the upper left corner of the painting, his raised right hand, to our left, is held palm out to show it has been pierced. The cardinal-red staff he supports in his other hand has a long, fluttering banner with a red cross against a white background. He bends his right knee deeply, so his bare foot rests on a low wall or side of a casket in front of him. He looks up with brown eyes under curved eyebrows. He has a straight nose, and his small, rose-pink mouth is closed. He has shoulder-length, brown curly hair and a forked beard. His voluminous ivory-white cloth drapes over one shoulder and hangs in deep folds across the arm holding the banner and the opposite knee. He has a bloody gash over his right ribs. His entire body is surrounded by radiating lines encompassed in a glowing, golden halo. The corners around the halo are celestial blue. The ledge where he props his foot is painted to look like yellow marble veined with gray, framed with fawn-brown molding along the top edge. A round, black medallion flecked with celery green at the front center of the panel is also surrounded with with brown molding.

Christ Risen from the Tomb

Bergognone

c. 1490

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1952.5.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M18
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The head, shoulders, and chest of a light-skinned boy or young man wearing a black cap and red garment nearly fill this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled slightly to our right, and he looks at us from the corners of his hazel eyes. He has smooth skin, rounded cheeks, faint, thin eyebrows, and a small nose. His full, dark pink lips are closed. He wears a brimless, soft black cap, slightly askew, over long chestnut-brown hair that covers his ears and flows down past his shoulders. Two small, gold, vertical lines accent the front center of his cap near the lower edge. He wears a collarless, crimson-red jacket, with dark brown trim along the edges and at the shoulder. Pleated folds of his ivory-white shirt material puff out from openings at the shoulders and a V at the top of the chest. There is a also brown band around the neck of the white shirt with a pattern of black, knot-like designs. The white shirt also has two rows of delicate black lines where it is pulled through at the shoulders. The boy is lit from our right and above, casting a shadow on his neck and cheek to our left. The background behind him is teal blue.

Portrait of a Youth

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

c. 1495/1498

Oil on walnut panel  Accession ID  1946.19.2

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M18
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