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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This painting shows the upper half of a woman's body, her torso turned to the left and her head turned slightly back to look towards the right. She has pale skin and brown hair that is parted in the middle and mostly covered by a white headscarf with a decorative golden edge and gold fringe. Her facial features include pale, arched eyebrows, rosy cheeks, brown eyes, and a small pink mouth in a neutral expression. Her clothing consists of a red dress with a low square neckline and a black stripe, with long white sleeves and a white undershirt poking through around the neckline. The woman holds a small piece of paper in her right hand. The background is solid black.

Portrait of a Young Woman

Giuliano Bugiardini

c. 1525

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1939.1.31

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M19
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Shown from the waist up, a pale-skinned young woman with tawny-brown hair wears a sapphire-blue gown in this vertical portrait painting. Her body is angled slightly to our right, and she turns her head back to our left to gaze down in that direction with dark blue eyes under thin brows. A delicate wash of petal pink tinges her cheeks on either side of a slender nose over small, pale rose lips, which are closed. Shadows mark the hollows of the temples in her high forehead, the hollows of her high cheeks within her broad face, and the corners of her eyes. Her hair is coiled and wound round with a blue ribbon, which together cross over the top of her head. Her gown has voluminous, puffy sleeves and a low, squared neckline edged with black. The vertically pleated white chemise under her gown covers her chest, and a white cuff peeks out from the sleeve we see. That arm, on our left, rests in front of her on a slate-blue ledge. She holds a tightly folded piece of flax-brown fabric clutched in that hand. Black letters on the face of the ledge read, “LVCRETIAE.SVMARIAE.EFFIGIES.”

Lucrezia Sommaria

Ridolfo Ghirlandaio

c. 1510

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1942.9.23

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M20
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This painting depicts a woman with fair skin and orange-brown hair under a black net, wearing a green dress with puffed sleeves and sheer details around the wide neckline. Her body is slightly angled to the left, and her eyes are pointed slightly below us. She also wears a thin gold chain around her neck and a smaller black bead necklace, with a red flower behind her left ear that hangs downward. She has a straight nose, arched brown eyebrows, rosy cheeks, and pink lips in a neutral expression. A small, fluffy gray dog appears to sit in her lap, and the background is dark, with a few vertical gray lines.

Portrait of a Young Woman

Florentine 16th Century

1530/1540

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1942.9.51

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M20
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A man standing to our right with his hands together in prayer faces a woman holding a baby to our left in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. In the lower right quadrant of the painting, the man is shown from the chest up and is angled away from us so his profile faces our left. He has short, wavy brown hair, a bumped nose, flushed cheeks, and a faint goatee. He wears a black jacket with crimson-red sleeves. The high white collar and cuff of the hand we can see is decorated with a scrolling pattern in black. Slightly smaller in scale, the woman to our left is shown from the knees up. She wears a cherry-red dress under a cream-white mantle draped around her head and shoulders. A gold-edged, robin’s egg-blue drapery with a forest-green underside wraps around her middle and falls from the area of her waist. She stands with her body facing us and her head tilted to our right toward the baby in her arms. She looks up and to our left with brown eyes. She has brown hair, a straight nose, and her small pink lips are closed. Her head is encircled with a gold line indicating a halo. The baby she holds leans his head against her shoulder and looks off to our left, also with brown eyes. He has rounded cheeks and a chubby chest and arms. His midsection is wrapped with a white cloth, and he holds a yellow and red apple with his right hand, on our left. With his other hand, he holds the woman’s pointer finger. The scene takes place near the corner of a room with parchment-white walls.

A Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna

Giovanni Battista Moroni

c. 1560

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1939.1.114

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M22
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A pale-skinned woman with honey-blond hair reclines among wheat stalks and grape vines in this horizontal painting. She lies on her side with her head to our right and her body facing us. Her upper body is propped on her left elbow. Her other arm is raised and bent at the elbow so her hand cups the back of her head. Her bottom hand rests on a tan-colored cloth spread under her, and her head tilts down as she looks with hooded eyes off to the left. Curls frame her face, and braids cross the top of her head. She has flushed cheeks, smooth skin, and pink lips. A mauve-pink garment wraps around her torso and legs but leaves her shoulders, one breast, and her bottom leg bare from the knee down. That foot disappears behind a section of a dark brown tree trunk that rises up the left side of the composition. A brick-red parrot with gold and black wings and tail sits on a short, broken branch there, facing our left. A slate-blue bird sits on the curving branch of a bush nearby, which has oval-shaped, moss-green leaves and delicate pink blossoms. Dark green grape leaves and clusters dangle over the woman from the top edge of the canvas, and almost span the width of the painting. Beyond the woman is a row of golden wheat stalks against a celestial-blue sky. The corners of the image are white, indicating that the painting had been shaped or framed to create an elongated, octagonal shape.

Summer

Jacopo Tintoretto

c. 1546/1548

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1961.9.90

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M24
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Blue floral patterns adorn this bulb-shaped white flask made of imitation porcelain. The round opening at the top of the flask has a low lip. The rounded vessel tapers from wide shoulders to a narrower flared foot at the bottom. There are two handles on either side of the top opening and a short spout near the rim directly between them. The rim is decorated with dots set within squares, and the handles are painted with blue stripes.

Flask

Medici Porcelain Factory

c. 1575/1587, or slightly later

Imitation porcelain (a version of soft-paste porcelain)  Accession ID  1942.9.354

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M25
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A young woman with a pale, peachy skin is shown from waist up, wearing a shimmering, royal-blue dress in this vertical painting. Her body is angled to our right as she holds a metal object, perhaps a vessel or incense burner, in her hands by her chest. She turns and tilts her head to our left, but then looks back across her body, off to our right with flint-gray eyes. She has a full, oval-shaped face with a straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her pale pink lips are closed. A gray pearl earring hangs from the ear we can see. Her auburn-brown hair is parted down the middle, and loosely pulled back into a braid that brushes her left shoulder, to our right. The blue dress has a square neckline and a fitted bodice. Light glints off the fabric, shading it from royal to sapphire blue. A voluminous white sleeve is rolled back to her right elbow, to our left. That arm and hand nearly span the width of the painting as she holds the vessel, which has a conical top, near the lower right corner of the composition. The background is solid black.

Portrait of a Young Woman as a Wise Virgin

Sebastiano del Piombo

c. 1510

Oil on hardboard transferred from panel  Accession ID  1952.2.9

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M25
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A mostly nude young woman with pale skin leans, half-sitting, back on one hand while she reaches for a silver vessel held by a second woman in this vertical painting. The woman who offers the vessel also has light skin, and both have auburn-brown hair bound up and interwoven with strands of pearls. The body of the woman at the center of the painting, Susanna, faces us and she turns her head to our left, to look at the vessel with shaded, dark eyes. She has a straight nose, and her ruby-red, full lips are closed. A glint on one earlobe suggests a jeweled earring behind curls that frame her face and brush her shoulders. She has small, firm breasts and wears a bronze-colored bracelet on each wrist. Crimson-red cloth hangs from the backs of her shoulders and drapes over her seat. Sheer white fabric covers her lap across her upper thighs. The toes of one foot rest on the ground while the other foot dips into the water of a pool. The other woman, holding the round vessel, faces away from us as she leans into the painting so only her head, shoulders, and arms are visible. Her dark pink sleeve wraps around the upper arm we can see, and she wears a gold-colored bracelet on that wrist. A swath of brick-red fabric hangs between the two women. A dark, shadowy bush dotted with deep pink roses fills the space behind Susanna and, in the distance to our left, two people stand under an arched trellis covered with vines. Wearing light-colored robes and hoods, the people in the distance are painted with silvery gray and cream white, and are translucent against the sky.

Susanna

Domenico Tintoretto

c. 1580s

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1939.1.231

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M28
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This sculpture depicts a young male figure in a seated pose, with his body facing right and his head turned over his shoulder towards the left. He is wearing a draped garment that covers one shoulder and goes behind his back, leaving the other shoulder bare. The fabric pools in his lap and is tied by a string across his chest. The young man has curly hair and a straight nose, and he wears a neutral expression. He appears to hold a stone or round object in one hand, which he rests on the opposite knee. He seems to sit on a rock or tree stump, and beside him on the right is a small lamb that looks off to the right. Below his feet is a small area of ground with some small rocks and flowers. The sculpture is made out of a white material with some gray marbling.

The Young Saint John the Baptist

Giovanni Francesco Susini

c. 1610/1630

Carrara marble  Accession ID  2005.109.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M28
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This sculpture depicts a woman holding a small child. The woman has pale skin and reddish-blonde hair, and she is wearing a red gown with a blue cloak draped over her. A while veil is tied around her forehead and flows down over her hair. She holds the child in her arms, pressing it closely to her chest. The child also has pale skin and short, blond hair, and they are mostly nude, although the woman is holding a small tan cloth against their upper thighs. The woman stands barefoot on a small, round base.

Madonna and Child

Donatello

c.1420/1425

Painted and gilded terracotta  Accession ID  1937.1.112

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M5
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Shown from the waist up behind a stone ledge, a young woman nestles a nude baby against her chest in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin with a slight, rosy blush on their cheeks, and both have halos painted as delicate gold rings around their heads. The woman’s shoulders are angled to our left, and she looks down at the baby in that direction with hooded eyes. She has a slender face, a long, straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her pale pink lips are closed. The neckline and the cuffs of her garnet-red, gold-edged gown peek out from beneath a dark, spruce-blue mantle that covers her head and wraps around her body. She rests the baby along the stone ledge and holds him in the crook of her right elbow, to our left. In her other hand, she holds a small object, perhaps an apple. The baby also touches the fruit as he lies back along her arm. He has curly, ash-blond hair, a petite nose, and chubby cheeks. He looks up at the woman or beyond her with parted, downturned lips. The pair are warmly lit from the upper left and set against a fern and olive-green landscape. Near the left edge of the painting, a church and steeple are silhouetted along the horizon, which comes just under halfway up the composition. In the sky above, a clear, pale blue horizon gives way first to puffy, cream-white clouds and then swirling clouds in tones of pine green and slate gray along the top of the picture. An inscription appears on the lower center of the ledge, “IDEM Z.B.”

Madonna and Child in a Landscape

Giovanni Bellini

c. 1480/1485

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1946.19.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M12
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Five men and two women gather around an infant in a landscape in this vertical painting. The people all have pale or peachy skin with delicate facial features. Halos, like gold rings, float behind each head. All the men but one have beards, and most of the people’s lips are parted. The pudgy baby, Jesus, lies nude on a white cloth on the grassy ground near the bottom center of the composition. Three people kneel around and look down at him. To our left, a man wearing a fur-lined, powder-blue tunic under a rose-pink robe crosses his arms to touch opposite shoulders. A tall staff with a gold cross at the top rests in one elbow. Just behind Jesus, a woman wearing a gold crown and sage-green and pink robes holds a palm frond in one hand and extends the other over the baby. To our right, Mary wears a gold diadem and an apple-red dress. The cloak billowing behind her shoulders and fluttering to our right is emerald green on one side and silvery blue on the other. She also crosses her hands over her shoulders. Four men stand behind the group. Starting behind Mary, to our right, a man faces our left in profile. He holds a tall staff in one hand and points at Mary with the index finger of the other. The next man looks at the first with his hand held by his own face, the first two fingers splayed over his beard near his mouth. Next, another man looks down at Jesus with his hands together in prayer by the shoulder farther from us. These three men wear robes in canary yellow, burnt orange, dark blue, vivid green, or raspberry pink. The fourth man, along the left edge of the painting, is nude except for a coral-orange and yellow cloth tied around his hips. He has short brown hair and is cleanshaven. The feathered ends of three arrows project from his torso and three more wounds on his neck, shoulder, and thigh trickle blood. He holds an arrow by his side with one hand and reaches out with this other to hold the first two fingers and thumb up over Jesus. A gray stone building rises along the right edge of the composition behind the group. A person wearing a white tunic, red robe, and a straw-colored hat climbs a set of stairs there. That person holds a long staff over one shoulder and carries a lamb by the animal’s four legs in the other. In the sky above the main group, a bearded man a triangular halo over gray hair floats among about a dozen winged, child-like angels on a cloud bank. The man holds up one hand in blessing and holds an orb topped with a cross in the other hand. A bank of winged baby heads clusters in the distance, farther along the cloud bank. A few people, tiny in scale, sit or walk through the landscape, which leads back to ice-blue, craggy mountains. Cream-white and muted blue clouds fill the sky above. The artist signed the work as if he had left an inscribed tablet near Jesus. It reads, “M.D.XXXIIII. PERINO BONAC CORSSI FLORENTIN OPVS FACEBA.” The letters of the artist’s name, PERINO, are then combined into two monograms.

The Nativity

Perino del Vaga

1534

Oil on panel transferred to canvas  Accession ID  1961.9.31

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M21
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