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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A young, pale-skinned boy wearing a brilliant blue toga sits on a rock and holds a gold pitcher in a landscape in this vertical painting. The boy’s body faces us, and he leans onto his right hand, to our left, so his body and head tip in that direction. He wears a leafy crown over long blond curls. He looks slightly up with wide-set, light brown eyes. He has round, rosy cheeks, and his pink lips are parted. He holds the gold pitcher up in his left hand, to our right. One foot rests on a rock and the other stretches long, to our right. A thin tree grows diagonally up and to our right from behind the outstretched foot, and another tree grows a short distance beyond. Behind the boy, green hills roll back to the horizon, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. Mountains, which are blue in the hazy distance, line the horizon under a sky streaked with ivory white above the peaks and topaz blue above.

The Infant Bacchus

Giovanni Bellini

probably 1505/1510

Oil on panel transferred to panel  Accession ID  1961.9.5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M13
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This painting depicts the upper body of a man with a fair complexion, short dark hair, a long nose, thin eyebrows, deep-set brown eyes, and thin pink lips in a neutral expression. He is facing us, wearing a black cap, a deep red cloak, and a white inner garment with a high black collar and long white sleeves. His right hand is raised to his chest, and it has two small rings on it. In the background, there is a landscape with bright green fields, green trees, and a winding blue river on the right. In the background there are distant blue hills, and some light blue structures resembling buildings or castles under a blue sky with clouds. At the bottom of the painting is a line of gold text on a black border.

Bishop Altobello Averoldo

Francesco Francia

c. 1505

Oil on poplar panel  Accession ID  1952.5.64

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M20
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A woman, Mary, sits surrounded by winged angels on a bank of clouds above a second woman who prays in front of a vast landscape in this vertical, arched painting. The women and angels all have pale skin and rosy cheeks. Mary and the angels take up the top two-thirds of the composition. Mary’s body is angled to our left, but she turns her face to us as she looks up. She wears a flax-yellow veil under an azure-blue mantle, which drapes over her shoulders and her ruby-red dress. Her hands are together in prayer, and her body, including one bare foot, is supported by the angels. Two older angels, like young adults, are at Mary’s feet and they look down. Both have long, wavy blond hair, and they wear robes in grass green or rust red. Two nude, child-like angels are to either side of Mary’s hips. Sixteen baby heads with blond hair and wings alongside their ears are nestled in the smoky-violet clouds around Mary. This group is lit brightly from our left but also backlit by the ring of angel heads. The older woman in the lower left corner of the composition wears a translucent veil and white head covering as she looks up, her hands also in prayer and holding a rosary. Her cheeks and jowls sag, and she wears a black dress. The grassy, shadowed landscape extends into the deep distance to a cluster of buildings in the lower right corner of the painting. Beyond the woman and smaller in scale, a man wearing a yellow cloak over a red robe reaches toward or releases a green snaking shape, perhaps a strip of fabric.

The Apparition of the Virgin

Girolamo da Carpi

1530/1540

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.382

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M22
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At the base of a steep, grassy hill, five shepherds kneel, sit, and recline around and among two cows, several sheep, a goat, and a dog in the lower half of this painting, while a winged angel appears in a golden shaft of light in the upper half of this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. One brown cow spans most of the composition along the bottom, its head facing our left. In the lower left corner, closest to us, a man smoking a long pipe reclines against a tangerine-orange cloth. He wears a round, brimmed cap, a loose white shirt, tattered gray, knee-length pants, and gray cloth wrapped around his shins above bare feet. He leans on his right elbow and crosses his ankles, as he looks to our right in profile. Next to him, to our right, a woman kneels with her body angled away from us to our right. She bends over, perhaps to milk the cow in front of her with the pail sitting next to her, and she looks back to our left. Her chestnut-brown hair is pulled up and braided or coiled. Her rose-pink dress and the white blouse under it fall off her right shoulder. A slate-gray cloak or scarf wraps around her waist and we see the bottom of one bare foot. On the opposite side of the cow, near its head, a young boy angled to our right, with straight brown hair falling down to his eyebrows, looks down at the animal. Most of his face is in shadow but light catches the tip of his nose and the front of one cheek. To our right, along the edge of the painting, behind the rump of the cow and among the shadows, another young boy is seen from the chest up. He wears with a wide-brimmed, brown hat and reaches his right arm across his body as he looks to our left, toward the streak of light. The head of a second cow stands behind him, only the head visible. The steep, grassy hill rises sharply behind this group and cows.The fifth person leans into the scene from our left, above the reclining man on the orange cloth. He has short brown hair and beard, and a slightly hooked nose. Wearing a rose-pink garment, he looks up at the angel with his right hand shielding his face. A tree trunk rises along the left edge of the painting beyond that man. A dog, sheep, and a goat are tucked in and around the cows. Golden light pours down onto the man in pink from past the angel in the bank of clouds above. Against a night sky with navy-blue clouds, gold and white rays emanate from the parted clouds beyond the angel. Kneeling on a dark, fern-green cloud, the angel leans forward and down, and points down at the shepherd wearing pink with one hand and up with the other. The angel has silvery-gray wings and wears a gray robe. Blond curls lift as if in a breeze. In the landscape below, topaz and aquamarine-blue forms could be mountains or surging waves.

The Annunciation to the Shepherds

Jacopo Bassano

probably 1555/1560

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1939.1.126

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M23
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A nude woman, pudgy child, and two satyrs, which have men’s heads and torsos with goat’s legs and horns, are in a landscape in this octagonal painting. The scene is divided in half by a tree stump which only reaches to the center of the composition. To the left of the stump, the pale-skinned, nude child stands and hunches over to draw on the ground with a V-shaped compass. Two pieces of paper and a violin lie nearby. The landscape behind him has a body of water leading back to a town with buildings streaked with peach, perhaps flames. A band of peach sky separates the blue silhouettes of mountains lining the horizon from the vivid blue sky above. At the bottom center of the painting, a shield with an oval horizontally striped with red and white leans on the boy’s side of the tree, which has one leafy branch growing on the left side. One satyr holds a jug and kneels close to the tree with his back to it as he looks back over one shoulder. He and the other satyr both have dark, peach-toned skin and full beards. The second satyr hovers to the right of the nude, sleeping woman, both hands reaching for her or the rose-pink cloth surrounding her. The woman has blond curls, a round face, and she sleeps with one hand resting across her belly and her head tipped to our left. The trio are on a grassy area enclosed by dense, dark-green bushes and trees.

Allegory

Pietro degli Ingannati

c. 1515-1525

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1948.17.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M25
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Twelve naked, pudgy, little boys gather in, over, and around a wide, open, wooden barrel set in front of a sprawling, tree-like grape vine in this round painting. The boys all have light skin and short, blond hair. The barrel is set on flat, wooden beams. The vine behind it has a twisting brown trunk and the dark green canopy is dotted with purple grapes, and it spreads to fill the rounded top of the composition. The clear sky behind the tree is turquoise blue. One boy wearing a crown of grapes and leaves perches in the tree and looks down at the others. He holds a glass with red liquid in one hand and a thin staff in the other. Of the three boys in the barrel, one drinks from a shallow bowl and another holds up a basket of grapes. The third, in the center, holds a bunch of grapes down over the front edge of the barrel. On the ground around the barrel, one boy to our left holds an elongated, gold cornucopia topped with fruit as he looks toward another child straddling the shoulders of a third. At the front center, a boy kneels and drinks from a cup near one who sleeps, stretched out on the ground, using a pitcher as a pillow. To our right, one boy looks up at the tree and the final two play together around another, smaller barrel. The circular painted panel is surrounded by a gold frame.

Putti with a Wine Press

Mariotto Albertinelli

c. 1500

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1952.5.72

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M27
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Carved in high relief in white marble, a woman and the baby she holds are framed within a curved arch. The woman’s body faces us, but she turns her face to look down at the baby tucked into her left arm, to our right. The woman’s long hair is pulled back under a twisted band, and a few tendrils fall on her face. Her nose is pointed, and she has full lips over a narrow chin. Her dress is fastened on the chest with a button or brooch and is tied across the chest and high around the waist. The garment has elbow-length sleeves, and it falls in a swag across her hips over a long skirt that stops just short of her sandaled feet. The fabric is sheer so the nipple we can see is visible, and the fabric gathers in fine, shallow folds. Her other elbow is bent and held by her side, and the fingers on both hands are noticeably long. The child turns a chubby face up to the woman and crosses his hands over his chest. He is covered only by a cloth across his middle, and he has short, wavy hair. Pudgy rolls make creases on his neck, arms, and especially chunky thighs. The niche in which they stand has a fluted shell in the rounded portion above molding. The remaining niche is smooth, and the entire sculpture is set into a tan-colored wall.

Charity

Mino da Fiesole

1475/1480

Marble  Accession ID  1937.1.117

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M5
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Shown from the shoulders up, a clean-shaven, pale-skinned man with shoulder-length brown hair and dressed in black fills this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and his shoulders extend off both sides of the composition. He looks off to our left with brown eyes under thin brows. He has a long, slightly bumped nose and the hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his pale pink lips, which are closed. His brimless black cap nearly touches the top edge of the composition. His wavy hair is cut into bangs across his forehead and is feathered down each side of his face to meet the longer hair at the back. He has a high-necked, ink-black garment lined with white across his neck. Two bands of white clouds span the azure-blue sky behind him. A stone ledge in front of the man, across the bottom of composition, is painted to look like it had been carved with the artist’s name: “IOANNES BELLINVS.” Two numbers are painted in the lower corners, with “98” to the left and “44” to the right.

Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman

Giovanni Bellini

c. 1500

Oil on panel transferred to panel  Accession ID  1939.1.254

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M12
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Shown from the waist up and nearly filling the picture, a young woman with pale skin, dressed in a jewel-toned gown and cape, looks out at us in this vertical painting. Her shoulders are angled slightly to our right, and she tilts her head in that direction. Her pale cheeks are tinged with pink, and she gazes at us from the corners of large brown eyes under thin brows. A slender gold crown is looped with gleaming strands of pearls hung with red and dark green gems. It rests on her upswept auburn-brown hair, and a thin halo frames her head. She wears a bright, flame-red gown with voluminous sleeves and a pleated bodice. Sheer, white fabric covers her chest to create a V that reaches the squared neckline. An emerald-green cloak is loosely draped across the back of her shoulders and over the top of a spiked, wooden wheel on which she rests her hands. She wears a gold ring on the third finger of her left hand and holds a yellow palm frond in the other. Behind her, a burgundy-red cloth patterned with stylized, brighter red plants and flowers hangs in bunches and folds.

Saint Catherine

Lorenzo Lotto

1522

Oil on panel  Accession ID  1939.1.117

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M18
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Cast in bronze, one woman stands over a second crouching woman in this free-standing sculpture. Both women are nude, muscular, and have long wavy hair pulled back under bands. The golden-brown surface of the bronze is highly polished and smooth. In this photograph, the standing woman’s body faces us. Representing Empire, her head is encircled with a ring of laurel leaves, and she lifts her left hand, to our right, high overhead to hold up a second crown of leaves. She looks down onto the second woman, representing Avarice, and presses her hand into the Avarice’s shoulder, pushing the latter down. Empire balances on one foot and presses the other into Avarice’s hips, also destabilizing the latter’s stance. Avarice falls back onto one hand, which grips a purse on the ground. Avarice looks up at Empire with her mouth open and her left arm, farther from us, raised. Coins spill out on the square base, which is just big enough for Empire’s planted foot, the purse, and Avarice’s unstable feet.

Empire Triumphant over Avarice

Adriaen de Vries

1610

Bronze  Accession ID  1942.9.148

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M21
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Bright light from the upper left illuminates two muscular men and a winged angel against a dim landscape in this square painting. They all have pale skin, and the two men have dark brown hair and beards. One man, Jesus, stands ankle-deep in a rippling dark blue stream in the center of the composition facing us with downcast eyes. He is nude except for a white cloth that drapes over one shoulder and is tied around his hips. The other end of the cloth drops into the water. Jesus’s hands are pressed together in prayer at chest-height closer to his right shoulder, to our left. He leans his torso in the other direction and looks down at the water. The second man stands on the riverbank to our right. His body faces our left but his left shoulder, closer to us, dips down so his broad back is angled toward us. His lower body is wrapped in a cobalt-blue garment bordered with what looks like sheepskin. His near hand swings back to clutch the trunk of a tree growing immediately behind him. In his other hand, he holds up a pewter-grey dish that dribbles water onto Jesus’s head. On the left riverbank, the copper-haired angel looks on, facing our right in profile but the body faces us. The angel wears a sleeveless, pumpkin-orange robe with a shimmering salmon-pink mantle draped over the right shoulder, to our left. Petal-pink and dark grey wings extend from the shoulders, and the lower legs and feet are bare. The shadowy landscape has a dark green field stretching back to jagged, sapphire-blue mountains along the horizon, which comes four-fifths of the way up this composition. Pale blue clouds skim across the vivid blue sky, where three chubby, winged babies float. One holds a triangle and a rod with which to strike it, and another might hold a rectangular musical instrument. Blue clouds split nearby to show a sliver of golden yellow light, and possibly more angels.

The Baptism of Christ

Paris Bordone

c. 1535/1540

Oil on canvas  Accession ID  1942.9.5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M23
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The sculpture is a small, ornately decorated object with a cylindrical shape and an intricately designed surface. It appears to be a type of decorative vessel or container. The sculpture features a terracotta-orange hue with cream and white detailing. Its structure is composed of vertical panels adorned with patterns, bordered with carved pillars at the corners. The top portion is encircled by a band with a similar pattern. The base includes small feet adorned with green embellishments and decorative elements resembling heads or masks. Crafted from ceramic, the sculpture conveys a sense of delicate craftsmanship amidst a plain background.

Salt

French 16th Century

c. 1540/1560

Lead-glazed fine earthenware  Accession ID  1942.9.353

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M25
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