Audio Stop 222

NARRATOR:
This bust puts us in in the presence of Lorenzo de’ Medici, ruler of the Italian city-state of Florence. He was among the most powerful men in Europe in the late 1400s.

SHELLEY STURMAN:
Hi, I'm Shelley Sturman, Senior Conservator and Head of Object Conservation at the National Gallery of Art.

When you see paintings of Lorenzo, there's very specific characteristics - his brooding brows and his underbite and his very strong nose. Those are all captured in this bust. He is just staring down at you.  And it's not a grimace, but it's certainly not a smile - it's his air of authority. You sense his power.  You sense his feeling that he knows what's going on. He's looking out for himself.  

NARRATOR:
The bust, which is painted terracotta, or clay, used to be much darker in coloring. The conservation team explored beneath the modern varnish.

SHELLEY STURMAN:
We began to see that there were dirt layers directly on top of brightly colored layers, original layers.  And we saw stubble on the cheeks and the chin.  The eyes, we could see little flecks of paint.  The dark tunic turned out to be a deep mulberry color. And the headdress was a deep red, a brilliant red.

NARRATOR:
These details help make Lorenzo’s portrait intensely lifelike. This bust may even be the very portrait that moved his son to tears when he saw it after his father’s death.  

SHELLEY STURMAN:
You can see into the eyes and you can feel his presence. He looks much more like a living being than one made out of clay you get the feeling of what people looked like then, how they dressed, how they act. And you feel like you want to sit there and look a little more and try and figure out what life was like, what he did with his days.

I think that sculpture is a very important way of looking at the past, of seeing yourself in historical figures.