The painting shows the Virgin seated on an elaborate wooden throne with openwork decoration. She supports the blessing Christ child on her left arm, according to the iconographicTerms that refer broadly to the study of subjects and themes in works of art. Iconology, which is based on the results of iconography, is the more wide-ranging and comprehensive. One of the principal concerns of iconography is the discovery of symbolic and allegorical meanings in a work of art.
—Willem F. Lash, Grove Art © Oxford University Press tradition of the Hodegetria. Mary [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Detail of Madonna, Byzantine thirteenth century (possibly from Constantinople), Enthroned Madonna and Child, c. 1250/1275, tempera on poplar, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Otto H. Kahn is wearing a purple dress and a deep blue mantle highlighted with brilliant chrysography. Bearing a scroll in his left hand, the child [fig. 2]
[fig. 2] Detail of Christ, Byzantine thirteenth century (possibly from Constantinople), Enthroned Madonna and Child, c. 1250/1275, tempera on poplar, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Otto H. Kahn is wearing a red tunic fastened around his waist with a blue fabric belt supported by straps that encircle his shoulders. This motif perhaps alludes to his sacerdotal dignity. In the upper corners of the panel, at the level of the Virgin’s head, are two circular medallions containing busts of archangels [fig. 3]
[fig. 3] Detail of archangel, Byzantine thirteenth century (possibly from Constantinople), Enthroned Madonna and Child, c. 1250/1275, tempera on poplar, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Otto H. Kahn, each wearing a garment decorated with a loros and with scepter and sphere in hand.
Art historians have held sharply different views on not only the attribution of the painting but also its origin and even its function. Apart from Osvald Sirén’s attribution to Pietro Cavallini (1918), the critical debate that developed after its first appearance at a sale in New York in 1915 (where it was cataloged under the name of Cimabue(Cenni [Benciviene] di Pepo)
(c. 1240–before July 14, 1302)
Italian painter and mosaicist. His nickname means either “bull-head” or possibly “one who crushes the views of others,”’ (It. cimare: ‘top, shear, blunt’), an interpretation matching the tradition in commentaries on Dante that he was not merely proud of his work but contemptuous of criticism. Filippo Villani and Vasari assigned him the name Giovanni, but this has no historical foundation. He may be considered the most dramatic of those artists influenced by contemporary Byzantine painting through which antique qualities were introduced into Italian work in the late 13th century. His interest in classical Roman drapery techniques and in the spatial and dramatic achievements of such contemporary sculptors as Nicola Pisano, however, distinguishes him from other leading members of this movement. As a result of his influence on such younger artists as Duccio and Giotto, the forceful qualities of his work, and its openness to a wide range of sources, Cimabue appears to have had a direct personal influence on the subsequent course of Florentine, Tuscan, and possibly Roman painting.
—Robert Gibbs, Grove Art © Oxford University Press) almost always considered the painting together with Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne. For a discussion of the problems surrounding both panels and some further proposals, see the catalog entry for the latter painting.
Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)
March 21, 2016
