Full title | The Virgin and Child |
---|---|
Artist | Benvenuto di Giovanni |
Artist dates | 1436 - after 1509/17 |
Group | Altarpiece: The Virgin and Child with Saints |
Date made | 1479 |
Medium and support | Tempera on wood |
Dimensions | 171 x 66 cm |
Inscription summary | Signed; Dated and inscribed |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1874 |
Inventory number | NG909.1 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
The Virgin Mary, regal and refined, is seated on an inlaid stone throne with the Christ Child on her knee. Two musical angels with multi-coloured wings balance on the back of the throne, and there is a Latin inscription on the front of the marble parapet beneath it: REGINA CELI LETTARE ALLELVIA (‘Rejoice the Queen of Heaven, Alleluia’).
This is the central panel from a triptych (a painting made up of three parts), other parts of which are also in the National Gallery’s collection. The highly decorative quality of this painting – its shimmering gold, brilliant colours and elegant contours – is typical of Sienese painting of this and earlier periods. But Benvenuto was also aware of the spatial and naturalistic interests of artists and thinkers of his own time. The way that the Virgin’s cloak falls over her knees suggests a real body underneath, and the angels' naked feet are turned so as to be seen at right angles to the picture plane. Their toes curl over the edges of the throne.
The Virgin Mary, regal and refined, is seated on an inlaid stone throne with the Christ Child on her knee. Both are fabulously dressed. The infant Christ wears a purple silk tunic lined in red and dotted with gold, its neckline decorated with pearls and polished stones; more pearls hang at his neck and wrist. The Virgin’s shimmering red silk overdress is also edged with pearls and polished stones, and decorated with gold embroidery. Her blue cloak is edged with gold embroidery, and the upper of her two veils is also embroidered. Both figures sit on tasselled cushions of cloth-of-gold.
This is the central panel from an altarpiece made by Benvenuto di Giovanni, other parts of which are also in our collection. The highly decorative quality of this painting – its shimmering gold, brilliant colours and elegant contours – is typical of Sienese painting of this period. The Virgin’s serenely beautiful face is undisturbed by emotion, unlike the figure in Benvenuto’s Virgin and Child of about 1474–5. The long straight nose, rosebud mouth and downcast eyes reflect contemporary ideals of female beauty and modesty and also echo the faces of the Virgin as depicted by Benvenuto’s older contemporary and collaborator Sano di Pietro.
Although the graceful contour of the Virgin’s blue cloak over her head and shoulders is typically Sienese, Benvenuto was aware of the new spatial and naturalistic interests of many of his contemporaries. The way the Virgin’s cloak falls over her knees suggests a real body underneath, and her dress puddles in deep, crisp folds at her feet and protrudes slightly over the edge of the marble parapet. The embroidered cloth which covers the parapet is edged with a gold fringe, the subtle waves of which give a strongly tactile feel. It casts a shadow on the decoratively veined marble beneath.
On the back of the throne stand two golden-haired angels with multi-coloured wings and stamped and gilded halos; they recall the grace of Sienese painting of the previous century by artists such as Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers. The zigzagging folds of the left-hand angel’s white robe contrast with the softer fall of the other angel’s green overdress, but again both seem to cover three-dimensional forms. The angels‘ bare feet are turned so as to be seen at right angles to the picture plane, and their toes curl over the edges of the throne (though the artist does not seem to have completely worked out how they are balancing there). The angel in white grasps the neck of the instrument, possibly a viol, with convincingly splayed fingers.
This painting shows the Virgin as Queen of Heaven and the most powerful intercessor for humankind, a position she attained on account of her purity. There’s a Latin inscription on the front of the marble parapet beneath her throne: REGINA CELI LETTARE ALLELVIA (’Rejoice the Queen of Heaven, Alleluia‘). These are the first lines of an antiphon to the Virgin sung as part of the Easter liturgy, which ends Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia (’Pray to God for us, Alleluia‘). The fringed cloth beneath the throne is repeatedly embroidered with the words ’AVE‘ and ’GR[ATI]A‘, taken from Gabriel’s salutation to the Virgin at the Annunciation: Ave Maria Gratia Plena (’Hail Mary full of Grace'). Mother and son hold a white rose between them, a symbol of the Virgin’s chastity.
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Altarpiece: The Virgin and Child with Saints
Sienese painting of the second half of the fifteenth century blended the artistic ideals of its own time with a continued reverence for the language of earlier Sienese art. Nowhere is this more true than in this altarpiece, painted in 1479 by Benvenuto di Giovanni, possibly for a church in Orvieto.
In the centre the Virgin Mary is seated on an inlaid throne with the infant Christ on her knee; in the side panels saints stand like statues on a marble parapet which runs across the whole altarpiece. The figures are set against burnished and tooled gold backgrounds, and all are spectacularly dressed in accordance with the Sienese passion for jewels and textiles – but they look convincingly solid underneath their clothes.
Sienese painting of the second half of the fifteenth century blended the artistic ideals of its time with a continued reverence for the language of earlier Sienese art. Nowhere is this more true than in this triptych, painted in 1479 by Benvenuto di Giovanni.
Benvenuto has integrated a very contemporary interest in naturalism and perspective with a typically Sienese love of lavish materials, brilliant colours and decorative detail. In the central panel, the Virgin Mary is seated on an inlaid throne with the infant Christ on her knee; in the side panels Saint Peter and Saint Nicholas stand like statues on a marble parapet which runs across the triptych. The figures are set against burnished and tooled gold backgrounds, and all are spectacularly dressed in accordance with the Sienese passion for jewels and textiles – but they look convincingly solid underneath their clothes. The precise dresses to be worn and materials to be used were sometimes stipulated in artists‘ contracts.
The altarpiece is very characteristic of the paintings made by Benvenuto in the 1470s. He was a pupil of Vecchietta and his early style was heavily dependant on that of his master, but it was changed by the arrival of Liberale da Verona and Girolamo da Cremona in Siena in 1466 and 1470 respectively. These two Northern Italian illuminators (artists who painted illuminated manuscripts) came to contribute to one of the greatest artistic projects of the late fifteenth century: the decoration of the great series of choir books for Siena’s cathedral. The project attracted artists from near and far, and Benvenuto also worked on it.
There was no hard and fast division between painters and illuminators in Siena, and Liberale and Girolamo were of enormous importance in introducing a more progressive style that combined brilliant colours with minutely detailed technique. Close examination reveals that the pearls on the Virgin’s dress cast shadows, an idea derived from Girolamo’s trompe l’oeil border decorations.
The masterpieces from this sharply defined, highly detailed and decorative phase of Benvenuto’s career are the triptych from Montepertuso (dated 1475, now in the parish church of Vescovado di Murlo, near Siena), the Borghesi altarpiece in the church of San Domenico in Siena (1475–1477/78) and the National Gallery altarpiece. In this painting Benvenuto has reverted from the single unified space of the Borghesi altarpiece – the pala format – to a triptych with gilded ground (presumably at the request of the commissioner). We are not sure where this altarpiece was originally intended to be displayed. In the early nineteenth century it was apparently in the church of the Gesù at Orvieto, which was founded in 1618; it had perhaps been made for a church there.



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