Day 209 - Virgin and Child

 August 31, 2020

It feels amazing to be back, yet somehow, perhaps because of its familiarity, as if I'd never been away. As protection during the pandemic, the Met is limiting attendance, and while the Jacob Lawrence exhibit I saw had a fair number of visitors, many of the galleries seemed pretty empty. But the European decorative arts and sculpture galleries I've been visiting often seem pretty empty anyway.

Gallery 550 is one of these. It is full of display cases but seems to function mainly as a passageway between the sculpture gallery and the African collection. The gallery is devoted mostly to statuettes,  portrait busts, and highly ornamented religious objects. Most were executed in Italy (or at least by Italian artists) between the 16th and 18th centuries and show a marked Baroque influence- twisting bodies, flowing garments. But I'm interested to see three polychrome terra cotta figural arrangements by a Spanish woman sculptor of whom I'd never heard, Luisa Roldan. Her "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" strikes me as pretty saccharine, although it's notable that Joseph is portrayed as a young man with a full head and beard of brown, not gray, hair.  The "Magdalene in Ecstasy" is a little bizarre - the figure is supine, gazing into space, and surrounded by angels, but her low-cut bodice hints at her profession before she met Jesus. Roldan's  "Entombment of Christ," however, is full of genuine emotion. Other works that strike me are: a bust of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Foggini, which makes no effort to prettify the Grand Duke's jutting jaw; a homoerotic gilt and bronze Saint Sebastian, who despite being tortured somehow manages to look rather languid in his wee loincloth; and a beautifully worked chalice.

Today's object is a gilded, silvered, and bronze statuette, perhaps 22 inches high above its base, of the Virgin and Child. It was made around 1650 after a model by Alessandro Algardi, a Bolognese who died in Rome.  The Virgin holds the infant in her right arm; his left arm rests on her shoulder. There's a lovely feeling of motion and balance in the forms. The  Virgin's body is slightly turned to the right, while her face turns left and her left arm is outstretched; conversely, the Christ Child's body turns left toward his mother, while he gazes toward his outstretched right arm. There's also a nice contrast between the Virgin's gilded robe and cap (notably, there's no halo; she's a very human Virgin) and the dark bronze of her face, hands, and bare feet and of the child's nude body.  And there's another interesting contrast between the smooth, satiny dress the Virgin wears and the textured cloak that enfolds it. 

But what I really like about the work is the way in which the figures, with their arms outstretched in opposite directions, seem to embrace the viewer. Their welcome seems especially apt for my return to the reopened museum after the worst of the pandemic (I hope) has passed.