Day 229 - Ghirlandaio and Benedetto di Maiano
Gallery 604 - Italia! Specifically, 15th century paintings, sculpture, and decorative objects, largely, although not exclusively, from Florence. The last items include two cases of ceramics, mostly from Faenza and Deruta; I'm happier to see them here, where they seem at home, than in other places in the museum.
Today's first work is a double portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio of Francesco Sassetti and his young son Teodoro, measuring about 30" X 24" and painted about 1488 in tempera on wood. The choice of this work felt inevitable to me - less, I have to say, because of its intrinsic qualities than because it reminds me so much of Ghirlandaio's painting of a grandfather and his son that hangs in the Uffizi and is one of my all-time favorites. Francesco, according to the caption, was 67 when the portrait was painted, although he looks much younger. The text also says that the painting was intended in part to commemorate Teodoro's older brother, also named Teodoro, who died the same year this Teodoro was born and for whom he was named, as well as to celebrate the continuation of life. It suggests that Francesco's eyes are cast down in remembrance of the first Teodoro's loss. But I wonder if he is instead contemplating his own mortality and wondering whether he will be alive to witness the key events in his young son's life. (In fact, he died two years after the portrait was painted.) The craggy mountains in the background seem fanciful to me - the scenery around Florence doesn't look anything like that. But then I read that Sassetti managed the Medici bank in Geneva. Maybe he instructed Ghirlandaio to insert the mountains and lake in the painting for that reason.
The "surprise" work is a marble relief of the Madonna and Child by Benedetto di Maiano, measuring about 24" by 18" and carved around 1490. I'm wowed by the skill with which Benedetto modeled the smoothness of the Madonna's cheek, the folds of her dress, the child's chubby thighs, and the tenderness with which she restrains his right hand as he pulls at her mantle with his left hand. I would like to imagine that this was a private devotional object; the intimacy of the depiction makes it well-suited for that purpose, I think. I read that the carved background was originally painted, but I'm glad the paint has worn away; I like it better plain.
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