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©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Anonymous Venetian artist

Triptych with the Virgin and Child

ca. 1300 - 1310
Tempera on panel.
Central panel: 80 x 51 cm. Lateral wings: 76.8 x 25.5 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
424.a
(
1934.30.1-3
)
ROOM 1
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  

This triptych was in the collection of Langton Douglas where it was recorded in the early 1930s, catalogued as a work by the Tuscan painter Vigoroso da Siena. It was acquired for the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection after having been offered to the National Gallery of Ireland. The triptych appears in catalogues of the Villa Favorita up to 1969 as an autograph work by Vigoroso da Siena, although Heinemann questioned this attribution. The current attribution was proposed by Miklós Boskovits, who stated his disagreements with the previous attribution in letters of 1982 and 1987.

The central panel of the triptych depicts a Virgin and Child based on the Byzantine type known as the Panagia Hodigitriaor “Virgin who Shows the Way”, although Christ is presented here as The Word, indicated by the roll of parchment that he holds in clear allusion to the Gospels. The Virgin and Child are set beneath a semi-circular arch with an Annunciation scene in the spandrels. The lateral wings of the triptych depict four scenes from the life of Christ on each side. The left wing, from top to bottom depicts The Nativity, The Presentation in the Temple, The Transfiguration, and Christ before Pilate. On the right wing we see The Crucifixion, Noli me tangere, The Ascension and Five Saints. The overall approach of the triptych remains Byzantine not only with regard to style and technique but also in the iconography selected for the biblical episodes. The Nativity, for example, takes place in a cave with the Christ Child swaddled and the Virgin shown lying on a cloth rather than adoring the Child, in the traditional western manner. Saint Joseph is presented as distant from the principal event, seated in a corner and looking at the central group. In the right hand corner of this panel we see another episode traditionally found in Byzantine art, that of the Christ Child being bathed. Here the two midwives Zelomi and Salome take charge of the baby, who has already grown, one of them pouring water into the bath while the other, with the Infant Christ on her lap, checks the temperature.

The artist follows traditional models, placing the figures and settings on a gold surface. The elements that form the backgrounds to the narratives have been simplified and are created from schematic elements. This is evident in the schematic trees in the garden, which acts as the setting to Noli me tangere, the rocks suggesting a natural landscape in The Nativity and The Transfiguration, and the simple architectural forms in The Presentation in the Temple, which are used to refer to an interior. Boskovits tentatively suggested the creator of this triptych to be the Master of Santa Chiara. He grouped a series of works around this anonymous artist, including a triptych in the sacristy of the church of Saint Francis in Zara, Dalmatia, whose three panels depict the same subjects as the present work.

Mar Borobia

14th Century13th and 14th c. - Early Italian PaintingPaintingTemperapanel
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Tríptico de la Virgen con el Niño
Triptych with the Virgin and Child
Anonymous Venetian artist

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Tríptico de la Virgen con el Niño
Triptych with the Virgin and Child
Anonymous Venetian artist

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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