MASP

Maestro del Bigallo

Madonna and Child Enthroned and Two Angels, Circa 1275

  • Author:
    Maestro del Bigallo
  • Bio:
    Florença, Itália, século 13
  • Title:
    Madonna and Child Enthroned and Two Angels
  • Date:
    Circa 1275
  • Medium:
    Têmpera sobre madeira
  • Dimensions:
    118,5 x 57 cm
  • Credit line:
    Doação Pietro Maria Bardi em memória de Lina Bo Bardi, 1992
  • Object type:
    Pintura
  • Inventory number:
    MASP.01261
  • Photography credits:
    João Musa

TEXTS



Maestro del Bigallo is the name used by convention in Italian art history to identify a certain otherwise anonymous 13th-century painter. The Bigallo was the shelter for pilgrims and travelers maintained by the Compagnia Maggiore di S. Maria, an agency of the Papal Inquisition created in 1244 in Florence. The name also refers to a rooster painted by the same artist on the crucifix that became the emblem of the Compagnia. This work in MASP’s collection reveals an influence from Byzantine culture, which came to Italy in the 13th century by way of illuminations—decorative drawings seen in the pages of medieval manuscripts. The painting presents characteristics typical of Byzantine culture: a composition with rigid lines, lack of depth, stiff representation of figures and the use of symbolism—like the cloth held by the female figure, which refers to ceremonial garments worn by Byzantine empresses, and the halo that appears at the top. The graphic aspect of the drapery lines in the robe lends the painting a certain lighting and volume. This piece was owned by the Lina Bo Bardi (1914 –1992) and Pietro Maria Bardi (1900 –1999) couple— the architect of MASP and the museum’s founding director, respectively—and was donated by Pietro to MASP on the occasion of the museum’s 45th anniversary in 1992 in honor of Lina’s memory.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2015

Source: Adriano Pedrosa and Olivia Ardui (org.), Pocket MASP with TATE, São Paulo: MASP, 2018.





A sixth-century icon kept in the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, and certainly of Syrian origin (Talbot Rice 1963, p. 47; Camesasca 1987, p. 32) seems to be the first known example of this type of Theotokos or Hagia Maria (as it was called by the Monophysites after the Council of 451). The Theotokos is characterized by rigorous overlaying of both figures in an absolutely frontal seated position. Florentine pictorial culture, between the twenties and the seventies of the 13th century, seemed to especially appreciate this Byzantine model. This fact is confirmed by the large mosaic Madonna on the Throne in the Florence Baptistery, dated from 1225, as well as by thirty similar representations, listed by Garrison in 1949 in his Index of Romanesque Italian paintings on wood. In this category there is a group of five Madonnas attributed to Maestro del Bigallo, kept in the Acton’s Collection in Florence, in the Nantes Museum, in the Conservatorio delle Montalve, La Quiete (Florence), in the church of Santa Maria in Bagnano and, in 1989, in Harari & Sons Gallery in London. The Masp work – Madonna and Child Enthroned and two Angels – is listed sixth in the master’s catalogue, and was perhaps his last. The rectangular format with an arched crowning highlighting the head of the figure may have originally been associated with the architectural motif of the lintel, which, according to Garrison (1949), may be traced as far back as an 8th-century BC Assyrian relief. Although there is no surviving Byzantine piece of this type, there is nevertheless evidence of it in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts from the 11th century. Likewise, the motif of the white kerchief in the Virgin’s hand, typically Florentine, may come from the kerchief featured in the ceremonial dress of the Byzantine empress, recurrent in several very ancient Roman emblems (Sandberg-Vavalà 1929, p. 716). Donated to Masp by its founder, M. Bardi, in 1992, Madonna and Child Enthroned and Two Angels was only published by Garrison in 1962, when it was attributed to Maestro del Bigallo. Scholars have since agreed that the work, with its agile graphicness and undeniable monumentality, seems to be a late but very intense product of the atelier of Maestro del Bigallo, whose work at the time was on the verge of being eclipsed by the impact of the early works of Cimabue. What immediately catches the eye in this painting, despite its incipient plasticity, is how the drapery is reduced to a gleaming line used by the painter to portray the folds in a rigorously graphic manner. It may be seen that the outline of the bodily forms under the cloth –for instance, the angle formed by the Virgin’s bent armcomes from just overlaying various rhythmical-linear configurations. The body underneath does not communicate anything organic to the linear activity, therefore it does not interfere with its abstractness. The graphic quality here is sheer light; it tenses the surface, running through it like a luminous specter in a force field.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

Source: Luiz Marques (org.), Catalogue of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo: MASP, 1998. (new edition, 2008).



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