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Tag Archives: Gothic

Object of the Month: July 2026

St. Paul and a Deacon

St. Jude Thaddeus and St. John the Evangelist

Tempera on panel, c. 1390-95

Tommaso del Mazza, called the Master of St. Verdiana

Florentine, active 1377-1392

Among the Museum & Gallery’s large collection, there are many altarpieces. Some are complete and some are sections of an altarpiece such as a predella or a removable wing. While considered “incomplete,” these panels stand alone as magnificent examples of art history.

One such is a pair of altarpiece wings titled St. Jude Thaddeus and St. John the Evangelist and St. Paul and a Deacon. Painted c. 1390-95 or the late Trecento, they show six figures from church history and link earthly worshippers with the divine. The details of the paintings—their rounded figures, the precise punchwork in gold, as well as the fluid and monumental fabrics—show a stylistic veneration of Giotto and the early Trecento. Compared to other paintings in the collection, they are not immediately eye-catching. However, their intricate details provide questions that are still being answered.

One resolved question surrounding the wings is the identity of the artist. The earliest collection records attributed them to the late-Trecento painter Giovanni del Biondo, then to the Master of St. Verdiana. The name comes from a rare depiction of Saint Verdiana in Atlanta’s The High Museum of Art, Madonna and Child with Six Saints. St. Verdiana is depicted with two snakes as her distinguishing attribute. Barbara Deimling was one of the first to connect the name Tommaso del Mazza to the Master of St. Verdiana in Tradition & Innovation in Florentine Trecento Painting: Corpus of Florentine Painting. Del Mazza (active 1377-1392) was trained in Florence and was influenced by the work of Agnolo Gaddi and Jacopo di Cione. Although del Mazza is considered a minor painter in the late-Italian Gothic style, he had a busy workshop in Florence, and his oeuvre consists of about fifty paintings.

One unanswered question continues to plague scholars: If these wings were part of a larger triptych and if so, where are the other panels? While there is speculation of other sections, Deimling and a few others believe the center panel to be The Annunciation from the J. Paul Getty Museum collection. It depicts the moment Gabriel appears to Mary and informs her that she will be the mother of Jesus.

M&G’s two wing panels were sent to the Getty where the conservation department examined and restored them. Up to that point, the union had been based on separate photographs and had never been seen together by modern historians. After extensive analysis, Yvonne Szafran, paintings conservator at the Getty at the time, concluded there is no way of being certain all the panels belong together. However, when the three works were brought together at M&G for an exhibition (and subsequent symposium) entitled Twilight of a Tradition, opinions were still divided about the panels originally being a united triptych.

More research will be needed to reach conclusive results on this particular altarpiece and more can be read about these two wings and the exhibition in the catalog Discovering a Pre-Renaissance Master: Tommaso del Mazza. Like the artwork, the catalog does an excellent job in conveying the technical skill of a moderately overlooked artist. Perhaps it is the small details and the small things which lead us to some of the largest discoveries.

KC Christmas Beach, artist and M&G volunteer

 

Published 2026

Object of the Month: April 2026

Wounded Christ Between Angels

Tempera on panel, mid-1480s

Bartolommeo Vivarini

Venetian, c. 1432–c. 1499

Born in Venice on the island of Murano, Bartolommeo followed his older brother Antonio in becoming an artist and collaborating together on projects as early as 1450. In addition to his sibling’s teaching, he may have studied under Antonello da Messina, the first artist to use oil paint in Italy. However, Bartolommeo’s artistic style with its strong linear quality and hard, sculptural forms suggests possible instruction by Francesco Squarcione of Padua or the influence of one of Squarcione’s greatest students, Andrea Mantegna known for his linear perspective and foreshortening. Although Vivarini’s later works show some influence of Venetian master, Giovanni Bellini.

He, his brother, and nephew Alvise were talented painters. He spent much of his artistic career working in Venice and was quite successful creating large altarpieces in the 1460s and 1470s following the standard Gothic features of gold ground and flattened figures. As the new Renaissance ideals took form in more natural beauty and landscaped backgrounds, Vivarini’s outmoded painting style led him to find work outside the city for more provincial churches, where the artistic innovations were slower to replace his traditional approach.

M&G’s Wounded Christ Between Angels is more than likely a cymatium, the highest decorative panel in the architecture of a polyptych for a church altarpiece. Historians have suggested that M&G’s panel was originally part of one of two large Bartolommeo Vivarini altarpieces that have since been dismembered: the Almenno Polyptych with a focus on St. Bartholmew or possibly the Torre Boldone triptych now in Bergamo’s Galleria dell’ Accademia Carrara.

In looking at the panel, one notices before recognizing Vivarini’s linear style, the bright gold and vivid color choices—both signature elements of the artist’s style. At one point, the work was titled, Pieta, referencing the Byzantine term of Imago Pietatis, meaning Christ of Pity, which developed into the imagery later identified as the Man of Sorrows as seen in M&G’s work.

Vivarini’s thorn-crowned Christ seems to stand in an open sepulcher with His hands resting on a ledge of red marble stone. He presents His wounds to the viewer as He looks down, His face winced in pain. The cross with clearly rendered wood grain is placed behind Him as a reminder of His sacrifice. Two angels hover in mourning beside Him while one looks heavenward and the other watches Christ. Similar to Bergamo’s Trinity with Angels, the background behind the emaciated body of Christ is a vibrant green—a symbolic choice representing the new life that His innocent death and victorious resurrection made possible for mankind.

 

Erin R. Jones, M&G Executive Director

 

Published 2026

Pietro Alemanno

Madonna and Child with Saints

Pietro Alemanno

Below the image, click play to listen.

 

St. John the Evangelist: Master of Cueza

This depiction of St. John the Evangelist by the Master of Cueza provides an intriguing look at various accoutrements used by medieval scribes.

Jacopo de Carolis

Madonna and Child with Angels

Jacopo de Carolis

Below the image, click play to listen.

Madonna and Child with Saints: Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

In this polyptych (or multi-paneled altarpiece) Gerini not only highlights the Madonna and Christ Child, but also explores the life of Mary Magdalene in his predella.

Antonio Checchi (called Guidaccio da Imola): The Coronation of the Virgin

This is the only signed picture by this early Italian master. It also includes 55 faces!

 

Object of the Month: October 2019

Choir Stalls

Oak

Jan Terwen Aertsz.

Flemish, 16th century

Churches and cathedrals throughout time have something architecturally in common: a location for the choir. Where the choir is placed differs in the various places of worship, yet the choir accentuates the central focus of the church: the altar. In many early European monasteries and later collegiate churches, the choir was positioned along the chancel which separates the nave (where the laity would sit) from the altar. The chancel is lined with rows of seating for the choir members. Every detail within Medieval and Renaissance places of worship were handcrafted, including the choir’s seating or choir stalls.

Choir stalls consist of carved, individual seats divided by armrests; these seats are attached to a long, carved dorsal panel (a short or high backrest board) and sometimes a canopy. M&G’s pair of sturdy oak Choir Stalls date to the 16th century and were designed by Gothic Flemish artist Jan Terwen Aertsz.

Little is known about Jan Terwen Aertzs. who lived a long life of 78 years. Born in 1511 and later educated at the Dordrecht School, Jan was considered a master woodcarver in Dort, also known as Dordrecht.  While the exact church in the Netherlands from which M&G’s Choir Stalls originate remains a mystery, the location of Jan’s greatest work is on view in the Grote Kerk in Dordrecht. The church’s choir stalls, made between 1538-1542, demonstrate Jan’s skill and eye for detail, and are pristine examples of Flemish woodworking in the 16th century.

M&G’s Choir Stalls provide two sets of four seats each and are covered in finely detailed carvings. For example, the fins under the armrest are devised to look like eagles with every feather individually carved into the hard oak. The dorsal and end panels of the stalls contain images from various Biblical stories, including King Solomon displaying his God-given wisdom with the two mothers, and the believing woman healed by just a touch of Christ’s robe. Every minute design is accounted for—from the patterned hem of a character’s tunic, and the hair on Jesus’ head and beard, to the scenes’ distant mountains in the background, and the patterns in the tile underfoot. Surrounding these narratives are decorated spindles and more reliefs consisting of fruit and flowers flanked by winged, mythological creatures. 

One of the most fascinating details of the Choir Stalls are the misericords. Misericords (from the Latin word for pity and heart, literally pity of the heart or compassion of the heart) are molded brackets on the underside of a seat. Choirs or monks would stand for hours singing and participating in the worship ceremony; to provide them with a modicum of comfort and stability, these misericords or “mercy seats” were added. When the choir members would stand to sing, they could lift the seat up and surreptitiously rest against this small structure while still appearing to be standing. 

The ownership history, or provenance, of these beautiful seats is long, mysterious, and fascinating. The choir stalls survived the iconoclasm that followed the Protestant Reformation sweeping through the Netherlands as staunch Catholic Philip II of Spain fought to retain Flanders, where they remained undamaged until the early 20th century. As America entered the Gilded Age with its booming economy, many American business and factory owners became millionaires; they wished to display their newly-earned wealth and position by designing grand homes decorated in the Old-World style. Men like architect Stanford White were sent to Europe to purchase whole rooms of traditional Medieval or Renaissance décor and ship the furnishings back to America. White chose the Choir Stalls to adorn Hearst Castle built by William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate. The choir stalls decorated Hearst’s home until his bankruptcy during the Great Depression. In 1941, Hammer Galleries acquired the choir stalls at auction. A later owner gifted the Choir Stalls to the Collection in 1968, where they found a home among objects and paintings of the same age. While they are not being used for their original purpose, the Choir Stalls allow M&G’s guests a glimpse into 16th-century cathedrals.

Ashley Ellis, M&G History Intern

 

Published in 2019

Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

Madonna and Child with Saints
Niccolò di Pietro Gerini

Object of the Month: June 2017

Reliquary

Giltwood

Spanish, 17th century

 

Reliquary Head of a Monk

Silver

French, 14th century

figure 1: Reliquary Head of a Monk

Click on links for additional reference information.

While the Museum & Gallery is best known for its large collection of European Old Master paintings, the museum also contains around 2,000 objects, ranging from medieval tapestries to Renaissance furniture to ancient Egyptian artifacts.  Among these diverse and unique items, two reliquaries provide an interesting look at sacred art in object form.

Reliquaries are containers that were designed to hold relics, the remains of a saint or an object closely associated with the honored individual.  In their day, these relics varied from supposed fragments of the cross to the finger bones of saints.  Beginning with the reign of Charlemagne, every medieval church owned some kind of a relic, and it was common practice for people to venerate relics deemed particularly significant.  Literature from the medieval era, such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, whose characters are on a journey (a pilgrimage) to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, reveals the integral role relics once filled in religious life.

figure 2: Reliquary

The first of M&G’s reliquaries is Spanish, dating from the seventeenth century (figure 2).  It is made of giltwood and has a small openings in the side of it, possibly designed to allow the worshipper to glimpse the relic within.  What that relic was, is unknown, and compared to M&G’s Reliquary Head of a Monk, (figure 1) this reliquary is simple in design and style.

On the subject of reliquaries, Barbara Drake Boehm, the senior curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, writes that “these complex containers in the form of parts of the body, usually mimicking the relics they enshrined, are one of the most remarkable art forms created in the Middle Ages for the precious remains of saints.” It is quite likely then, that M&G’s beautiful French reliquary designed to look like a face, once held the fragments of a skull—whose skull, remains a mystery.  Other reliquaries, more ornate but reminiscent in style, can be seen at the Aachen Cathedral in Germany.

As part of Roman Catholicism, the cult of relics had an interesting connection to the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.  In 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the church door of Wittenberg, Germany.  Frederick the Wise of Saxony, ruler of that region, had a collection of over 17,000 relics on display at the Church of Wittenberg.  M&G’s painting, Wittenberg, October 31, 1517, depicts a pilgrim, pictured towards the bottom far right with a shell on the outside of his cloak, coming into Wittenberg to venerate the relics at the church.

While M&G’s reliquaries no longer house the elements for which they were once designed, they provide a unique window into historical religious practices, serving as a lasting testament of the spiritual devotion of those who once venerated them.

Katie Neal, former M&G staff member and docent

 

 

Published in 2017

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