The Virgin and Child with Two Angels is a panel painting by the Italian artist Cimabue in egg tempera on a poplar panel, dated to c. 1280. It has been held by the National Gallery in London since 2000.
The painting measures 25.6cm ×20.8cm (10.1in ×8.2in). It depicts the Virgin and Child seated together on a throne, accompanied by two angels with long feathered wings. The composition is based on Byzantine models, but modified for a Western European audience: the throne has become three-dimensional, and the figures of the Virgin and Child are more human and less stylised than similar traditional Byzantine icons such as the Hodegetria.
The panel was rediscovered at Benacre Hall near Lowestoft in Suffolk in 2000, after the death of Sir John Gooch, 12th Baronet, as the contents of the house were being prepared for an auction sale. It may have been acquired in Florence in the early 19th century by his ancestor, Sir Edward Gooch, 6th Baronet, and survived a fire at the house in the 1920s.
It is one of three known panels from a polyptych depicting the Passion of Christ. From its physical characteristics, it was the top left of four panels on the left leaf of a diptych, and it quickly became apparent from its size, style and method that it was almost identical to a panel held by the Frick Collection in New York since 1950, The Flagellation of Christ. The discovery of this panel encouraged a change in the attribution of the Frick panel from Duccio to Cimabue. A third panel, The Mocking of Christ, was found in France in 2019, and auctioned for 24 million euros.
The panel was put up for sale and was expected to sell for £10 million, but before it was sold it was accepted in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Gallery. The heirs were granted a £6.5 million tax exemption, and a donation from Sir John Paul Getty Jr. allowed the gallery to pay a further £700,000. The other contents of the hall were sold in May 2000 for £8.3 million, a record for a country house sale in the UK.
Cimabue, c. 1240 – 1302, was an Italian painter and designer of mosaics from Florence. He was also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi.
Duccio di Buoninsegna, commonly known as just Duccio, was an Italian painter active in Siena, Tuscany, in the late 13th and early 14th century. He was hired throughout his life to complete many important works in government and religious buildings around Italy. Duccio is considered one of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages, and is credited with creating the painting styles of Trecento and the Sienese school. He also contributed significantly to the Sienese Gothic style.
The Wilton Diptych is a small portable diptych of two hinged panels, painted on both sides, now in the National Gallery, London. It is an extremely rare survival of a late medieval religious panel painting from England. The diptych was painted for King Richard II of England, who is depicted kneeling before the Virgin and Child in what is known as a donor portrait. He is presented to them by the English saints King Edmund the Martyr, King Edward the Confessor and patron saint, John the Baptist. The painting is an outstanding example of the International Gothic style, and the nationality of the unknown artist is probably French or English.
The Courtauld Gallery is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in central London. It houses the collection of the Samuel Courtauld Trust and operates as an integral part of the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Lippo Memmi was an Italian painter from Siena. He was the foremost follower of Simone Martini, who was his brother-in-law.
Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino is a landscape by British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner completed in 1839. It is Turner's final painting of Rome and had been in the possession of the family of the 5th Earl of Rosebery since 1878, until the painting came to auction, 7 July 2010. It was bought by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and was subject to an export bar to allow a British gallery time to attempt to match the Getty's bid.
Madonna Enthroned, also known as the Ognissanti Madonna, or just Madonna Ognissanti, is a painting by the Italian late medieval artist Giotto di Bondone, housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy.
The Santa Trinita Maestà is a panel painting by the Italian medieval artist Cimabue, dating to c. 1288-1292. Originally painted for the church of Santa Trinita, Florence, where it remained until 1471, it is now housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. It represents the Madonna enthroned with the Baby Jesus and surrounded by eight angels and, below, four half portraits of prophets.
Salvator Mundi is a painting attributed in whole or in part to the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1499–1510. Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in a major exhibition of Leonardo's work at the National Gallery, London, in 2011–2012. Auction house Christie's stated just after selling the work in 2017 that most leading scholars consider it to be an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by other leading specialists, some of whom propose that he only contributed certain elements; and others who believe that the extensive damage prevents a definitive attribution.
The Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine is the notname for an unknown late 15th century Early Netherlandish painter. He was named after a painting with Scenes from the Legend of Saint Catherine, now kept in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. He was active between c. 1470 and c. 1500, probably around Brussels.
Among the paintings attributed to Giovanni da Rimini are two panels from a former diptych, dated to 1300–1305, of which the left wing is in the collection of the National Gallery, London, and the right that of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
The Palazzo Loredan Cini is a Gothic-style palace located between the Palazzo Balbi Valier and the Rio San Vio on the Grand Canal, in the sestiere of Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy. The palace was formed from the amalgamation of the former Palazzo Foscari-Loredan with the adjacent Palazzo Grimani. The narrow facade on the Canal has no entrance, but the facade to the north on the Rio, has a single water door, and is connected to the adjacent campo by a bridge. The facade is decorated with two poliforas.
The Mocking of Christ is a small 13th-century panel painting by the Italian artist Cimabue, in tempera on a poplar panel. It depicts the mocking of Jesus and is one of three panels known from Cimabue's Diptych of Devotion. It was discovered in the kitchen of an elderly woman in northern France. In October 2019 it sold at auction for €24 million, a record for an artwork predating the 16th century. It is believed to be the first work by Cimabue to have been auctioned. Following an export ban, it was acquired by the Louvre in 2023.
The Flagellation of Christ is a panel painting by the Italian artist Cimabue, in egg tempera and gold leaf on a poplar panel, dated to c. 1280. It has been held by the Frick Collection in New York since 1950, and is the only painting by Cimabue in the United States. The Frick Collection acquired the painting from the Knoedler gallery in Paris in 1950. Previously, it had been owned by the antiques dealer M. Rolla at the end of the 19th century, inherited by G. Rolla, and then sold to the art dealer Eduardo Moratilla.
The Diptych of Devotion was a small altarpiece in tempera and gold on poplar panel, painted in the 1280s by Cimabue. It is thought to have originally consisted of two panels, each with four scenes from the life and passion of Christ. These are thought to have been split up for the art market in the 19th century.
Dillian Rosalind Gordon OBE is a British art historian who worked as a curator at the National Gallery, London from 1978 to 2010, latterly as Curator of Italian Paintings before 1460. She lives in Oxford. She was appointed OBE in 2011 for services to Early Italian Painting. She has authored and co-authored many books, including several National Gallery catalogues.
Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds is a 1936 diptych painting by Salvador Dalí. The oil on plywood work represent tables in a desert landscape and are cut out like the silhouettes of the characters in Jean-François Millet's painting The Angelus (L'Angélus). The works are both double portraits of Salvador and Gala Dali.
Flesh and Spirit is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat c. 1982–83. The multi-panel painting, which is one of the largest ever made by Basquiat, sold for $30.7 million at Sotheby's in May 2018.
The Man of Sorrows is a tempera and oil on panel painting of Jesus Christ by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), thought to have been painted sometime between 1500 and 1510.
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Cimabue, The Mocking of Christ , Louvre
Cimabue, The Flagellation of Christ, Frick Collection
A proposed reconstruction of the Diptych of Devotion
