The museum has a large collection of paintings with gold backgrounds, many on wood. Unfortunately, I don’t have very much info on these paintings, but share them because they are beautiful. Some have notable cracks and warping due to the instability of the wood over the years.
Note that in the image below that the mountains are cut off. In icons of this type, the mountains are represented to symbolize that not even the mountains are higher than God.
This is a portion of the Maestà of Duccio, an altarpiece composed of many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The front panels make up a large enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the Childhood of Christ with prophets. The base of the panel has an inscription that reads (in translation): “Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus.”
These last three paintings in triangular form were presented together in a separate gallery. I love the images and the stories they tell.
I’m sorry I don’t have better descriptions for these. I should note that the captions on the images are mine, not the true names of the paintings. Also, any descriptions are from Wikipedia.
Next time, we’ll see some of the other treasures we found in the museum.
Mark
