MADONNA AND CHILD - DALMATIAN/CRETAN SCHOOL - 16TH/17TH CENTURY
Artwork Type: Panel painting "Madonna and Child".
Subject: The Virgin with Child (Madonna and Child) is depicted in a traditional pose. The Virgin wears a purple-red mantle with stylized golden decorations. An eight-pointed star, a Marian symbol, is visible on her head. The Child, dressed in a red, gold-bordered robe, is held in the Virgin's arm, with one hand raised in blessing.
Materials:
Support: Wooden panel as evidenced by the view of the back. The wood shows pronounced grain and signs of aging (cracks, minimal deformations).
Preparation: A gesso-based preparation (gesso and animal glue) is present on the panel.
Pigments: The colors appear saturated and deep, suggesting the use of ground mineral pigments bound with a medium such as egg yolk (egg tempera) typical of the period. The use of red, black/dark brown, skin tones, and gold are clearly visible.
Painting Technique: Egg tempera.
The golden decorative details (on the Virgin's mantle, on the Child's robe, and on the halo) are executed with a brush using pure gold.
The halos are outlined with a dark line and feature hints of stellar decoration for the Virgin.
Conservation Status:
Painted Surface: Presents a widespread fine and capillary craquelure (cracking) across the entire surface, indicative of the natural aging of the painted layers. Pictorial retouching is present.
Wooden Support: The back of the panel clearly shows the aging of the wood with fissures and small material losses on the edges. There are two horizontal reinforcing crossbars fixed with screws, a common method to prevent or contain wood deformation.
Style and Dating: The iconographic, rigid, and frontal style, the rendering of volumes, and the painting technique are common in various pictorial schools of the Mediterranean, including Byzantine and post-Byzantine art.
The golden decorations on the mantle and the general setting could indicate a Greek-Cretan or Southern Italian (particularly Sicilian or Calabrian) origin between the 15th and 17th centuries, where these iconographic traditions persisted.
The dimensions are: 47 x 55 cm.
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