Madonna and Child with Two Angels

One of the most recent additions to Barnaba da Modena’s catalogue, this panel is of particular interest, starting with its depiction of the Madonna and Child. Turning his back on the iconography of the Virgin suckling, a favourite theme in panels of this format, Barnaba offers us a version of the Virgin Glykophilousa, an iconography of Byzantine origin which gained widespread popularity in Italian painting starting in the second half of the 13th century¹. The formula is associated with the iconography of the Virgin Eleousa, also known as the “Virgin of Tenderness”, which uses close proximity between the cheeks of the mother and son to highlight the affection between the two. Their tender rapport is emphasised even further in the Glykophilousa by the gesture of the Christ Child touching the Virgin’s chin. He turns to her with natural charm, a winning smile sketched on his lips as though seeking to attract her attention, while she, typically in this particular iconography, gazes at the observer with a mournful expression because she is already aware of the Passion that awaits her son.

The number of images of the Virgin Eleousa and the Virgin Glykophilousa produced in the Italian peninsula gradually began to dwindle in the second half of the 14th century, though they continued to prove popular in those figurative environments that entertained cultural ties with the Byzantine east, such as Genoa where Barnaba da Modena spent almost his entire career. These ties were primarily commercial in nature, given that Genoa was a seaport that traded throughout the Mediterranean. Yet this intense trade was also accompanied by travel on the part of members of the clergy or ambassadors, and relations were strong with the imperial court of Byzantium, as we can see, for instance, in the marriage of Argentina Spinola and Theodore, the son of Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus, in 1309. These contacts also extended to the artistic sphere, and in the years in which Barnaba was working in Genoa, the presence is recorded in the city in 1371 of a painter named Demetrio di Giovanni from Pera, in other words Galata, a Genoese colony that is now part of Istanbul².

This, therefore, was the major cultural crossroads in which Barnaba’s career was played out and in which the Madonna under discussion here was conceived. The popularity of the Virgin Eleousa iconography in Genoa is effectively pointed up by a fresco in the church of San Donato and another in the south door of the cathedral, both of them Byzantine in cultural inspiration and dateable to the late 13th and early 14th centuries respectively³. An important precedent for the iconography in our picture is to be found in a panel now in the sanctuary of Nostra Signora del Ponte in Lavagna (FIG. 1), close to Genoa, which can be attributed to a painter imbued with Sienese culture close to the young Pietro Lorenzetti⁴: even though the depiction of the Christ Child is a mirror image of the same figure in the Gaudium Magnum panel (i.e. he is on Mary’s left), he likewise holds his mother’s chin with one hand while clasping her mantle with the other. Simone Martini (in collaboration with Lippo Memmi) also turned his hand to the iconography of the Virgin Glykophilousa, as we can see in a small diptych for personal devotion now in the Museo Horne in Florence (FIG. 2), while the Christ Child in the central panel of a polyptych in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston displays the same gestures. It has been pointed out that his gesture of brushing his mother’s face with his hand is intended in some way to console her for his future suffering inasmuch, as we have seen, as she is already aware of the Passion that awaits him⁵. In the field of devotional painting, it is also worth pointing to a small triptych attributed to a mid-14th century Ligurian painter (Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art), the central panel of which depicts the Virgin Glykophilousa⁶. The above paintings help us to understand the various different sources of inspiration, whether local or from further afield, that were available to a painter such as Barnaba who, aside from any iconographical considerations, showed a particular interest in the development of Sienese painting⁷. He himself had provided an initial example of the iconography under discussion here in a small panel now in the Galleria Estense in Modena (FIG. 3) painted at an earlier date⁸. Note how the two versions of the Madonna and Child match in the Christ Child’s position to his mother’s right, in his gestures, and in the addition of the Annunciation in the spandrels. The Gaudium Magnum Foundation’s picture, however, is an enriched version of the Glykophilousa iconography as depicted in the Modena panel, reflecting Barnaba’s images of the Virgin painted in the 1370s. She is no longer portrayed as a half-bust figure but in a seated, three-quarter pose, with her legs, which we can see as far as the knees, facing the observer’s left⁹. The most substantial addition is the drape of honour borne by a pair of angels that serves as the backdrop to the sacred group. This element first appeared in Barnaba’s art after 1370¹⁰. Just as it is in this case, the fabric is usually bright red with a dark blue lining and a standard floral decoration found in other, coeval examples¹¹. Likewise, another fairly typical element in Barnaba’s depictions of the Virgin is the small branch of coral hanging in a gold capsule around the Christ Child’s neck. It is common knowledge that such items were thought, from late Antiquity to the Renaissance, to possess medicinal properties and were also used as amulets to ward off danger¹². In a religious context, the colour red was associated with Christ’s blood and was thus an allusion to his Passion. The link between the latter theme and the iconography of the Virgin Glykophilousa is underscored in the Modena panel by a depiction of the Crucifixion in the pinnacle, while in our case it is revealed by the depiction of Christ the Man of Sorrows in the centre of the predella. This part of the painting shows The Dead Christ in the Tomb between the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist Grieving, reflecting an iconography devised by Barnaba in a small panel in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino¹³. Four saints in a half-bust pose are portrayed, two on either side. In an iconographical choice designed to emphasise her ascetic life, St. Mary Magdalen on the far left can be identified thanks to the long blonde locks tumbling down to cover her body¹⁴; St. John the Baptist points to Jesus while displaying a scroll announcing his redeeming mission; the ageing sainted monk in a dark habit, clutching a book and a thin gold crosier without a curl at the top, is likely to be St. Benedict¹⁵; and St. Francis, on the far right, can be identified by his brown habit, his short beard, a book and the stigmata visible on his hands. The presence of the patron saint of Assisi, mirroring the image of the Magdalen who was venerated by the Friars Minor as an exemplum perfectae poenitentiae, suggests that the work was commissioned by a devout figure associated in some way with the Franciscan order¹⁶.

This kind of panel, rectangular and medium-sized with the image of the Madonna and Child embellished in the lower part of the picture by a sequence of half-figure saints, is not unprecedented in Barnaba’s output. There is a precedent, for example, in a panel formerly in a collection in Genoa, which was replicated only a short while later (Claremont, Pomona College, Benton Museum of Art; FIG. 4) by an unknown follower of the master¹⁷. From an iconographical standpoint, these pictures offer a kind of variant of the Virgin Eleousa, with the Christ Child placing his forehead on Mary’s, and they dialogue with the painting under discussion here thanks to the presence of Christ the Man of Sorrows with saints and mourners in the lower part of the panel. By comparison with those examples, however, our panel shows a development and an enrichment both in structural terms and in the juxtaposition of the various parts it comprises: the Madonna and Child are framed by a semi-circle with small arches contained in a pointed arch borne by a pair of twisted columns; the spandrels hold two tondos with the Announcing Angel and the Virgin Annunciate respectively, while the saints below are framed by mouldings and are thus separate from the main subject matter, forming a predella in the full sense of the term. While the arches and the addition of an Annunciation scene are found elsewhere in Barnaba’s output¹⁸, the predella below the picture of Mary is, for the time being at least, a unique occurrence. Its origin probably lies in Siena and it may well have been known in Liguria, a region through which Tuscan artists travelled on their way to Avignon, or otherwise known to Barnaba thanks to his familiarity with the painting of Siena and Avignon. This is suggested by a number of panels intended for private devotion, one painted by Simone Martini (possibly in conjunction with Lippo Memmi), now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (FIG. 5), in which we see a predella with busts of saints and a female donor below the Madonna and Child, the other a pinnacled panel by Lippo Memmi (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) reflecting a similar design¹⁹. The decision to place Christ the Man of Sorrows with Mourners in the centre of the predella, however, is more in keeping with the iconographical features of an altar panel, as we can see, for example, in Simone Martini’s polyptych of St. Catherine now in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa. On the other hand, the above-mentioned diptych in the Museo Horne (FIG. 2) displays a clear association between the Virgin Glykophilousa and Christ the Man of Sorrows.

The close relationship between the iconography and the type of panel makes this Madonna and Child a splendid example of Barnaba da Modena’s highly personal way of mingling figurative practices and genres. None of his Madonnas are drearily repetitive; each one invariably offers new elements and details²⁰. He was influenced by the examples of eastern icons circulating in the Mediterranean basin and the popularity in various Italian cities of the iconographies of Mary that originated in Byzantium testifies to the store set by this kind of work both on a devotional level and as material objects²¹. In our case, however, the artist’s aim was certainly not to replicate standard models, but rather to produce a “Western icon”²² designed to reflect the latest developments in panel paintings. The result was a luxury item for a patron of rank, combining the Byzantine “revival” with a sophisticated Gothic taste whose most important centres of influence were Siena and Avignon. In technical terms, the painting is in fact meticulously executed. We can see this in the artist’s refined use of gold, using the mordant gilding method to create ornamental patterns on the drape of honour, the chrysography (decoration using golden highlights) on the Virgin’s mantle and the pseudo-Kufic inscriptions (imitating Arabic lettering) on the fabric of both; or in such details as the abundant, uniform punching of the gilded foil in the background of the haloes and the spaces between the elements of the frame, creating an almost Impressionistic light effect. The floral shoots and tendrils unfolding around the tondos are in modelled and gilded plaster. The same kind of meticulous attention to the precious detail of his gilded surfaces is found in other work by Barnaba, such as the Madonnas in Frankfurt (1367), Boston and the Louvre, as well as in the two Murcia polyptychs. On the one hand, this points to the rank of the patron who commissioned the work, but on the other, it tells us that Barnaba was not simply inspired by the Sienese masters influenced by Simone Martini, he was openly competing with them.

The painting’s original destination is currently unknown. We certainly should not take it as a given that the patron was from Liguria or the lower Piedmont, because Barnaba was also working for the city of Pisa around 1380²³. The panel was unknown until 2010, when it showed up at Sotheby’s in London and entered the Alana collection in Newark, Delaware. According to the auction catalogue, it had previously belonged to a «European noble gentleman» and had been «in the same collection in south-western France for over a century»²⁴.

The support consists chiefly of a wooden plank with vertical veining that does not appear to have been thinned down but that is very slightly warped²⁵. When the painting was in a French collection, it was covered in flat repainting affecting both the figures’ faces and their clothing. Their features, in particular, had been heavily overemphasised and the main inscription also showed a number of irregularities relating to the date²⁶. The painting was partially cleaned in 2008, while full restoration in 2015 resulted in the recovery of the painted surface as we see it today²⁷. Cleaning Mary’s mantle, the Christ Child’s purplish tunic and the drape of honour allowed restorers to rediscover the original decoration previously concealed by deteriorated retouching and regilding. The support shows no sign along its length of any former connection to other panels to suggest that it may once have been the central panel of a triptych or part of a diptych²⁸. In that respect, the format appears to be close to another panel that began life as a ‘standalone’ painting, a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels, Saints and a Donor now in a private collection in Turin (75 x 54 cm; FIG. 6)²⁹.

Since appearing on the antique market, the Gaudium Magnum Foundation’s Madonna has been mentioned in a number of scholarly works and discussed at some length by Clario Di Fabio (2011), who accepted the date of 1380 on it despite the difficulty in interpreting the inscription on the as yet unrestored panel. This date is important, because it allows us to place the panel between 1377, the year in which Barnaba painted the Madonna and Child with Two Angels in the church of San Giovanni in Alba, and the pentaptych in the church of San Dalmazio in Lavagnola, the fragmentary date on which has been plausibly interpreted as 1386³⁰. Another two altarpieces whose tentative dating is based on the patrons portrayed in them also fall some time between these two works³¹.

The Gaudium Magnum Foundation Madonna sits very comfortably with this group of paintings that illustrate Barnaba’s maturity. At the turn of the 1370s, the artist expanded his network of patrons to include the city of Pisa, producing a series of works that has survived only in part. The Republic welcomed foreign painters enthusiastically in the second half of the 14th century. The leading figure working in the city at that time was Francesco di Neri of Volterra; Florentine and Umbrian artists were involved (like Barnaba) in decorating the Camposanto; and Taddeo di Bartolo of Siena was busy painting polyptychs and frescoes in the city and, thanks to Barnaba’s example, he even resorted to the use of chrysography in some of his Madonnas. The “Madonna of the Merchants” (Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo; FIG. 7), once the central panel of a now dismembered polyptych, shows the features of the Virgin and Christ Child brushed by a nuanced light, a solution very close to the one adopted in the panel under discussion here. The Madonna and Child with Two Angels in Ventimiglia Cathedral (FIG. 8) is also fairly close to our panel, particularly in the drape borne by the angels which, with the studied movement of its folds, creates a certain spaciousness behind the mother and child group. Yet its more marked chiaroscuro and the chrysographic lettering on the Virgin’s mantle suggest that it may be a little earlier. Notice how the fine, subtle shafts of highlighting on the fabric create less abstract effects in our panel by comparison with those in Ventimiglia. It is as though this technique of Byzantine origin, one of the last examples of which is in the painting under discussion here, continued to be used for the message that it could convey within the sacred nature of the picture as a whole, and as a tribute to tradition and to the expectations of the patron for whom the panel was intended, yet handled with a natural touch that reflected the developments of 14th century painting. Thus, the fabric folds in soft waves and pleats which, unlike the complex and overabundant excess seen in many Madonnas painted in the 1360s and 1370s, are moulded to the shape of Mary’s body, conferring on it that robust solidity that is one of the distinctive features of Barnaba’s style in the last decade of his career – a development that probably owes a debt to his interaction with the Tuscan artists working in Pisa. So we are looking here at an emblematic work suspended in that delicate balance between Byzantine tradition and the naturalism of Western painting that accounted for the popularity and success of this leading exponent of Italian painting in the second half of the 14th century.