Florence, the church of Or San Michele.
Gilded marble.
1352-1360.
Or San Michele, tabernacle.
H 53 in., W 43 in., D 10 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 1802a.
Cast Location: Robinson B 2nd floor

Orcagna’s gilded marble tabernacle, a memorial to victims of the Black Plague of 1348 and an inspiration to the living, soared almost to the ceiling of the church of Or San Michele. This scene from the life of the Virgin is carved on the back of Orsanmichele’s gilded marble tabernacle. This central portion of the scene shows the dead Virgin lying across her sarcophagus and surrounded by the Apostles. Christ hovers above, the baby in his arms representing his mother’s soul, and angels are shown in the background. The Virgin’s Assumption to Heaven is carved just above this scene. Although other sculptors may have assisted in the production of the tabernacle, the Latin inscription at the bottom of this relief shows that Orcagna himself sculpted the Dormition and the Assumption of the Virgin in 1359.

Or San Michele was built in 1337 in what was then the grain market of Florence. Each guild in Florence honored its patron saint with an image set in a niche of the façade of this church, by sculptors such as Donatello, Ghiberti, Giambologna, and Verocchio. The artists' guild collected donations and commissioned Orcagna to design and construct the focal point of the church - its tabernacle. The gilded and inlaid marble tabernacle honored the artists' guild's own patron saint, the Madonna, who was also the patron saint of the city of Florence.

~ Lucy R. Miller

]]> Bibliography

See George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York, 1954); J.C.L. Metford, "The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin," Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend (London, 1983), 80; John Paoletti and Gary M. Radke, Art in Renaissance Italy, 2nd ed. (New York 2002).]]> Also 2 lions from the foot of the monument.
Originally in Lehnin, Germany.
Bronze.
1524 - 1530 CE.
In Berlin Cathedral since 1545.
L of lid 96 in., W 36 in. 53 and 54, lions - L 13 in., 16 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 2556.
Cast Location: Robinson A stairwell opposite Fenwick Library

The monument was designed by Peter Vischer and finished by Johannes Vischer. Johann is represented as being dressed in a fur hat and cape, over a brocaded cloak, revealing leggings and boots. He wears a ring on his left hand, which is positioned to hold a sword. His head rests on a brocaded and tasseled pillow, an identifying inscription surrounding the sloping sides of the lid. This is one of a pair of sarcophagi, the other one being for Johann's son, Joachim I of Brandenburg. Johann Cicero and his son were Hohenzollern rulers from about 1486 to 1535, direct descendants of Frederick I through the Brandenburg line. From these princes came the kingdom of Prussia, which would play a major role in shaping modern-day Europe. The Brandenburg-Prussian state eventually dominated northern Germany and split the Holy Roman Empire.

This plaster cast of a sarcophagus lid is not the one that was molded from the bronze original during the 1890s and purchased for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When that cast arrived at GMU, it was still in the crate in which it had been received decades before at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After it was uncrated, the cast was cleaned and painted. But the original cast began to disintegrate, which meant that a copy had to be made. This was done by the sculptor Nick Xhiku, who frequently came to our rescue in repairs to casts. Nick explained that mold-making requires professional craftsmanship, an acute understanding of the consistency of the materials, and precise timing. First the cast was cleaned carefully, and then Nick built a wooden frame around the plaster cast. He coated the relief with clear shellac and a release material to ensure easy removal of the completed mold. Then he poured liquid rubber over the relief in several stages. After this rubber mold had set, he applied a plaster solution to the rubber to create a stable outer casing. This rubber "mother mold" in its plaster casing was lifted from the old cast and turned over onto a flat surface to receive an inner layer of plaster. After the plaster solution had hardened, the cast in the mold was inverted and the mold was removed, uncovering a plaster copy of the old cast. The 19th-century plaster cast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art soon collapsed completely, but not before this precise copy had been completed. The copying process can be repeated to produce multiple plasters.

~John L. Gardner, Ellen McV Layman, and Anna Zacherl

]]> Originally in Lehnin, Germany.
Cast Location: Robinson B 359 hallway case

See Cast No.52 for additional details

~ John L. Gardner, Ellen McV Layman, and Anna Zacherl]]> ]]> 1453-1464.
Florence, Santa Croce.
H 40 x W 35 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 2266.
Cast Location: Johnson Ctr 2nd floor

Plaster cast of an angel on the tomb of humanist Carlo Marsuppini (1429/32-1464), located in the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Although the artist of the tomb is Desiderio da Settignano, the work on the angel has been attributed to his brother, Geri. This angel is one of two flanking an image of the Madonna and Child, which is placed far above an effigy of Marsuppini. In The Lives of the Artists, sixteenth-century biographer Giorgio Vasari says that the angels on the tomb are “executed with a beautiful and lively manner”.

~Anna Jones

]]> Bibliography

Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, Florence, Santa Croce. From Emil Krén and Daniel Marx, Web Gallery of Art.]]> Fiesole, Cathedral
Marble.
1466 CE.
53 x 53 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 2347.
Cast Location: Johnson Ctr 2nd floor

The marble altarpiece, carved by Mino da FIesole, was completed in 1466, and was installed on the left wall of the funerary shrine of Bishop Leonardo Salutati, opposite his sarcophagus. The bishop’s namesake St. Leonard stands at the left, beside the Virgin and the Infant Jesus. A young John the Baptist, who foretold the coming of Christ, kneels at the left, and a beggar is seated at the right, looking up towards a saint, either St. Martin or St. Remigius. The Latin inscription beneath the figures, as translated by Daniel Hall, reads: “Leonardo de Salutatis, Bishop, Learned and experienced in the Law.”

~Raphael M. Sikorra]]> Jever Palace, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Oak.
1566.
Jever Palace.
H 78 in., W 75 in., D 17 in.
Metropolitan Catalogue: Cast no. 2127.
Purchased for GMU at Sotheby's New York, February 28, 2006.
Cast Location: Johnson Ctr ground floor

This panel of a cassetted ceiling (large coffer) is decorated with delicate ornaments ranging from leafy vines to whimsical creatures.

~Stephanie LaSpada

]]> Part of a relief by Luca Della Robbia.
In the Duomo (Cathedral) of Florence.
Resin.
1431-1438.
Florence, Duomo, choir loft.
H 42 in., W 39 in.
Gift to George Mason University from an anonymous donor.
Cast Location: College Hall ground floor

The choir loft or cantoria for the Duomo in Florence is the earliest known work by the sculptor Luca della Robbia. This cantoria was never intended to hold a choir, but was designed by Della Robbia as an organ loft for the Chapel of St. Zenobius, the patron saint of Florence. A second loft was designed by Donatello. Both of them are now in the Museum of the Opere del Duomo. Luca della Robbia designed eleven carved panels depicting Psalm 150. The panel reproduced in this cast shows children in celebration. Three boys at the left play trumpets - traditionally associated with festivals - and two of them wear laurel wreaths, suggesting that they have won prizes for music. Four little girls dancing beneath the trumpets may be derived from classical representations of maenads or bacchants and would have been recognized as such during the fifteenth century. On the right, three more boys holding recorders watch the others.

~Ashley Simpson]]> ]]> Findspot unknown.
Grey schist.
Ghandara (modern Pakistan)
ca. first to third-century CE.
Location unknown.
9 1/2 x 16 in.
Not in Metropolitan cast catalogue.
Cast Location: Robinson B359 hallway

The lower register of this two-register relief panel may show a narrative depicting the brothers Jaya and Vaijaya watching their parents place offerings in the Buddha’s bowl.

Attempting to emulate their charitable behavior, the young boys offer him some of the dust with which they have been playing. Impressed by their behavior, the Buddha predicts that Jaya will be reborn as the future king Asoka, Buddhist ruler of North India in the 3rd century BCE, and his Brothers as Asoka’s chief vassal Radhagupta. Several devotees accompany the Buddha including Vajrapani, a Gandharan version of the Greek hero Herakles, who is often shown guarding the Buddha in Gandharan sculpture. In the upper register, the seated Buddha is seated on a lotus throne flanked by royal or divine devotees. The two men closest to him are seated in a pose associated with kingship and may represent the kingly reincarnations of the two boys in the bottom register. However, this representation would be highly unusual.

~Anne Brennan Hardy]]> Findspot unknown.
Gray schist relief.
Ghandara (modern Pakistan)
ca. first to third century CE.
Lahore Museum, Pakistan
H 24 in., W 26 in.
Not in Metropolitan cast catalogue.
Cast Location: Krasnow Bldg

The false stupa gable is a Gandharan decorative sculpture-type belonging to a Buddhist shrine. This example, dated between the first and third centuries AD, has three narrative registers flanked by two devotional figures. In the lower register, the Enlightened Buddha delivers his first sermon: he is seated; his gesture is that of teaching; the bodhi tree spreads over him; and the wheel of the law is on the platform beneath him.

The top register depicts the veneration of the Buddha’s bowl. Incised lines on the enshrined bowl suggest the bowl with multiple rims known from one story of its origins. In this version, each of the four Lokapalas, or directional guardians, presents the Buddha with a bowl. Not wanting to choose between the gifts, the Buddha fuses the bowls into one with four rims (Kuwayama). Worshippers and a pair of icthyocentaurs venerate the bowl at the center, resting on a curtained pedestal (Ingholt). Reports by Chinese monks Faxien and Xuanzang suggest that the Buddha’s bowl was enshrined in Gandhara.

No other Buddhist art has images of the bowl, indicating that its representation and veneration are restricted to Gandharan art. The middle register is more problematic: rows of worshippers flank the only clearly identifiable figures: the standing Buddha in the center and to his left Vajrapani, the Buddha’s club-wielding guardian in Gandhara. One of the two large devotional figures at the sides is haloed, the other is not: their identity remains a mystery. The style of the relief is quintessentially Gandharan. Once dubbed Greco-Buddhist, scholars emphasized the Greek influences on the style and saw Greek art as the impetus behind the first iconic representations of the Buddha. Shifting understandings now focus on the blending of Indian, Greek, and Persian styles inherited from the various polities that controlled the region. Unified in the Gandharan style, they spread along the Silk Roads with Buddhism itself.

Elements of Hellenistic influence in the Gandharan style include the “straight, sharply chiseled nose and brow, classical lips and wavy hair” of the Buddha. Other Mediterranean influence appears in his “diaphanous, toga-like robe” (Hopkirk, 23). These elements spread to the East and back into greater India where they were again transformed. The original sculpture is in the Lahore Museum, Pakistan. It may have been acquired by way of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 1802, the Punjab government had casts of 24 schist sculptures manufactured for the V&A (V&A accession numbers 3308-1883; 3380-1803; 3206-1883; and 3307-1883) (Errington).

~ Anne Brennan Hardy

]]> Bibliography

See Kurt Behrendt, Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara (Leiden, 2003); Elizabeth Errington, “Site Provenance of Gandharan Sculpture,” in Taddei ed., South Asia Archaeology Conference (PLACE, 1987); Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road (Amherst, 1980); Harold Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan (New York, 1957); Shosin Kuwayama, “The Buddha’s Bowl in Gandhara and Relevant Problems,” in Taddei ed., South Asia Archaeology Conference (Place, 1987).]]> Findspot unknown.
Stone.
Gandhara (Modern Pakistan)
Second to third centuries CE.
Location unknown.
H 23 1/2 in., W 26 1/2 in., D 17 1/2 in.
Not in Metropolitan cast catalogue.
Cast Location: SUB I 2nd floor

The Buddha is the central figure in the various sects of the Buddhist religion. He can be recognized by the ushnisha, a protuberance atop his head which symbolizes his great intelligence and wisdom, by the urna, a tuft of hair in the center of his forehead which is said to radiate his intense inner light to the world, and by his elongated earlobes, which symbolize his renunciation of wealth and worldly items.

The Gandharan style of Buddhist sculpture was influenced by trade on the Silk Road that passed through this northern region of India. Those carrying goods along the road also brought examples of Greco-Roman styles in art, which influenced the style of this region. The influence is evident in the Buddha’s classical wavy hair that is quite different from the tight and simplified curls of other Indian styles.

~Nathan Barber]]>