Treasures of a Lost Art

The first-ever public presentation of 101 works from the impressive collection of Italian illuminated manuscripts assembled by Robert Lehman (1891–1969) was on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art September 30, 2003 through March 21, 2004. "Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance" featured some of the finest examples of the illuminator's art—many of them previously unknown even to scholars—produced in Italy from the thirteenth through the sixteenth century. Among the many important new discoveries presented in the exhibition was the only known illumination by the great Sienese master Duccio di Buoninsegna.

More about Robert Lehman's Collection of Italian Manuscripts Comparable only to the Cini Collection in Venice in its breadth and scope, the collection of Italian manuscripts formed by Robert Lehman originally comprised 145 pieces, representing all the major regional schools of production—Umbria, Tuscany, Emilia, Lombardy, and the Veneto. Spanning some three centuries of illumination, these works trace the art form's development from the otherworldly, abstracting traditions of late-medieval painting to the conquest of space and form during the High Renaissance. In addition to examples by such celebrated painters as Duccio, Lorenzo Monaco, Cosimo Tura, Stefano da Verona, and Francesco di Giorgio, the collection includes major works by artists known primarily as illuminators, including Neri da Rimini, Belbello da Pavia, and Girolamo da Cremona. The selection of ninety-nine single leaves and two bound volumes was drawn from the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as from a private collection.

In addition to illuminated manuscripts, Robert Lehman collected paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts. In 1975, he gave some 2,500 objects from his collection, including 14 Italian manuscript leaves and cuttings, to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also generously funded the Museum's Robert Lehman Wing, where the collection is now housed.

More about the Works on View Before the advent of printing, around the middle of the fifteenth century, books were not only written but decorated—often quite lavishly—by hand. The term "illumination" to describe these decorations was inspired by frequent use of gold and silver, in conjunction with colored paints, which literally made the page appear to "light up." The majority of works formerly in the collection of Robert Lehman represents one of the most spectacular types of illuminated manuscripts (and a specialty of Italian artists)—the oversized choir books, known as antiphonaries and graduals, that contain the sung parts of the mass. The principal form of decoration for these books consisted of large initials, often several inches square, placed at the beginning of each hymn and used as a framing device for a narrative scene appropriate to the text. When carried out by artists of the highest caliber, as they so often were, the results were virtual masterpieces in miniature.

Nearly all of the examples on view were single leaves or cuttings of individual initials, the result of the nineteenth-century practice of mutilating manuscripts for their beautiful miniatures. The removal of such works from their original context creates especially daunting challenges for scholars, and this exhibition reflected important new research on the collection in matters of dating, attribution, and provenance.

Important Achievements of Manuscript Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence The important achievements of manuscript illumination in early Renaissance Florence were represented by such artists as Pacino di Bonaguida, the Maestro Daddesco, and the Master of the Dominican Effigies, whose interest in the suggestion of volume and pictorial space reflects the powerful influence of their more famous Florentine contemporary, Giotto. The Maestro Daddesco's Annunciation in an Initial M, ca. 1310–15, is especially remarkable for its Giottesque sense of monumental grandeur and gravity, despite the miniature scale.

A telling contrast is provided by a near-contemporary example of the same subject by the gifted but still-Gothicizing Emilian artist Neri da Rimini, in which the emphasis is more on exuberantly rendered decorative flourishes, such as the magically suspended draperies of the Angel Gabriel, than on naturalistic representation.

Important Examples of Later Florentine Illumination Important examples of later Florentine illumination included Lorenzo Monaco's Last Judgment in an Initial C, ca. 1406–7. Exquisitely painted in this master's ultrarefined and elegant manner, the cutting comes from the famous group of choir books created by Lorenzo and his shop for the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which were admired as the most beautiful and impressive of such works in all of Italy.

The Only Known Illumination by Duccio di Buoninsegna The earliest example of Sienese manuscript painting—and one of the most historically important revelations of this exhibition—is a leaf containing the only known illumination by Duccio di Buoninsegna, the founder of the Sienese school of painting. Dated ca.1285–90, the miniature shows God the Father above the Virgin and Child, framed in an initial B. The infant's very childlike pose and gesture, reaching up to tug at his mother's veil, is one of the earliest appearances of an iconographic motif that will come to exemplify Duccio's new, humanistic approach to this devotional image.

Important Examples of Later Sienese Illumination Important examples of later Sienese illumination included a scene of the Virgin surrounded by saints in an initial E, ca. 1430–40, by the Master of the Osservanza, a close collaborator of the great Sienese master Sassetta, and Francesco di Giorgio's miniature of Saint Bernadino Preaching from a Pulpit, ca. 1470–75, remarkable for its naturalism and vivid evocation of the character and appearance of this fiery religious reformer.

Examples of Lombard Illumination Examples of Lombard illumination included two cuttings, ca. 1430–35, by Stefano da Verona, a leading exponent of the International Gothic style, and previously known only as a panel painter. Typical of this master's delightful sense of fantasy is the scene of the Pentecost, which is enframed in an initial A formed by the intertwined necks of two rainbow-colored dragons.

The crowning achievement of the important Lombard illuminator Belbello da Pavia was the lavish decoration, begun in 1467, of a set of choir books for the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. In addition to five leaves from this project, the exhibition included a recently discovered bound volume of some ninety-six folios from the same series.

Examples of Ferrarese Illumination Franco dei Russi, one of the leading illuminators at the court of Ferrara, was represented by four magnificent leaves—all from a famous series of choir books commissioned during the 1450s by the distinguished Greek churchman and scholar Cardinal Bessarion. The exhibition also included a miniature by Ferrara's leading panel painter during the fifteenth century, Cosimo Tura. These works reflect the eccentric, mannered courtly style that defines the Ferrarese school of painting.

Examples of Ferrarese Illumination Franco dei Russi, one of the leading illuminators at the court of Ferrara, was represented by four magnificent leaves—all from a famous series of choir books commissioned during the 1450s by the distinguished Greek churchman and scholar Cardinal Bessarion. The exhibition also included a miniature by Ferrara's leading panel painter during the fifteenth century, Cosimo Tura. These works reflect the eccentric, mannered courtly style that defines the Ferrarese school of painting.

Exhibition Organizer "Treasures of a Lost Art" was organized by Pia Palladino, assistant curator, Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Treasures of a Lost Art
Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Kurator: Pia Palladino

Künstler: Duccio di Buoninsegna, Francesco di Giorgio, Lorenzo Monaco, Belbello da Pavia, Neri da Rimini, Franco dei Russi, Cosme Tura, Stefano da Verona, Francesco Marmitta ...