NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART • BULLETIN

34 casva Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

Collaboration, Conservation, and Context

n support of its mission to gener- a volume of the National Gallery of ate new research and to promote Art’s Studies in the History of Art series, discussion of the way we think which should become an important ref- Iabout and experience art, CASVA holds erence work for scholars throughout the scholarly symposia every year. These world, including Japan. are typically highly collaborative, The findings of a similarly complex engaging both curatorial and conser- set of collaborative meetings held some vation departments, as well as other six years ago appeared in another such institutions. volume this spring. Orsanmichele and Most recently, the Center collabo- the History and Preservation of the Civic rated with colleagues to arrange a Monument (Studies in the History of series of meetings in connection with Art, volume 76), edited by Carl Brandon the exhibition Colorful Realm: Bird- Strehlke, includes papers from two sym- and-Flower Paintings by Itō Jakuchū posia, one held at the Gallery in October (1716 – 1800), which featured thirty of 2005 and the other in Florence a year Jakuchū’s scrolls from the Zen monas- later. The inspiration was again an exhi- Fig. 1. Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned tery Shōkokuji, together with his trip- bition marking the completion of a long Martyr Saints, c. 1409 – c. 1417, marble tych of the Buddha Śākyamuni. These campaign of restoration, and the loans with traces of gilding, after conserva- works of art, the subjects of long and were again made in the expectation that tion, in the exhibition Monumental careful restoration, were lent to the CASVA would bring together experts to Sculpture from Renaissance Florence: National Gallery of Art by the Imperial explore the history and conservation of Household of Japan for just one month. the works of art and their context. Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco, and Essential to the planning of the exhi- Orsanmichele, the late medieval Verrocchio at Orsanmichele, National bition was a commitment to explore the oratory and granary in the heart of Gallery of Art, 2005 – 2006. Photograph implications of recent technical and art- Florence, was rebuilt beginning in 1337 by Rob Shelley historical research during this once-in- after being destroyed by fire. The build- a-lifetime opportunity. CASVA worked ing, which has been called the birth- closely with the Freer and Sackler Gal- place of modern sculpture, bears traces leries to bring together scholars from of its original open loggias and once around the world, especially several provided an outdoor sculpture gallery from Japan with special relationships of works by the greatest Florentine art- to the Jakuchū scrolls. From different ists, commissioned over two centuries viewpoints, they engaged in discussions by the fiercely competitive Florentine of pigment analysis, stylistic and chron- guilds. Since the 1980s, a systematic ological development, and the meaning program of conservation of these site- of these transcendent Buddhist images specific masterpieces was undertaken in their historical context. Papers from at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure e this symposium will be published in Laboratori di Restauro in Florence, the renowned Italian national restoration Fig. 2. Nanni di Banco, Four Crowned laboratory. The campaign also included the production of copies of the sculp- Martyr Saints, c. 1409 – c. 1417, marble with tures and the removal of the originals traces of gilding, Orsanmichele, Florence, to a museum on the upper floor of the in its original niche, before conservation. building. Orsanmichele and the History Scala/Art Resource, NY and Preservation of the Civic Monument NUMBER 47 • FALL 2012

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includes reports by the skilled restor- the Gallery (fig. 3). This small marble ers in Florence who worked on the relief was donated by the Samuel H. sculptures over many years and by art Kress Foundation in 1960. Its modern historians dedicated to tracing their provenance is well established, for history, as well as by the public officials the relief passed from the Florentine responsible for making decisions about dealer Stefano Bardini to the prince the fate of these works. of Liechtenstein in 1896, and thence to It was to mark the completion of the New York. From a quatrefoil opening conservation of Ghiberti’s bronze Saint emerges the figure of a woman, identi- Matthew (1419 – 1423) that this over- fied as Charity by the inscription on whelming figure was sent to the Gal- the scroll in her right hand. She looks lery, together with Nanni di Banco’s upward to heaven, her eyes made espe- Four Crowned Martyr Saints (c. 1409 – cially expressive through the insertion c. 1417) and Andrea del Verrocchio’s of metal highlights in her pupils. With Christ and Saint Thomas 1467( – 1483). her strong left arm she embraces two In September 2005 the sculptures were small children. They in turn embrace installed in the climate-controlled and each other as they raise up their hun- spacious galleries of the West Building, gry mouths to two streams pouring an environment that could not have from an opening in Charity’s garment. presented a more striking contrast to Where an artist in a later century might their original densely layered urban have revealed a breast, this sculptor context. Debate during the exhibition carved a flame-like heart, thus associat- focused on that context as much as on ing the woman with the ancient figure Fig. 3. Giovanni di Balduccio, Charity, technical questions. Exhibited in a of the pelican feeding her young with c. 1330, marble, National Gallery of Art, minimalist framework in the Gallery, blood from her breast. By Dante’s time, Nanni di Banco’s Four Crowned Martyr this was seen as symbolic of Christian Samuel H. Kress Collection Saints became more approachable, as if charity and of the divine love to which the figures were engaged in a conversa- the woman appeals. Sacchetti’s decision to place several tion viewers might join (fig. 1). In their The relief has long been attributed to of Giovanni di Balduccio’s tabernacle original shadowy niche, placed higher Giovanni di Balduccio (1318/1319 – 1349), reliefs on the walls filling in the gra- on the wall of Orsanmichele, they had but only tentatively associated with nary loggia was an early act of pious seemed more remote in time, their Orsanmichele. In his paper for the conservation. Why the relief of Charity ancient costume and sober demeanor symposium, Francesco Caglioti (Uni- was not included is not known (though more imposing (fig. 2). The marble versity of Naples) made that association Caglioti can now place it in the Peruzzi relief at the base of the niche, to which firm, proving that this relief and others collection in 1890), but patient research the Gallery installation made no refer- showing the virtues of Poverty (Museo has found it a context: the Gallery has ence, once provided a link between the del Bargello) and Obedience (Museo provided a protective home. worlds of the saints and the street, di Orsanmichele), together with twelve There can be no doubt about the depicting those “Maestri di Pietra e apostles immured on the outside of original settings of the monumental Legname” (master craftsmen in stone Orsanmichele, were all part of a proj- sculptures at Orsanmichele. And yet, and wood) who had commissioned the ect managed by the banker and poet for curators, conservators, scholars, tabernacle. There, in a self-referential Franco Sacchetti to restore the monu- and the public, there remain difficult episode, Nanni di Banco showed a ment before his death in 1400. More questions concerning the broader rela- sculptor completing a statue of a heroic difficult to establish are the original tionship between museums and site- putto. In the new installation in the location and purpose of these reliefs, specific works in need of protection. Orsanmichele museum there is no sug- several of which Sacchetti recorded The new CASVA publication contains gestion of a niche, and the predella finding under “filth and grime.” arguments both passionate and scien- remains outside, exposed to Caglioti has made a convincing argu- tifically detached about protecting an the elements. ment that they belonged to an earlier irreplaceable cultural heritage in an One of the discoveries brought to tabernacle at Orsanmichele made in the urban setting and about the impor- light during the symposium in Wash- 1330s. It had to make way some twenty tance of collaborative work concerning ington, and now published in the years later for the magnificent sculp- context and conservation. • Elizabeth CASVA volume, concerns an easily over- tured tabernacle by Andrea Orcagna Cropper, Dean, Center for Advanced looked but precious Florentine work in seen today. Study in the Visual Arts