Rare medieval manuscript illuminations, last exhibited in 1975, are showcased in an installation, “Heaven on Earth: Manuscript Illuminations from the National Gallery of Art,” on view through August 2.
Fifty-two single leaves and four bound volumes, among them a number of important recent acquisitions, date from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century and were made in France, Germany, Austria, Bohemia, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. Comprehensive wall texts include new scholarly information, uncovered since the last time these works were exhibited.
“Protected inside closed volumes on library shelves for centuries, many of the images are today as breathtakingly vibrant and beautiful as they were centuries ago,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.
“Heaven on Earth” offers the first in-depth look at these rare works of art in Washington since the 1975 exhibition “Medieval and Renaissance Miniatures from the National Gallery of Art,” the initial showing of the 49 leaves and cuttings from the illuminated manuscripts in the Rosenwald Collection. To accompany the 1975 exhibition, the gallery published an extensive catalog (now out of print) that set a new standard for scholarly accomplishment in the study of medieval manuscript illumination. Although the catalog authors greatly advanced knowledge of the Rosenwald miniatures, now much more is known about the often-anonymous artists or the places and dates of the manuscripts’ origin.
Recent reattributions by gallery curator Virginia Tuttle, who curated this exhibition, include Fra Gregorio Mutii da Montalcino’s “Death of Saint Benedict,” formerly attributed as late Fourteenth Century Italian, and “Saint Peter Enthroned,” circa 1420, which was thought to have been made by a follower of Lippo Vanni; however, Tuttle has confirmed that the miniature is in fact by Sienese artist Lippo Vanni.
An important recent acquisition, “The Three Maries at the Tomb with the Angel of the Resurrection,” 1274‱280, by The Master of Imola, also Sienese, was instrumental in leading Tuttle to the conclusion that another work in the gallery’s collection, “The Nativity with Six Dominican Monks,” (1265‱274) was by the same artist. The gallery’s scientific laboratories cooperated closely with Tuttle in analyzing these works.
Prior to the invention of the printing press in the Fifteenth Century, texts were laboriously inscribed by hand on carefully prepared parchment made from the skin of sheep or calves. Artists adorned the most luxurious books with painted decorations, known as “illuminations” because the frequent use of gold leaf made the pages glow.
The majority of the works in the exhibition depict a range of sacred subjects, as the books most commonly illuminated throughout the Middle Ages were bibles and liturgical texts used in church services and in the daily cycle of prayers offered by communities of monks and nuns.
Secular texts were also illustrated and are represented in the exhibition by manuscripts treating canon law, ancient history and civic statutes, as seen here in “The Meeting of Achilles and Hector,” from Histoire Ancienne Jusqu’ à César , circa 1450.
Most of the miniatures in this exhibition are single leaves or cuttings that have been removed from manuscripts. In the Nineteenth Century collectors often cut illustrated pages or illuminated initials out of manuscripts to frame them as independent works of art. That practice is now condemned. Once outside the protection of their books, illuminations are increasingly subject to damage and loss, and their original contexts become difficult to trace.
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. For information, www.nga.gov or 202-737-4215.
