Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna

Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna
Full title: Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence
Detail from Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna. See below for the full image.
Artist	Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
Year	1853–5
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	222 cm × 521 cm (87 in × 205 in)
Location	The National Gallery, London

Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna is an oil painting by English artist Frederic Leighton. Measuring more than two metres tall and more than five metres wide, this canvas was painted by Leighton from 1853 to 1855 in Rome as his first major work. It is displayed in London's National Gallery, on loan from Queen Elizabeth II. It is hung prominently, high above the main vestibule, directly beyond the entrance to the gallery.

Description

The pictures shows a scene from the 16th century art historian Giorgio Vasari's description of the 13th century procession of a Madonna (an altarpiece for a church) through the streets of Florence. The Madonna is being carried from the home of Florentine artist Cimabue to the church of the Santa Maria Novella. Cimabue himself is depicted immediately in front of the Madonna wearing laurels upon his head. He is flanked by a wide array of characters, including his protege Giotto, the poet Dante Alighieri, the architect Arnolfo di Cambio, the painters Gaddo Gaddi, Andrea Tafi, Buonamico Buffalmacco and Simone Memmi; the sculptor Nicola Pisano, and on horseback at the right edge of the image, the King of Naples, Charles of Anjou.

The Madonna depicted is actually not by Cimabue, but instead it is the Rucellai Madonna by Sienese artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. This is due to the misattribution of this altarpiece by Vasari which lasted into Leighton's time, an error which was not corrected until 1889 by Franz Wickhoff. Both the Rucellai Madonna and a similar piece that is correctly attributed to Cimabue, the Santa Trinita Maestà, are displayed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

• 
  The Rucellai Madonna by Duccio di Buoninsegna
• 
  Detail from Leighton's painting, rectified projection of the Madonna
• 
  The Santa Trinita Maestà by Cimabue

Reception

The painting was an immediate success for Leighton when he presented it at the 1855 exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in London where it received near-universal acclaim. Queen Victoria purchased it on the first day of the exhibition for 600 guineas. The National Gallery notes Victoria's diary entry about the painting: "There was a very big picture by a man called Leighton. It is a beautiful painting, quite reminding one of a Paul Veronese, so bright and full of light. Albert was enchanted with it—so much so that he made me buy it." English artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote that the work proved Leighton's "great power of rich arrangement." His brother, art critic and writer William Rossetti, was not as enchanted: "His picture has largeness, but not greatness; style, but not intensity; design rather than thought; arrangement rather than conception: it is individual, not specially original."

Panoramic display of Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna.

References

• Barker, Emma (1999). "Case Study 5: Academic into Modern: Turner and Leighton". In Perry, Gillian and Colin Cunningham (ed.). Academies, Museums, and Canons of Art. Yale University Press. p. 268. ISBN 0300077432. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Barrington, Emilie Isabel Wilson (1906). The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, vol. 2. Harvard University. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Clark, Robert (2009). Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence. Random House. p. 368. ISBN 0767926498. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Monkhouse, William Cosmo (1899). British Contemporary Artists. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 266. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rossetti, William Michael (1867). Fine Art, Chiefly Contemporary: Notices Reprinted, with Revisions. Macmillan & Company. p. 392. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)