Iacopo Sansovino. La Madonna in Cartapesta
Bargello National Museum. Florence
September 2007 - January 2008
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The "Madonna del Bargello" by Iacopo Sansovino (Florence 1486 - Venice 1570) is one of eleven versions of a particular iconographic type. It is attributed to the master's workshop, who likely worked from a prototype in marble or bronze, now presumably lost. The piece was created using paper pulp soaked in water and shaped into a hollow form. The details were modeled with heated tools. The artwork was fixed to a wooden support with nails and painted over a preparation of lead white and oil. It shows clear influences from both Donatello and Michelangelo.
Alongside this Madonna with Child, a polychrome papier-mâché relief from the National Bargello Museum, the exhibition featured compositions of the same subject by the same author from various locations: one from the Louvre Museum in Paris, two from the Acton collection at Villa La Pietra in Florence, and one from the Museo del Cenedese in Vittorio Veneto. The latter was identified as the Madonna that Sansovino had gifted to Pietro Aretino, a gift highly valued in that period's society. Thirteen variations of the same subject are known today.
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