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Donna con bambino e nudi virili
Artist: Luca Signorelli
Year: 1488-1489
Current location: Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art
Original location: Chiesa di Sant'Agostino
DESCRIPTIVE INFORMATION
These boards identified in 1913 as two of the compartments of the Pala Bichi. The great altar-piece was kept in the homonymous chapel of St. Augustine Church in Siena until the second half of the eighteenth century when it was dispersed and the different fragments arrived on the international market.
Today, the side panels are in the Staatliche Museen of Berlin, the predella is divided between Dublin, Glasgow and Williamstown, while this fragment, along with twin with two nude male figures is located in Toledo (Ohio). According to Giorgio Vasari, the blade Bichi was the reason for the interest of Lorenzo de 'Medici against Signorelli and the reason for which the artist gained "great riches and honor." The altarpiece was painted between 1488 and 1489.
According to a description of the eighteenth century these two fragments formed the central section of the blade in front of which was a polychrome statue of Saint Christopher. The figures represent the "witness" of crossing the waters of St. Christopher with the Christ child on his shoulders, ready to dive, too, in a particular woman who has just put a child on his shoulders and is preparing to raise the capacity to discover the legs and into the water. Only Van Marle in 1937 declared himself opposed to this reading of the table which was interpreted by him as part of a baptism.
Oil on canvas, cm. 67.9 x 41.9
Donna con bambino e nudi virili