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22/6/2010

Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni has traditionally been the iconic image that represents the Old Master Paintings collection of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. An absolute masterpiece within the artist’s oeuvre and within Florentine art, it perfectly and beautifully reflects Renaissance ideals of the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

Giovanna, born on 18 December 1468, was the eighth daughter of Maso di Luca degli Albizzi and Caterina Soderini. She received the type of education considered appropriate for young women of her social status. The most important event in Giovanna’s life was her marriage to Lorenzo Tornabuoni (1468–1497), heir to an influential family with links to the Medici. Their wedding was celebrated in September 1486: the festivities were most lavish and for three days the beautiful Giovanna held centre stage. On 11 October 1487 the young couple’s first child, Giovannino, was born, but tragically, Giovanna died aged nineteen during her second pregnancy the following year. She was buried in the church of Santa Maria Novella on 7 October 1488.

Giovanna has been preserved for posterity by Domenico Ghirlandaio, who around 1489 received the commission for a posthumous portrait intended to hang permanently in a place of honour in the Palazzo Tornabuoni. The painting and its wider context are the focus of the present exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Notably, Ghirlandaio emphasised three aspects of the sitter’s personality—her beauty, her role as the wife of Lorenzo, and her virtue and devoutness—which are used as the principal themes around which the present exhibition is organised.

Domenico Ghirlandaio’s talents as a portraitist were praised by Vasari, who singled out his ability to capture the model’s features in a realistic manner. Together with his workshop assistants, Ghirlandaio was responsible for a group of portraits that display a great variety of representational choices. Many of these works are innovative in composition and stylistic approach. The influence of Flemish art, in particular that of Hans Memling, is evident in the female likeness at the Lindenau Museum. The Portrait of Selvaggia Sassetti, probably conceived by Domenico but executed by his younger brother David, highlights the presence of the sitter, whose gaze is directed in a straight line towards the viewer. Instead the fine Portrait of a Young Woman, from the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, evokes a more poetic atmosphere. In the case of the Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni, Domenico Ghirlandaio was personally responsible for both the conception of the portrait and its execution. Ghirlandaio communicates the sitter’s grace and captivating dignity in a highly effective manner. For the portrait of Giovanna the painter deliberately employed the traditional profile pose.

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Invited Works: "Monet after Impressionism"
From 08 June to 05 September 2010

From 8 June the rooms on the first floor housing the Museum’s Permanent Collection will also display four works by Claude Monet that were recently seen in the temporary exhibition at the Museum (now closed). They are Sunrise on the Seine, Giverny (1897), from the Mead Art Museum, Amherst (Massachusetts), Waterloo Bridge: Sun between the Mist (1903), loaned by the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), House among Roses (1925), from a private collection, and Thaw at Vétheuil (1880), from the Museum’s own collection.

This special loan runs until early September. In addition, visitors will be able to see a projection of the documentary footage of Claude Monet painting in his garden made by the filmmaker Sacha Guitry in 1915. This was also shown in the part of the exhibition held at Fundación Caja Madrid.

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Paseo del Prado, 8. 28014 Madrid
Opening times
Tuesdays to Sundays, 10am to 7pm. Closed on Mondays. From 29 June to 11 September the exhibition will remain open until 11 pm from Tuesdays to Saturdays. El Mirador Restaurant offers the ideal accompaniment to a visit, located on the Museum’s top floor. Visitors are asked to leave the galleries 5 minutes before closing.
Ticket Prices
General:
-Thyssen Bornemisza Collections: 8.00 €
-Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence exhibition: 8.00 €
-Combined ticket for Thyssen Bornemisza Collections and Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence exhibition: 13.00 €
Senior citizens (65 and over), pensioners, students and family groups comprising at least one adult and three children (or two, if one of them has a disability) which can legally be considered a "large family":
-Thyssen-Bornemisza Collect.: 5.50 €
-Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence exhibition: 5.50 €
-Combined ticket for the Thyssen Bornemisza Collections and Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence exhibition: 7.50 €
Free admission: Accompanied children under 12 and officialy unemployed people.

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