Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Source Description
This painting is the fragment of a fresco, a type of wall painting in which pigment is applied to plaster when it is still wet. It must have been part of a much larger composition that showed the Madonna in glory, probably holding the Christ Child and flanked by saints. Rays of light shining from the Madonna's mandorla (full-body halo) are still visible around her head. The fresco likely adorned the wall of a church or chapel that was later demolished.Formerly attributed to Alvaro Pirez (active 1411-34), a Portuguese painter who worked in Tuscany, the painting has recently been assigned to Giovanni da Riolo, a little-known painter who worked in his native region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. The attribution to Giovanni is based on the fresco's presumed similarities to Giovanni's signed and dated (1433) polyptych at the Museo Diocesano, Imola.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
38676
label
Head of the Madonna
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
38676
sourceUrl
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Head of the Madonna
description
This painting is the fragment of a fresco, a type of wall painting in which pigment is applied to plaster when it is still wet. It must have been part of a much larger composition that showed the Madonna in glory, probably holding the Christ Child and flanked by saints. Rays of light shining from the Madonna's mandorla (full-body halo) are still visible around her head. The fresco likely adorned the wall of a church or chapel that was later demolished.Formerly attributed to Alvaro Pirez (active 1411-34), a Portuguese painter who worked in Tuscany, the painting has recently been assigned to Giovanni da Riolo, a little-known painter who worked in his native region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. The attribution to Giovanni is based on the fresco's presumed similarities to Giovanni's signed and dated (1433) polyptych at the Museo Diocesano, Imola.
provenance
[Said to have come from an oratory in the region of Florence]; Private collection, Florence, until 1911 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Balimore, after 1911 [mode of acquisition unknown] [through Berenson as agent (?)]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
mid 1400s (Renaissance)
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
paintings
fragments
frescoes
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
56
height
53.3
depth
8.6
dimensionsRaw
Plaster block H: 22 1/16 x W: 21 x D: 3 3/8 in. (56 x 53.3 x 8.6 cm); Pained surface approx. H: 19 11/16 x Approx. W: 18 7/8 in. (50 x 48 cm)
Source extras
med
fresco
creator_ids
17266
collection_ids
REN
exhibition_ids
none
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
c86703fbdc0feffe