De Thyssen restores the ominous work and invites you to contemplate it with meditation in a room with medieval music and dimmed lights
‘The Virgin of Humility’ will be on display at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid for the next twelve months, exactly as Fra Angelico painted her six centuries ago. The ominous work, a landmark of the Renaissance, has been restored in the museum’s workshops, where it is presented in its restored splendor in an installation that invites you to enjoy this universal treasure through meditation.
In Spain there are only two other works by the master of Fiesole and they are cherished in the Prado Museum: ‘The Annunciation’ and ‘The Virgin of Granada’. Painted between 1433 and 1435, the Thyssen family bought the now-restored panel from the president of the Morgan bank. Another financial entity, the Bank of America, is the one that funded the restoration.
It is displayed in a circular room, which reveals the back of the painting upon entry, forcing the viewer to surround the painting to enjoy the painting. In the background, medieval music played on period instruments and elaborate posters detailing the work of the museum’s restorers under the direction of Ubaldo Sedano. “A year of work ends in this room that invites you to remember, with music from that time and two instruments: a lute and a portable organ,” said Susana Pérez, restorer of the Thyssen, when presenting the piece.
The expert emphasized how Fra Angelico (Vicchio, 1395/1400 – Rome, 1455) cared for his work in an “excellent” way “by choosing the best materials, both for the support table, with a later splint to prevent warping, and in the gold disc of the crown and the lapis lazuli of his clothes» “He achieved beautiful pictorial effects, such as the eyelashes of the virgin or the modeling of the folds of her clothing, a bluish cloak in which unexpected nuances have emerged”. the restorer congratulated himself.
With six centuries behind it and the onslaught of xylophages, the table was “pretty good,” he said. Aging layers of varnish and age-old dust and dirt have been removed. “The virgin’s face had damage and it was a delicate and difficult area, so we smoothed out scuffs and abrasions,” the expert explains. The complex process involved the identification of the work’s materials, chemical analyses, X-rays and infrared reflectography images revealing the master’s regrets and corrections “which is what makes it a masterpiece”.
The frame is renewed, made after painting and put together with pieces of different origin and texture. The gold cover is united as part of a work with reversible materials “meaning the table will not need to be restored again for the next 40 years,” according to the curator. “We work with a microscope and we know that Fra Angelico worked with a magnifying glass to achieve his beautiful finishes,” he clarifies.
“This paradoxical painting is a cross between Gothic and Renaissance features,” says the Thyssen’s artistic director, Guillermo Solana. “The musical angels look up and throw their heads back, a little more simply in the Gothic, when all the figures were on the same plane: these tensions make the integration of elements more wonderful,” he said.
«Fra Angelico repeated the most advanced innovations and that is why we see a virgin with a frontal posture, which does not seem to look at the child. Moreover, it is not a virgin sitting on the grass, as in previous works, nor does the child seem to be suckling. He stands over her, so there is something paradoxical in the title ‘Virgin of Humility’”, Solana insisted. The Virgin, a work from Fra Angelico’s mature period, is full of symbolic details: the lilies refer to the purity of Mary and the red and white roses refer to the suffering of Christ.
The table was part of George IV’s collection, after Leopold I of Belgium and his son, the infamous Leopold II. In 1909 it was bought by the banker Jefrey Morgan and in 1935 it was acquired by the first Baron Thyssen, Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. His daughter, Countess Margit Batthyáni, inherited it until her brother, the second baron and husband of Tita Cervera, bought it from her in 1968 for the collection that he sold to the Spanish state in 1992.
It was part of the Thyssen collection of the Pedralbes Monastery, 80 pieces that went to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), where it is regularly exhibited as part of the Thyssen depot, and where it is about a year will return. “We have brought works from that depot to Madrid under various pretexts, so there is a ‘facto’ rotation, not a ‘jure’. It will be a year and we are quite happy with that”, Guillermo Solana congratulated himself.
Source: La Verdad
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