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Pietà

Ident. Nr.: 2439

ObjID: obj:1064796

Details (expert)

Creator/Entity
Date(s)
Datierung: 1486/1500
Material / Technique
Dimensions
Höhe x Breite: 47 x 54 cm

Object Description

After Donatello?

The Dead Christ Tended by two Angels
2nd half of the 15th century

Painted terracotta
47 x 54 cm

Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Inv. SKS 2439.
Formerly Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Berlin. Lost since May 1945.

Provenance
Venice (1899); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Altes Museum (1899-1904); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (1904-39); Berlin, storage (1939-45); whereabouts unknown (1945-present).

Acquisition
Bought in Venice in 1899; Gift. Acquisition file n°2553/99 (Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin).
Other versions
• Faenza, Pinacoteca Comunale di Arte Antica e Moderna, Inv. 204 (the composition has an additional angel). Cartapesta on panel, 84 x 88 cm. Acquired in 1937 through the dealer Monti di Fermo.
• Malatolo, San Lorenzo.
• Padua, Eremitani Church.
• Parma, Galleria Nazionale.
• Princeton, University Art Museum, Inv. 62.75. 45 x 52 cm.
• Washington, National Gallery of Art.


Comment
This work is a symbolic representation of the Dead Christ exhibited to the beholder by two angels. This iconographical type, known as Engelpietà, achieved a great popularity in the late Middle Ages north of the Alps. In Italy, such iconography was especially widespread in the late 15th century in Northern Italy, especially in Venice where it was informed by Byzantine icons. Besides style, this is the main reason why the literature has postulated that the present work could come from Padua and date from the late 15th century, as it is echoed in many works, especially in painting (by Giovanni Bellini or Carlo Crivelli; see also a detached fresco from the Pellegrini Cappella in Sant’Anastasia, Verona). Schottmüller 1913 connected the relief with an altarpiece in the church of the Eremitani then attributed to Giovanni Minelli and dated 1495.
In 1996, Andrea De Marchi noted that such a composition existed earlier in the visual culture of Padua, attributing a Man of Sorrows between two angels in the Museum of Eztergom to Filippo Lippi, documented in Padua in 1436 (see also another painting with the same subject in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan). According to De Marchi (1996a and 1996b), the proliferation of this motif was a consequence of Donatello’s stay in Padua (1443-1454). Three reliefs with a similar iconography have been linked with the Paduan period of Donatello: a bronze relief in the High Altarpiece of the Basilica del Santo (by a pupil of the master); a marble relief now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (by Donatello); and another marble in the Paduan church of San Gaetano (very close to Donatello, and to a relief published by Bode in the Burlington Magazine in 1926, whose whereabouts are unknown). It is then tempting to think of our lost relief (and its replicas) as a direct derivation of a work by Donatello.

Literature
Schottmüller 1913
Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barocks in Marmor, Ton, Holz und Stuck, Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1913, p. 111 cat. 271: Giovanni Minelli?; close to Minelli’s terracotta altarpiece in the church of the Eremitani, Padua, dated 1495; the angels are akin to those of the Sarcophagus of St Giustina in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Schottmüller 1933
Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barock. Erster Band. Die Bildwerke in Stein, Holz, Ton und Wachs, Zweite Auflage, Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1933, pp. 102-103: Padua, late 15th-century; close to the “Maestro Giuliano” (formerly identified with Giovanni Minelli).
Casadei 1991
Sauro Casadei, Pinacoteca di Faenza, Bologna, 1991, p. 40 cat. 75: the Faenza version is tentatively ascribed to Bartolomeo Bellano (follows the opinion of Giovanni Fiocco).
Gentilini 1991
Giancarlo Gentilini in Giovanni Romano (ed.), Dal Trecento al Seicento. Le arti a paragone, exh. cat. (Turin, Antichi Maestri Pittori, 2 October-30 November 1991), Turin, Antichi Maestri Pittori, 1991, p. 45: lively naturalism in the style of Giovanni Minelli; replica in the lunette of the San Nicola da Tolentino altarpiece in the church of the Eremitani, Padua, made by Domenico Boccarolo in 1495; with a third angel by a weaker hand.
De Marchi 1996a
Andrea De Marchi, “Centralità di Padova: alcuni esempi di interferenza fra scultura e pittura nell’area adriatica alla metà del Quattrocento”, in Charles Dempsey (ed.), Quattrocento adriatico. Fifteenth-Century Art of the Adriatic Rim, symposium papers (Florence, Villa Spelman, 1994), Bologna, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1996, pp. 72-73: groups the work with three other versions (Faenza, Parma, Princeton); usually dated in the late 15th-century but here considered a copy after a lost work by Donatello, also echoed in two works by Filippo Lippi in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, and in the Museum of Esztergom.
De Marchi 1996b
Andrea De Marchi, “Un raggio di luce su Filippo Lippi a Padova”, Nuovi Studi, I, 1, 1996, p. 19 note 35; fig. 25: after Donatello.
Markham Schulz 1996
Anne Markham Schulz, “Further Thoughts on Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino”, in Charles Dempsey (ed.), Quattrocento adriatico. Fifteenth-Century Art of the Adriatic Rim, symposium papers (Florence, Villa Spelman, 1994), Bologna, Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1996, p. 152, fig. 5: after Donatello, invented in Florence in the 1430s.
Petrucci 2001
Francesca Petrucci in Roberta Bartoli, Angela Donati and Enrico Gamba, Il potere, le arti, la guerra. Lo splendore dei Malatesta, exh. cat. (Rimini, Castel Sismondo, 3 March-15 June 2001), Milan, Electa, 2001, p. 372: after Donatello.
Tátrai 2003
Vilmos Tátrai in Zsombor Jékely (ed.), Verrocchio’s Christ, exh. cat. (Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, 13 March-22 June 2003), Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, 2003, pp. 70, 119: link with the Man of Sorrows by Filippo Lippi preserved in the museum of Esztergom; derives from a lost work by Donatello.
Lambacher 2006
Lothar Lambacher (ed.), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Dokumentation der Verluste. Skulpturensammlung. Band VII. Skulpturen. Möbel, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2006, p. 148: last documented in the Tresor der Neue Reichsmünze, Berlin, on 7 April 1945, crate n°132 KFM.
Motture 2006
Peta Motture, “Donatello a Padova: pratica di bottega e scambio artistico”, in Davide Banzato, Alberta De Nicolò Salmazo and Anna Maria Spiazzi (eds.), Mantegna e Padova 1445-1460, exh. cat. (Padua, Musei Civici, 16 September 2006-14 January 2007), Milan, Skira, 2006, p. 115: related to the Man of Sorrows by Donatello in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Inv. 7577-1861), and the bronze relief with the same subject from the High Altar of the Santo, Padua.
De Marchi 2008
Andrea De Marchi, “Ancona, porta della cultura adriatica. Una linea pittorica, da Andrea de’ Bruni a Nicola di maestro Antonio”, in idem and Matteo Mazzalupi, Pittori ad Ancona nel Quattrocento, Milan, Federico Motta Editore, 2008, pp. 83-85: after Donatello; echoed by Carlo Crivelli in the polyptych of Montefiore sull’Asso (now in the National Gallery, London) and Lorenzo d’Alessandro in the late 1480s in the polyptych in San Francesco, Serrapetrona.
Kupiec 2011
Catherine Kupiec in Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham (eds.), Passion in Venice. Crivelli, Tintoretto and Veronese. The Man of Sorrows in Venetian Art, exh. cat. (New York, Museum of Biblical Art, 11 February-12 June 2011), New York and London, Museum of Biblical Art and D Giles, 2011, p. 72: after Donatello.
Pistocchi 2012
Michele Andra Pistocchi in Marco Bona Castellotti and Massimo Pulini (eds.), Gli angeli della Pietà. Intorno a Giovanni Bellini, exh. cat. (Rimini, Museo della Città, 19 August-4 November 2012), Turin et al., Umberto Allemandi, 2012, pp. 35-36: the Faenza version is attributed to Bartolomeo Bellano, 1460-80; mentions the Berlin version p. 35 (but not that it has been lost); relates it to the bronze Man of Sorrows made by Bellano for the High Altar of the Santo, Padua; descends from the Man of Sorrows by Giovanni Bellini at the Museo Correr, but also the one in the St Vincent Ferrer Polyptych in the church of the Santi Giovanni e Paulo, Venice, also by Bellini; the face of the forshortened angel in the Faenza version is reminiscent of the Dead Christ by Andrea Mantegna in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan; the Pala di Montalto by Carlo Crivelli and the one in Serrapetona indicate that the relief originates from the Marche region.
Motture 2013
Peta Motture, “Looking Afresh: Reviewing Italian Renaissance Sculpture for the V&A’s Medieval & Renaissance Galleries”, in eadem, Emma Jones and Dimitrios Zikos (eds.), Carvings, Casts & Collectors. The Art of Renaissance Sculpture, symposium papers (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 12-13 November 2010), London, V&A Publication, 2013, pp. 25-26: after Donatello?; only mentions the Princeton version in comparison to the Man of Sorrows in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no longer believed to be by Donatello but created ca. 1530.

Neville Rowley (24 May 2016)

Last updated: 17.08.2026

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Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst

Additional items from the collections

Madonna mit Kind mit zwei Cherubinen

Madonna mit Kind mit zwei Cherubinen

Dieses äußerst fein gearbeitete Relief wurde von einem Künstler ausgeführt, der mit Donatello eng zusammenarbeitete und die Marmordekorationen für den Hof des Medici-Palastes in Florenz ausgeführt hat. Das Relief war wahrscheinlich über der Augenhöhe angebracht: Christus schaut nach unten und segnet mit seiner rechten Hand den fiktiven Betrachter dieser Szene. Der Cherub auf der rechten Seite ist eine moderne Ergänzung.Erworben 1842This extremely refined relief was made by a close collaborator of Donatello, who was also the author of the marble courtyard decorations for the Medici Palace in Florence. The relief was probably placed above eye level: Christ is looking downward, blessing with his right hand the fictive viewer of this scene. The cherub on the right side is a modern addition.--Follower of DonatelloMadonna and Child with two Cherubsca. 1440-60Marble44 x 32.5 x 8.5 cmBerlin, Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung, Inv. SKS 57.Bode-Museum, storage.ProvenanceFlorence (before 1842); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Altes Museum (1842-1904); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (1904-1939); Berlin, storage (1939-1945); Merkers, storage (1945); Wiesbaden, Central Collecting Point (1945-1956); West Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Museum Dahlem (1956-1997); Berlin, storage (1997-2006); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Bode-Museum (since 2006).AcquisitionBought in Florence in 1842.ExhibitionsBotticelli. Bildnis, Mythos, Andacht, Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, 13 November 2009-28 February 2010.From Renaissance to Rococo. Four Centuries of European Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 13 June-17 September 2012 and Kyushu, Kyushu National Museum, 9 October-12 December 2012, cat. 1.BibliographyTieck 1844Frédéric Tieck, Musées Royaux. Notice des sculptures antiques, Berlin, Moeser and Kühn, 1844, p. 61 cat. 688a: school of Sansovino.Kunstblatt, 1846Kunstblatt, 1846, p. 245. (reference to be checked)Bode 1884Wilhelm Bode, “Die italienischen Skulpturen der Renaissance in den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin. III”, Jahrbuch der Königlich preußischen Kunstsammlungen, V, 1884, pp. 33-34: school of Donatello; same sculptor of the Lombardi monument in the Medici chapel of Santa Croce, Florence.Bode 1887Wilhelm Bode, Italienische Bildhauer der Renaissance. Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Plastik und Malerei auf Grund der Bildwerke und Gemälde in den Königl. Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, W. Speemann, 1887, pp. 36-38: school of Donatello.Tschudi 1887Hugo von Tschudi, Donatello e la critica moderna, Turin et al., Fratelli Bocca, 1887 (1st ed.: Rivista storica Italiana, IV, n° 2, 1887), p. 33.Bode and Tschudi 1888Wilhelm Bode and Hugo von Tschudi, Beschreibung der Bildwerke der christlichen Epoche, Berlin, W. Spemann, 1888, p. 17 cat 44, pl. IV: school of Donatello, probably a pupil from Padua; same hand of the Lombardi relief in the Medici chapel in Santa Croce, Florence; of a Virgin and Child with five Angels in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Inv. 7624-1861); of a relief in the Jacquemart-André collection (Inv. 1810) and in the Bardini collection (stucco); of a round plaquette in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and in the Hainauer collection, Berlin now in the Bode-Museum, see Inv. SKS 2847.Semrau 1891Max Semrau, Donatellos Kanzeln in S. Lorenzo. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der italienieschen Plastik im XV. Jahrhundert, Breslau, Schottlaender, 1891, p. 87 note 2: Giovanni da Pisa.Bode 1902Wilhelm Bode, Florentiner Bildhauer der Renaissance, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1902, pp. 106, 107 fig. 107: follower of Donatello, close to the Judith in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and to the pulpits of San Lorenzo, Florence.Meyer 1903Alfred Gotthold Meyer, Donatello, Bielefeld and Leipzig, Delhagen and Klafing, 1903, p. 118: Donatello.Schubring 1907Paul Schubring, Donatello. Des Meisters Werke in 277 Abbildungen, Stuttgart and Leipzig, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1907, pp. 157,162: school of Donatello.Venturi 1908Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana. VI. La scultura del Quattrocento, Milan, Ulrico Hoepli, 1908, pp. 455, 459 fig. 301: school of Donatello.Schottmüller 1913Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barocks in Marmor, Ton, Holz und Stuck, Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1913, p. 17 cat. 34: a section of the background on the right has been replaced in plaster in modern time; ancient frame, but not from the same period as the relief; characteristic of the studio of Donatello ca. 1435; related to two works mentioned by Schubring 1907, pp. 162, 166.Bode 1921Wilhelm Bode, Florentiner Bildhauer der Renaissance, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1921, p. 101 fig. 56: workshop of Donatello.Wulff 1922Oskar Wulff, Donatello, Leipzig, E. A. Seemann, 1922, p. 14, fig. 31: pupil of Donatello.Schottmüller 1933Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barock. Erster Band. Die Bildwerke in Stein, Holz, Ton und Wachs, Zweite Auflage, Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1933, p. 13: workshop of Donatello, ca. 1435; after a composition by Donatello; close to a Virgin and Child in a private collection, Paris, and to the Madona del Perdono in the Museo dell’Opera metropolitana, Siena.Nicco Fasola 1956Giusta Nicco Fasola, “Bassorilievi donatelleschi nel museo Calvet”, Critica d’arte, III (new series), n° 18, 1956, p. 559 and fig. 292: workshop of Donatello.Neri Lusanna 1986Enrica Neri Lusanna in eadem and Lucia Faedo (eds.), Il museo Bardini a Firenze. Volume secondo: le sculture, Milan, Electa, 1986, p. 254: perhaps the same pupil of Donatello as the author of the Madonna dei Cordai in the Museo Bardini, Florence.Gentilini 1993Giancarlo Gentilini in Luciano Bellosi (ed.), Francesco di Giorgio e il Rinascimento a Siena 1450-1500, exh. cat. (Siena, Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, 25 April-31 July 1993), Milan, Electa, 1993, p. 177 fig. 2, p. 181: collaborator of Donatello, author of one part of the Madonna del Perdono, of the tondi of the courtyard of the Medici palace, Florence, of the Madonna Lombardi in the Medici Chapel of Santa Croce, Florence, and the Madonna and Child with Angels in the Victoria and Albert Museum (deriving from Inv. SKS M 88); possibly Andrea dell’Aquila.Jolly 1998Anna Jolly, Madonnas by Donatello and his Circle, Frankfurt am Main et al., Peter Lang, 1998, p. 156: Paduan follower of Donatello, late 15th century; motif of the base similar to the plaquette of the Madonna with Candelabra in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.Katalog der Originalabgüsse… 2000Katalog der Originalabgüsse. Heft 6. Christliche Epochen. Spätantike. Byzanz. Italien. Freiplastik. Reliefs. Bronzestatuetten, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2000, cat. 2655: workshop of Donatello.Eclercy 2009Bastian Eclercy in Andreas Schumacher (ed.), Botticelli. Bildnis. Mythos. Andacht, exh. cat. (Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, 13 November 2009-28 February 2010), Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum, 2009, pp. 266-267 cat. 44: workshop of Donatello; the closed eyes of the Child are a premonition of his death; spatial ambiguity of the left hand and the veil of the Virgin.Weppelmann 2012Stefan Weppelmann in From Renaissance to Rococo. Four Centuries of European Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 13 June-17 September 2012 and Kyushu, Kyushu National Museum, 9 October-12 December 2012), Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, 2012, pp. 46-47 cat. 1: workshop of Donatello, ca. 1460.CommentThe Virgin is holding her baby by the chest, with her eyes raised to heaven – indicating her awareness of Jesus’ future death on the Cross. He is seated on his mother’s thighs; he caresses with his left hand the wrist of the Virgin, while blessing with his right hand a beholder who was probably intended to view the work from below (the lowered eyelids of the Christ Child are not a sign of sleep, as argued by Eclercy 2009). The figures are set in an ornamented base, finely carved with heads of putti and decorative, palm-trees motifs; the background is also decorated with two cherubs (the right one is a modern addition after the one on the left, which is very abraded, as is the case with the Virgin’s right hand, and Christ’s nose and legs). Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but his legs and left shoulder are left naked.The relief was bought for the Berlin Museums by Gustav Waagen in 1842. First attributed to the school of Sansovino – a most implausible judgement – it was connected to the school of Donatello by Bode 1884, an attribution that is still valid today. The relationship with the works of Donatello is indeed very strong; from the pose of the Virgin, reminiscent of a composition present in Berlin, in a terracotta and a plaquette (see Inv. SKS 56 and Inv. SKS 1028), to her complicated headdress (similar to the Virgin and Child in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv. RF 353; but also to Holophernes in the Judith and Holophernes in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence) or to the Blessing Christ (see for instance the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs in Berlin, Inv. SKS 54). However, the handling of the marble has always prevented critics from seeing an original work by Donatello, whose conception of space is always more mastered and whose handling of the faces less caricatural.The work has been most often compared to the relief known as the Madonna del Perdono, now in the Museo dell’Opera metropolitana in Siena but coming from the Sienese Cathedral: besides the composition, there are close similarities between the reliefs, such as the posture of the right arm of the Virgin, the background with cherubs or the intended view from below. If the Madonna del Perdono is accepted as an autograph work by Donatello, some parts of the relief have probably been carved by an assistant. This is why art historians have sometimes thought that this assistant may be the autor of the Berlin Madonna (see especially Gentilini 1993). Bode and Tschudi 1888 had also suggested a common paternity with a Virgin and Child in the Lombardi monument in the sacristy of Santa Croce, Florence and with a Virgin and Child with five Angels in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. 7624-1861). Gentilini 1993 added to this group the tondi of the courtyard of the Medici palace in Florence, and the decoration of the organ tribune of the church of San Lorenzo, Florence (oral communication); he suggested that their author might have been Andrea dell’Aquila, who was a pupil of Donatello between 1435 and 1443.Neville Rowley (18 February 2016)

Würfelkapitell mit Palmetten- und Blattornament

Würfelkapitell mit Palmetten- und Blattornament

Das Kapitell ist aus der Grundform des Würfels entwickelt und an allen vier Seiten ausgearbeitet. An den vier Schildflächen erscheinen leicht alternierende vegetabile Ornamente im flachen Relief. Es stammt aus dem Benediktinerkloster auf dem Huy, ein in fränkischer Zeit militärisch genutzter Höhenrücken im nördlichen Harzvorland. Von Beginn an stand das Kloster unter dem Schutz der Halberstädter Bischöfe, Burchard I. hatte neben der Marienkapelle auch eine Pfalz errichtet. Die Klosterchronik des 12. Jahrhunderts erwähnt die Fertigstellung des „monasteriums“ noch in der Regierungszeit Abt Alfrieds. Der Kreuzgang, der noch stehende, zweigeschossig gewölbte Bau an der Westseite des Südflügels und möglicherweise auch Gebäude östlich der Kirche können erst nach 1150 fertiggestellt worden sein. Dieser späteren Phase gehört wohl auch das Kapitell an. Im südlichen Abschnitt des Ostflügels hat es noch einen Zweistützenraum mit den bekannten Basen gegeben, in dem dieses Kapitell aufgestellt gewesen sein könnte. Die Bildhauer, die im dritten Viertel des 12. Jahrhunderts zum Ausbau der Huysburger Klausurgebäude herangezogen wurden, haben unter Verwendung des in Sachsen seit dem 11. Jahrhundert üblichen Würfelkapitells, aber auch der korinthischen Ordnung, vor allem durch die ausgeprägte Dreidimensionalität der Formen neue Maßstäbe in der Region gesetzt. Das ornamentale Kapitell ist eng mit der Bauskulptur des nördlichen Harzvorlandes verbunden und man kann davon ausgehen, dass die meisten der auf der Huysburg tätigen Bildhauer in sächsischen Werkstätten ausgebildet wurden und wohl auch an verschiedenen Baustellen der Region tätig waren.(Auszug aus: Tobias Kunz, Bildwerke nördlich der Alpen. 1050 bis 1380. Kritischer Bestandskatalog der Berliner Skulpturensammlung, Petersberg, Michael Imhof Verlag 2014)