View source for Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna

{{Short description|Painting by Frederic Leighton}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox artwork
| image_file=Frederic Leighton - Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession - crop.jpg
| alt=See adjacent text.
| caption=Detail from ''Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna''.<br /> See below for the full image.
| image_size=300px
| title=Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna
| other_language_1=Full title
| other_title_1=Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence
| artist=[[Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton]]
| year=1853–1855
| medium=[[Oil painting|Oil]] on [[canvas]]
| height_metric=222
| width_metric=521
| height_imperial=
| width_imperial=
| metric_unit=cm
| imperial_unit=in
| city=London
| museum=The [[National Gallery]]
}}
'''''Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna''''', originally called '''''Cimabue's [Celebrated] Madonna [is] Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence''''',<ref>The "Celebrated" and "is" come and go in sources. See Cast, David (ed), ''The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari'', 2014, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., {{ISBN|147241392X}}, 9781472413925, [https://books.google.com/books?id=WF68AgAAQBAJ&dq=Cimabue%27s+Madonna+Carried+in+Procession&pg=PT307 google books]; Barrington, Mrs Russell, ''The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton'' (Complete), Library of Alexandria, {{ISBN|146556120X}}, 9781465561206, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Jot5eaxnZSoC&dq=Cimabue%27s+Madonna+Carried+in+Procession&pg=PT158 google books]</ref> is an [[oil painting]] by English artist [[Frederic Leighton]]. Measuring more than two metres tall and more than five metres wide, the canvas was painted by Leighton from 1853 to 1855 in Rome as his first major work.<ref name=NG>{{cite web | url=http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/frederic-lord-leighton-cimabues-celebrated-madonna | title=Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna | publisher=nationalgallery.org.uk | date= | access-date=17 March 2013}}</ref>
Since 1988 the work has been displayed in the [[National Gallery, London]], on long-term loan from the [[Royal Collection]], where it was long hung prominently, high above the main vestibule, directly beyond the entrance to the gallery,<ref>{{cite web|title=Virtual Tour|url=http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtualtour/#/stairs/?ath=-1.4214213562537779&atv=-9.510941552685685&fov=82.94949308652133|publisher=nationalgallery.org.uk|access-date=19 March 2014|archive-date=15 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130415041251/http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtualtour/#/stairs/?ath=-1.4214213562537779&atv=-9.510941552685685&fov=82.94949308652133|url-status=dead}}</ref> but more recently it has been in Room 45.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} In 2018 it was displayed at the top of the Sainsbury Wing staircase.<ref>{{citation|mode=cs1|url=https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/editorial/rehanging-the-sainsbury-wing|title=Rehanging the Sainsbury Wing|journal=[[The Burlington Magazine]]|date=November 2018|volume=160|number=1388|access-date=11 March 2021}}</ref>
[[Leighton House]] has an [[oil sketch]] for the painting, and several preparatory drawings.<ref>[https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/colour-sketch-for-cimabues-celebrated-madonna-is-carried-in-procession-through-the-streets-of-florence-1854-180258 Public Catalogue Foundation/BBC "Your Paintings" website]; [http://www.artfund.org/what-we-do/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/11844/cimabues-celebrated-madonna-is-carried-in-processsion-through-the-streets-of-florence-lord-frederic-leighton webpage], [[The Art Fund]]</ref>
==Description==
The picture shows a scene from the 16th century [[art historian]] [[Giorgio Vasari]]'s description of the 13th century procession of an [[altarpiece]] of the [[Madonna and Child]] through the streets of [[Florence, Italy|Florence]].<ref name=NG/> The Madonna is being carried from the studio of the [[Florentine School|Florentine artist]] [[Cimabue]] to the church of [[Santa Maria Novella]]. Cimabue himself is depicted immediately in front of the Madonna wearing a [[laurel wreath]] upon his head. He is followed by a group including several leading Florentine artistic figures of the day, including his pupil [[Giotto]], the poet [[Dante Alighieri]] (leaning on the wall at right), the architect [[Arnolfo di Cambio]],{{efn|"Arnolfo di Lapo" was the name given by Vasari for Arnolfo di Cambio, and was named as "di Lapo" in the original exhibition catalog.}} the painters [[Gaddo Gaddi]], [[Andrea Tafi (artist)|Andrea Tafi]], [[Buonamico Buffalmacco]] and [[Simone Memmi]]; the sculptor [[Nicola Pisano]],{{sfn|Monkhouse|1899|p=94}} and on horseback at the right edge of the image, the [[King of Naples]], [[Charles of Anjou]].<ref name=NG/>
The Madonna depicted, seen at a very narrow angle in the centre of the painting, is actually not by Cimabue, but instead it is the ''[[Rucellai Madonna]]'' by [[Sienese School|Sienese artist]] [[Duccio di Buoninsegna]]. This error is the result of the misattribution of this altarpiece by Vasari which lasted into Leighton's time, an error which was not corrected until 1889 by [[Franz Wickhoff]].{{sfn|Clark|2009|p=81}} Both the ''Rucellai Madonna'' and a similar work that is correctly attributed to Cimabue, the ''[[Santa Trinita Maestà]]'', are displayed at the [[Uffizi Gallery]] in Florence.
<gallery class="center" widths="160px" heights="160px" >
File:Duccio - Maestà - Google Art Project.jpg|The ''Rucellai Madonna'' by Duccio di Buoninsegna
File:Leighton's version of Rucellai Madonna.jpg|Detail from Leighton's painting, rectified projection of the Madonna
File:Cimabue Trinita Madonna.jpg|The ''Santa Trinita Maestà'' by Cimabue
</gallery>
==Reception==
The painting was an immediate success for Leighton when he presented it at the 1855 summer exhibition of the [[Royal Academy of Arts]] in London where it received near-universal acclaim.{{sfn|Barker|1999|p=181}} [[Queen Victoria]] purchased it on the first day of the exhibition for 600 guineas. The National Gallery notes Victoria's diary entry about the painting: "There was a very big picture by a man called Leighton. It is a beautiful painting, quite reminding one of a [[Paul Veronese]], so bright and full of light. [[Albert, Prince Consort|Albert]] was enchanted with it—so much so that he made me buy it."<ref name=NG/> The English artist [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]] wrote that the work proved Leighton's "great power of rich arrangement."{{sfn|Barrington|1906|p=191}} His brother, the art critic and writer [[William Rossetti]], was not as enchanted: "His picture has largeness, but not greatness; style, but not intensity; design rather than thought; arrangement rather than conception: it is individual, not specially original."{{sfn|Rossetti|1867|p=254}}
{{Panorama|
image = File:Frederic Leighton - Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession - Google Art Project 2.jpg|
height = 600|
alt = Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna|
caption = Panoramic display of ''Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna''.
}}
==Notes==
{{notelist}}
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
*{{cite book|last=Barker|first=Emma|title=Academies, Museums, and Canons of Art|date=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0300077432|pages=268|editor=Perry, Gillian and Colin Cunningham|chapter=Case Study 5: Academic into Modern: Turner and Leighton}}
*{{cite book|last=Barrington|first=Emilie Isabel Wilson|title=The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, vol. 2|date=1906|publisher=Harvard University}}
*{{cite book|last=Clark|first=Robert|title=Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence|date=2009|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-0767926492|pages=368}}
*{{cite book|last=Monkhouse|first=William Cosmo|title=British Contemporary Artists|url=https://archive.org/details/britishcontempo01monkgoog|date=1899|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|location=New York|pages=266}}
*{{cite book|last=Rossetti|first=William Michael|title=Fine Art, Chiefly Contemporary: Notices Reprinted, with Revisions|date=1867|publisher=Macmillan & Company|pages=392}}
{{Frederic Leighton|state=expanded}}
{{Cimabue}}
[[Category:Paintings by Frederic Leighton]]
[[Category:1855 paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings in the National Gallery, London]]
[[Category:History paintings]]
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[[Category:Paintings of children]]
[[Category:Musical instruments in art]]
[[Category:Paintings in the Royal Collection of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Oil on canvas paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings about death]]
[[Category:Funerary art]]
[[Category:Works set in the 13th century]]