Enthroned Madonna with Angels

This iconographic type of the Madonna, known as the Throne of Wisdom (Sedes sapientiae), is markedly archaic and as such is part of the oldest stone, wooden as well as ivory altarpieces. Though our relief in no sense belongs to these oldest works, it nevertheless employs an antiquated composition with its frontal view of the sitting and crowned Mother of God, holding a book in her left hand, with a somewhat more animated baby Jesus on her right knee – He blesses with his right hand, while His left clutches the orb of world rule. The ceremonial and slightly brittle look is enhanced by the strict symmetry of the relief; two ‘presenting’ angels on the flanks draw back a curtain and thus reveal the Madonna to the viewer. The background also contains a curtain with large, likewise symmetrically stylized folds. 

Only with difficulty is it possible to deduce for which context the relief was originally made. Its connection to architecture is implied by the relatively high degree of wind degradation and the use of the curtain motif on both sides, from a side view. But there are no traces of attaching devices so it is questionable whether the relief ever served its hypothetical purpose. Its function thus remains a mystery; it could have been a part of a triptych (or a frieze poliptych) as we know them in Italian and Western European medieval sculpture. We also cannot exclude the possibility of the relief being part of a pulpit, or a relatively grand sepulchral monument.

In the absence of any data or signatures, only style remains as an indicator of dating. The already mentioned symmetry of the entire composition, together with the smoothly chiseled surface, and with a remarkable attention to the materiality of the apparently ‘gauzy thin’ draperies, forbid us from placing the work too deeply into the Middle Ages, despite its overall conservatism. Perhaps the closest analogies are to be found in Lombardy (Giovanni di Balduccio, around 1300 – after 1360), whilst we should note that the Bratislava relief belongs rather to the standard production of the 14th century, and as such it is impossible at the moment to link it to a specific workshop on the basis of a stylistic analysis.

Zuzana Ludiková ● LUDIKOVÁ, Zuzana - BURAN, Dušan. Talianska maľba = Italian Painting. Bratislava : Slovenská národná galéria, 2013. 242 strán. ISBN 9788080591748.