Manchester Madonna

The Madonna Manchester is one of the few surviving panel paintings by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Informative

The image of Mary with the Child, John the Baptist and four angels is referred to by art historians as Madonna Manchester. This name dates back to 1857 where the image was first shown in an exhibition in Manchester and where the German art historian Gustav Friedrich scales the Michelangelo Buonarroti attributed. This write-up came across a wide response among the experts and was largely rejected. While Frédéric Reiset (1877 ) and Hans Wölffin (1891 ) the image only wish concede a successor, held David Robert Moore ( 1881) the image of a work by Baccio Bandinelli. Bernard Berenson (1903 ) thought of a work of Giuliano Bugiardini, Anny E. Popp ( 1925) attributed it to Michelangelo's pupil Antonio Mini and Adolfo Venturi (1932 ) the Jacopino del Conte to.

In 1953, Federico Zeri dealt in detail with the image and wrote it the so-called Master of the Manchester Madonna, the one zuwies also a number of other pictures that had been taken from research over the years with the work of Michelangelo in conjunction. In contrast, Pietro Toesca was in 1934 re-entered for the authenticity of the image by Michelangelo, which was joined by and by numerous other art historians, however, a staff conceded by foreign hands. At a small exhibition about the young Michelangelo, which was organized in 1994/95 from the National Gallery in London, the image of a detailed scientific investigation has been subjected. It solidified the view of the experts, that there must actually be a work by Michelangelo, created shortly after his time with Domenico Ghirlandaio.

The picture is incomplete. It shows Mary, with bared right breast and a book in his hand, according to which the gambling at their feet Christ boy picks. He is supported by the John boy. Surrounded is this ensemble of four angels, two of which are right only been carried out. The left two angels are seen only in the first -scale contours. Also unfinished is the upper part of Mary's hair, as well as the largest part of the background.

The picture was formerly in the Borghese collection in Rome, where it was attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio. After the determination of the painting as a work of Michelangelo, it was mediated by the predominantly in London and Paris working German art agent Otto Mündler the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin for purchase. This would thus recommend as a possible art agent for the Berlin Museum, and offered the image of the first range of scales and at the same time, in a copy of his letter to the Director General Ignatz Maria von Olfers, who simply ignored the offer and thus prevented weighing active could be. As no response from Berlin, attacked the National Gallery in London to