Duccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most important exponents of Sienese painting of the late 13th and early 14th century, and one of the most influential figures of Western painting. He had a great influence on the painting of his time in Siena. Duccio lived between around 1255 and 1318/19, so he was a contemporary of Cimabue. Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti were his students. Of Duccio's surviving works, only two can be definitively dated. Both were major public commissions: the Rucellai Madonna (Galleria degli Uffizi), commissioned in April 1285 by the Compagnia del Laudesi di Maria Vergine, and the Maestà commissioned for the high altar of Siena Cathedral in 1308, which Duccio completed by June 1311.

Rucellai Madonna

The Rucellai Madonna is a panel painting representing the Virgin and Child enthroned with Angels. The original contract for the work is dated 1285; the painting was probably delivered in 1286. The painting was commissioned by the Laudesi confraternity of Florence to decorate the chapel they maintained in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella (in 1591, the painting was moved to the adjacent, much larger Rucellai family chapel, hence the modern title of convenience). It was transferred to the Galleria degli Uffizi in the 19th century. The Rucellai Madonna is the largest 13th-century panel painting extant.

History

The Rucellai Madonna is the earlier of the two works by Duccio for which there is written documentation (the other is the Maestà of 1308–11. The altarpiece was commissioned by the Compagnia dei Laudesi, a lay confraternity devoted to the Virgin, to decorate the chapel they occupied in the transept of the newly built Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The contract for the painting, dated 15 April 1285, is the oldest Italian document of its kind to survive. The contract states that Duccio was commissioned to paint a panel depicting the Virgin and Child and "other figures,” for which he was to be paid 150 lire. It enjoins the artist to work on no other commissions while completing the altarpiece, and specifies that the entire work must be painted by Duccio alone without workshop assistance. The contract also requires the artist to pay for and use ultramarine blue for the Virgin's robe and real gold leaf for the background. The framed panel itself—the largest of the dugento—was supplied by the Laudesi. The patron had the right of refusal.[3]

The work, measuring 4.5 by 2.9 meters, was painted in egg tempera on a five-pieced poplar panel. The panel and frame would have been constructed by a master carpenter and then handed over to Duccio for painting. the frame is of the same wood. Although the contract required Duccio to use costly, ultramarine blue, made from ground lapis lazuli, conservators restoring the panel in 1989 determined the pigment of the Virgin's robe to be the cheaper substitute, azurite. Over the centuries, the blue pigments darkened considerably and the green bole underpainting of the fleshtones became more visible. A more recent restoration has rectified those issues, thereby greatly enhancing the tonal unity and subtle naturalism of the work.

The iconography of the painting was determined by the needs of the patrons and the Dominican order. The members of the Laudesi met in the chapel to sing lauds, or Latin hymns praising the Virgin;[11] an image of Mary provided a focus for those devotions. The roundels on the frame represent apostles, saints, and prominent members of the Dominican order, including Saints Dominic and Thomas Aquinas.[12]

Given the bitter political enmity of Florence and Siena, the Florentine civic group's choice of a Sienese artist is noteworthy. Siena regarded the Virgin not only as its patron saint, but as Queen of the city.[13] As a result of this association, Sienese artists like Guido da Siena and Duccio came to specialize in Marian imagery. Although compositional and iconographic sources of the Rucellai Madonna are Byzantine icons, Duccio's work was modeled on recent Sienese works, and not derived directly from a Greek model. The emphasis on grace and refinement seen in the Virgin's gown and stylized anatomy may reflect a familiarity with French Gothic art[14] (which is also suggested by the aspects of the later Maestà).

Legacy

The angel in the lower left

In the 16th century, the art historian Giorgio Vasari mistakenly attributed the Rucellai Madonna to Duccio's contemporary, Cimabue, in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.
Ironically, though, the fame of the Maesta did not entirely escape Vasari's notice, for he must have known the chronicled accounts of its triumphant installation. Always keen for a story that testified to the high esteem artists could achieve by their genius, and an unapologetic protagonist of Florence as the fountainhead ofItalian painting, he adapted the story to suit one of his heroes, Cimabue (ca.1302 - after 1302), the teacher of Giotto, and
a painting he identified as marking the turning point from the Byzantine to a more modern, naturalistic style. The picture in question is the celebrated Ruccellai Madonna, which confronts visitors to the first gallery of the Uffizi in Florence.Vasari thought it was painted about 1294 by his protagonist, but we know it was actually painted by Duccio between 1285 and about 1287 for a chapel in Santa Maria Novella. Here is Vasari's account [9]:

This work was larger than any ... that had been painted up to that time, and some of the accompanying angels show that although Cimabue still retained elements of the Greek [or Byzantine 1 manner of painting, he was gradually approaching ... the lines and style of modern times. As a result, this work so astonished the people of the day ... that they carried it with great rejoicing and with the sounding of trumpets from Cimabue's home to the church with solemn procession, and Cimabue himself was greatly rewarded and honored.

Vasari's mistake went unchallenged for centuries; in the 19th century Frederic Leighton depicted the Rucellai Madonna paraded through the streets in his first major painting, which bore the title Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna Carried in Procession (1853-5).[4][5] In 1889, however historian Franz Wickhoff compared stylistic choices between the Rucellai Madonna and Duccio's Maestà, and soon other critics agreed that Duccio had indeed painted the Rucellai Madonna.[6]