Signed and dated 1358, this picture is the last known dated work by the leading fourteenth-century Venetian artist Paolo Veneziano, made in collaboration with his son Giovanni. It depicts Christ crowning his mother, the Virgin Mary, as Queen of Heaven and probably served as the central panel of a large altarpiece complex, possibly a polyptych featuring fourteen saints now in San Severino Marche, in central Italy.
Christ extends his right arm to place a jeweled crown atop his mother’s head, its gold mingled with the gold of her halo, which is punched with a subtle pattern. To signal their importance, the artist has presented both Christ and Mary wearing blue mantles painted using ultramarine, or lapis lazuli, the extremely costly pigment imported into Europe from Afghanistan. Above, a choir of sumptuously dressed angels celebrates the honor bestowed on Mary. They play a range of Renaissance musical instruments, while three angels at center sing, with their mouths open, as if holding a long note. The delicate pattern on the Cloth of Honor displayed between Christ and Mary includes phoenix-like creatures reminiscent of Asian textiles, which in this period were luxury items imported into Europe from China, Persia (now Iran), and elsewhere. The inscription along the base of the throne repeats the first two lines of the sung responses known as Regina coeli, or “Queen of Heaven.”
The Coronation of the Virgin
The Coronation of the Virgin is recounted not in the New Testament but in the apocryphal story of the Virgin’s death. In many Coronation scenes painted by Paolo and other Venetian artists a sun and a moon accompany the principal figures, the sun from early times being associated with Christ and the moon with the Virgin. The angels singing and playing musical instruments in the Frick panel symbolize the harmony of the universe; their instruments are the authentic components of a medieval orchestra, accurately depicted and correctly held and played. The inscription along the base of the throne is drawn from the Eastertide antiphon Regina coeli. The decorative sparkle of the surface — with its brilliant, expensive colors, patterned textiles, and lavish gold leaf — reflects the Venetians’ love of luxury, a taste that enriches as well much of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century architecture in Venice.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Probably from a chapel near Ravenna. Count Bacinetti. J. Maillinger, Munich (1867). Bought by the painter Franz Reichardt, Munich, in 1873. Bought from Reichardt in 1873 or 1874 for the Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Sold at the dispersal of the Royal collections at Sigmaringen, about 1928. Knoedler. Frick, 1930.
Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: French, Italian and Spanish. Volume II. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.
