Duccio and the Virgin Mary

Duccio and the Virgin Mary
Monday 26 October at 6:00pm

Looking at the detail I have chosen to illustrate this week's talk, you would be forgiven for thinking that it depicts The Annunciation. It does, after all, include many of the usual features: the Virgin Mary, at home, seated in prayer, and the Archangel Gabriel, approaching humbly, kneeling, and offering... a bouquet? But it's not a lily... it looks more like a furled umbrella, if I'm honest. So what is it? And what does this painting represent?  Well, that's just one of the things we will discover this week!

As you'll realise, I have spoken about Duccio a lot - particularly during the National Gallery's Siena exhibition last year. I have also talked about the Annunciation, as a subject, potentially even more. And yet I have never spoken about this panel - even though it is part of one of the greatest paintings produced in Siena (or anywhere else for that matter): The  Maestà . I've never talked about it simply because there is too much to talk about in one session, and, with the exception of The Annunciation itself, and the adjacent Nativity, I have never found the time to discuss the 'Marian Cycle' - the story of the Virgin Mary - which  starts at the bottom left of the predella at the front of the monumental altarpiece, and continues - after the death and resurrection of Christ - in the crowning elements, most of which survive and remain in Siena.

So that's what I'm going to do in this talk - cover some of the elemtents of this astonishing painting which have been  (by me, at least) less considered and unjustly neglected. We will focus on the Virgin Mary, bringing in other paintings - and glass - by Duccio, while also looking at the extent to which they influenced the generation of artists which followed. In this way we will also discover their relationship to Siena's profound devotion to Mary. The discussion will continue the following week when we will look at the paintings that Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted for the Cathedral in celebration of two of the most important feast days of the Virgin.

Please remember, I do not record my talks.