Della Robbia Lunette Slips Mounts at MMA

The Metropolitan Museum of Art issued a press release today announcing that a late 15th-century relief sculpture by Andrea della Robbia (Italian, Florentine,1435-1525) slipped its metal mounting brackets overnight and landed on the floor underneath the doorway to the European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries. The floor is made of stone, so it was likely an extremely unhappy meeting when Saint Michael the Archangel (ca. 1475), a hefty, 31 1/8 x 61 7/8 in. glazed terracotta sculpture in a heavy wooden frame, hit the deck.

In happier news, the MMA Communications Office also stated, "Preliminary inspection indicates that the relief has not been irrevocably harmed and that it can be repaired and again presented to the public." Saint Michael... is in the process of being removed to the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation within the Museum, after which time the European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries will once again be open to the public. This brings to mind the happiest news of all: the Museum was closed when this accident occurred. Even though all wall mounts and pedestals at the MMA are very regularly and thoroughly inspected, failures *do* happen in the museum world.

Andrea della Robbia was the nephew of Early Renaissance great Luca della Robbia (Italian, Florentine, 1400-1482). Though less well-known today than his uncle, Andrea was Luca's apprentice and formed the middle link of three generations of della Robbia workshop fame (Andrea's son, Giovanni della Robbia [1469-1529] was the third and final link). Andrea also, and quite clearly, was the repository for every bit of of Luca's considerable technical knowledge on glazing terracotta--a true mixture of art *and* science, and one that persists in being rumored as "secret." It's not secret, of course, but the precise measurements of silica, alkali, lead, potassium, sodium and arsenic, properly combined and applied to terracotta exactly at the right stage between wet and dry, then fired at consistently less than 1652 degrees Fahrenheit to produce this lustrous sheen is very, very hard to duplicate unless one is using modern technology.

The blue-and-white lunette ("little moon;" in art history typically the half-round uppermost component of an altarpiece) of Saint Michael is an absolutely lovely Renaissance treasure on many levels. In the tradition of Roman Catholic iconography, Michael is dressed in armor and carries a sword as the defender of the Church. The scales in his left hand symbolize his roles as the angel of death and carrier of souls to heaven for judgment, admittance or consignment to Satan and his minions in hell. This particular piece was commissioned in the mid-1470s for the church S Michele Arcangelo in Faenza, a town in Emilia-Romagna famed for the glazed earthenware known worldwide as "faience." Though S Michele Arcangelo was dismantled around 1798, Saint Michael... was passed down through private collections for nearly two centuries before the Museum bought it at auction in 1960.

Note: click here for a larger view of Saint Michael the Archangel.

Image credit:

Andrea della Robbia (Italian, Florentine, 1435–1525)
Saint Michael the Archangel, ca. 1475
Glazed terracotta
Frame, wood
31 1/8 x 61 7/8 in. (79.1 x 157.2 cm)
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1960
60.127.2
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art