Photo: Conchi Paz, Courtesy of Galician regional government
On June 5th, fisherman Fernando Brey tripped over a moss covered stone in the Sar river in Galicia when he was struck by its unusual shape. Indeed, this was not an ordinary riverbed rock. He had literally stumbled upon a sculpture of the Virgin and Child, whose faces are now missing, with two worn angels behind the Virgin’s shoulders, who appear to hold up her mantle. Brey quickly shared his discovery with Apatrigal, a local heritage association, and the Galician Ministry of Culture, who believe the work dates to the 14th century.
According to Apatrigal’s statement, the 150kg granite sculpture is carved on all sides other than the back, including the underside of its base, leading them to believe it was meant to be suspended on a wall. They also hypothesize that the work may have originally been located in the now-lost 12th-century Convent of Santa María de Conxo, which was very close to the discovery site in the Sar river. The sculpture has now been moved to the Museo das Peregrinacións in Santiago de Compostela, where it will be cleaned and analysed to determine its probable origin and dating. ‘Studies should tell us whether this is a very valuable gothic statue’, regional minister of culture Román Rodríguez said, as reported in The Guardian, ‘but beyond its cultural and historic value, we’ll also need to try to put together the story of this statue: What happened, and how could it remain undiscovered so close to the city for so many centuries? It must be quite a story’.
Anonymous Portuguese cartographer, Cantino Planisphere (detail), ca. 1502. Map on parchment, 220 x 105 cm. Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena, Italy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Travelling Objects, Travelling People aims to nuance our
understanding of the exchanges and influences that shaped the artistic
landscape of Medieval and Renaissance Iberia. Traditional narratives
hold that late fifteenth-century Iberian art and architecture were
transformed by the arrival of artists, objects and ideas from France and
the Low Countries, while 1492 marked a chronological rupture and the
beginning of global encounters. Challenging these perceptions, this
conference will reconsider the dynamics of artistic influence in late
medieval Iberia, and place European exchanges in a global context, from
Madeira to Santo Domingo. Bringing together international scholars
working on Spain, Portugal and a range of related geographies, it seeks
to address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and
issues of migration and non-linear transfers of materials, techniques
and iconographies.
The theme of ‘travellers’—artists who reached or departed the region,
at times more than once in their lives, but also objects and concepts
imported and exported—will expand and inflect traditional narratives of
late medieval and Renaissance art, underscoring the complexity of global
interactions and exchanges which connected the Iberian peninsula to
Europe and beyond. Bringing together international scholars working on
Iberia and a range of related geographies, the conference seeks to
address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and to
expand the field of analysis beyond Europe to encompass relationships
with newly acquired dominions, from Madeira to Santo Domingo.
Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:
Iberian artists employed abroad, from the master mason Guillelm
Sagrera in Naples, to the sculptor Juan de la Huerta at the Chartreuse
de Champmol
The close imitation of northern artists in such works as the Portuguese copies of Quentin Metsys’s The Angel Appearing to Saints Clara, Colette and Agnes (early 16th century, Museu de Setúbal / Convento de Jesus, Portugal)
‘Iberian’ objects produced elsewhere, for example Christian ivory
carvings made in Goa or Kongo, Afro-Portuguese spoons, and Mexican
‘feather-work’ adopting the vocabulary of northern European late Gothic
painting
Works made for a non-Iberian audience but purchased and displayed by local patrons.
By encouraging conversations across such seemingly disparate topics and geographies, the conference aims to position the Iberian artistic landscape within the networks of artistic exchange that spanned the medieval and Renaissance worlds, challenging the significance of 1492 as a moment of rupture between the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods.
Proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines. Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words together with a short CV and 100-word biography to Costanza.Beltrami@courtauld.ac.uk and Sylvia.Alvares-Correa@history.ox.ac.ukby Friday 10 January 2020.
Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Successful candidates will be notified by 17 February. In the first instance, applicants are encouraged to apply to their home institution for travel and accommodation funding. The organisers hope to provide financial support for travel and accommodation to speakers who require it. This conference is made possible by the kind generosity of Sam Fogg.
Anonymous Portuguese cartographer, Cantino Planisphere (detail), ca. 1502. Map on parchment, 220 x 105 cm. Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, Modena, Italy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Travelling Objects, Travelling People aims to nuance our
understanding of the exchanges and influences that shaped the artistic
landscape of Medieval and Renaissance Iberia. Traditional narratives
hold that late fifteenth-century Iberian art and architecture were
transformed by the arrival of artists, objects and ideas from France and
the Low Countries, while 1492 marked a chronological rupture and the
beginning of global encounters. Challenging these perceptions, this
conference will reconsider the dynamics of artistic influence in late
medieval Iberia, and place European exchanges in a global context, from
Madeira to Santo Domingo. Bringing together international scholars
working on Spain, Portugal and a range of related geographies, it seeks
to address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and
issues of migration and non-linear transfers of materials, techniques
and iconographies.
The theme of ‘travellers’—artists who reached or departed the region,
at times more than once in their lives, but also objects and concepts
imported and exported—will expand and inflect traditional narratives of
late medieval and Renaissance art, underscoring the complexity of global
interactions and exchanges which connected the Iberian peninsula to
Europe and beyond. Bringing together international scholars working on
Iberia and a range of related geographies, the conference seeks to
address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and to
expand the field of analysis beyond Europe to encompass relationships
with newly acquired dominions, from Madeira to Santo Domingo.
Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:
Iberian artists employed abroad, from the master mason Guillelm
Sagrera in Naples, to the sculptor Juan de la Huerta at the Chartreuse
de Champmol
The close imitation of northern artists in such works as the Portuguese copies of Quentin Metsys’s The Angel Appearing to Saints Clara, Colette and Agnes (early 16th century, Museu de Setúbal / Convento de Jesus, Portugal)
‘Iberian’ objects produced elsewhere, for example Christian ivory
carvings made in Goa or Kongo, Afro-Portuguese spoons, and Mexican
‘feather-work’ adopting the vocabulary of northern European late Gothic
painting
Works made for a non-Iberian audience but purchased and displayed by local patrons.
By encouraging conversations across such seemingly disparate topics and geographies, the conference aims to position the Iberian artistic landscape within the networks of artistic exchange that spanned the medieval and Renaissance worlds, challenging the significance of 1492 as a moment of rupture between the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods.
Proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines. Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words together with a short CV and 100-word biography to Costanza.Beltrami@courtauld.ac.uk and Sylvia.Alvares-Correa@history.ox.ac.ukby Friday 10 January 2020.
Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Successful candidates will be notified by 17 February. In the first instance, applicants are encouraged to apply to their home institution for travel and accommodation funding. The organisers hope to provide financial support for travel and accommodation to speakers who require it. This conference is made possible by the kind generosity of Sam Fogg.
TheArt Newspaper reports that a gold breast-plate presented by the Panamanian president General José Remón Cantera to Queen Elizabeth in 1953 is now on display at Buckingham Palace.
Long kept in storage as a piece of secondary importance, the breastplate was re-discovered by Royal Collection curator Sally Goodsir. Now exhibited in the Royal Gifts Summer Exhibition at Buckingham Palace (until 1 October), the breastplate is dated to the 13th century in the exhibition catalogue.
However, the object may be much older: according to Kate Jarvis, a British Museum curator of the Americas, it is an example of tumbaga work, a term for an alloy of gold and copper that was used in Pre-Columbian central America, dating to as early as AD 700. Her opinion is shared by Warwick Bray, a professor emeritus at University College London, who dates the piece to AD 700-1000 and considers it a very large pendant to be hung on a necklace rather than a breastplate.
The future of the object after the end of the Summer Exhibition is still under discussion.
