The Louvre Maestà by Cimabue
Recent hailstorms in Paris allowed water to leak into the Louvre, coming close to damaging several proto-Renaissance paintings and sculptures.
In any decent introduction to art history class, before you learn anything about the Italian Renaissance, you must first look at the works of Giotto. Giotto is more well-known for helping reintroduce realism in perspective and proportion to European painting. However, his teacher Cimabue created work that shows a transitory phase between Giotto’s naturalism and the older Byzantine style of painting that had been popular among European artists for several centuries. The exhibition at the Louvre Revoir Cimabue takes a closer look at the thirteenth-century master’s work and his contributions to later developments in Italian Renaissance painting. The Louvre decided to curate an exhibition focusing on Cimabue because of their recent restoration of the 1280 painting Maestà, which has been in the Louvre collection since 1813. The painting shows a Madonna and Child enthroned surrounded by angels. It is an earlier work from the artist’s career, especially compared to his later painting of a similar subject known as the Santa Trinita Maestá, showing a greater sense of depth, perspective, and realism. The differences in the Madonna‘s clothing are probably the best examples, as they seem tight and rigid in the Louvre Maestà, while the Santa Trinita Maestà is looser, flowing, and more naturalistic. Louvre curators call the Maestà “the founding act of Western painting”. The recent restoration has made the nuances in color easier to perceive and shows influence from both Byzantine and Islamic art. Another Cimabue work in the Louvre collection that recently had its restoration completed was The Mocking of Christ. The work is one of eight segments in a diptych Cimabue created in the 1280s. Only three have been recovered, with The Mocking of Christ rediscovered in 2019 in the kitchen of an elderly woman in northern France. After its rediscovery, it sold at auction for €24 million w/p before being acquired by the Louvre in 2023.
The Cimabue exhibition is scheduled to close on May 12th. However, last Saturday, May 3rd, hailstorms in Paris damaged the Louvre roof enough to allow water to drip into the galleries. Some water drops came near several works, including Cimabue’s Maestà as well as Madonna of the Franciscans by Cimabue’s student Duccio di Buoninsegna. While the Duccio work is rather small and protected by a glass case, the Maestà is incredibly large, measuring close to 14 feet tall. It was displayed in the middle of one of the galleries on its own, mounted on a pedestal. The panel and the frame are made of wood, so they are very susceptible to water damage. Some water fell onto the stone base of Nicola Pisano’s sculpture, Three Acolytes. An image of Louvre staff protecting the work by holding a sheet over the sculpture began circulating online shortly after the incident. The exhibition closed after half an hour of dripping, with the Louvre bringing in firefighters to inspect the roof. They determined that a piece of hail had damaged a seal in a section of the glass roof.
This latest incident underscores the urgent need for extensive renovations at the Louvre. A visitor cap in 2023 has tried to relieve some of the stress placed on museum staff and the structure itself. French President Emmanuel Macron announced earlier this year that the Louvre must be renovated to handle the millions of visitors it receives yearly. Estimates place the total cost of these renovations at around €500 million, but some say it may cost as much as €800 million.