I want to thank both Jill Dunkerton and Marta Melchiorre for this dazzling look into and behind the surface of this fascinating painting! The National Gallery 'interpretations' have been a staple of my life during the Covid era and you have NO IDEA what consolation, diversion, and unbridled pleasure they have brought me and so many others. I hope one day soon to be again in London and be able to visit with and commune with this painting, which Jill and Marta have explored and explained in a simply extraordinary way. Please keep these videos coming, National Gallery! Regards from NY
Superb analysis, music to my ears. I could listen to you for hours. Thank you so much. You make it so real that I can smell the paint and feel the bustle of the workshop across hundreds of years. You are like the Time Team for painting.
Knowing the background, historical context, and the science behind a piece of art makes the work so much more meaningful to me. Thank you so much for making these videos- they are clear and interesting to a novice art lover like me! One day I’d love to come see this work once travel is possible again.
Love love love this kind of videos! It has made me want to come back to my beloved national gallery as soon as possible or (more feasible for me in Italy) go to the Uffizi to see the Botticelli and Filippino paintings there. Thanks so much for the videos and the work. Greetings from Mantova.
Absolutely fascinating. I am so grateful for the National Gallery videos. In lockdown and alone, I have found great pleasure and have learned volumes about painting and art. Thank you
That confidence of articulation is absolutely pure from within Dr. Dunkerton, captivating my attention throughout presentation. She embodies the connect of a hearts passion to the beauty of intellect. Well done and thank you. 🐈
Wonderful! Thank you. Non only really fascinating process and discoveries, but also an excellent example of what conservation science -- associated with good collaboration between scientist and conservator -- can reveal! I love the theory that some of the characters in the painting were erased because portraits of people that had fallen out of grace (or did not pay thebill!!). The video is very useful from didactic point of view. I will show your work in our teaching on technical examination at SUPSI. Thank you Jill Dunkerton and Marta Melchiorre for sharing your work and congratulation. Thank you NG for providing the resources for doing it.
Love these behind the scenes of known artworks! Really brings to life and allows the observer to imagine how the artist/artists thought ,planned and workedin this type of collaborative environment . Seeing the artist as a real person . Fascinating ! So well explained and demonstrated! Never imagined the depth of expertise required and certainly demonstrated by these marvelous women to establish and maintain conservancy of the works of art at the National Gallery! Thank you for sharing!
Fantastic insight to their collaboration. I’ve learned so much, forever thankful. I don’t take your time and knowledge for granted. Grew up starved of both, now I can’t have enough
This was absolutely delightful and absorbing. Thank you so much for putting this together. It’s so exciting to me that, even within the relatively stylized, “corporate” nature of commissioned paintings of the period that there is so much individuality and artistic expression. Definitely will look at these paintings differently now.
Thank you for a splendid video. Absolutely fascinating and brilliantly presented. Is it possible that the scraped portraits are those of people who promised to donate money or pay for their portrait being shown in the picture but failed to do so?
How did you reframe the painting? I assume that you could not or would not reuse the last frame due to size or perhaps safety (to the paint). It would be interesting to know what conservation considerations you take for that step. What's the plan for the painting's display? Thank you for the wonderful enrichment to our appreciation of art and your work!
Hi Jane Knight, thank you for watching! You can find information about this in the National Gallery Technical Bulletin. Here is the link on our website: www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/national-gallery-technical-bulletin-volume-41/p_1050251
I must say I'm not a great fan of this picture's composition and I think Filippino Lippi's changes have messed it up somewhat. It would have been far better to show the distant figures snaking back around in the middle background and given more sense to the sudden crush of figures in the foreground. Likewise the addition of the baroque like rock formation is a dramatic mistake. What's needed here is a more charming gentle landscape. Not the equivalence of Beethoven's fifth in a gentle pastoral or angel like choir. The star is supposed to be Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Not this competing disruptive feature.
