“Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna” by Frederic Leighton

The painting “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” as created by Frederic Leighton is massive, measuring more than two meters tall and more than five meters wide.

The painting shows a scene from the 13th-century procession. It was the procession of an altarpiece of the Madonna and Child through the streets of Florence. The detailed description was provided by a 16th-century historian Giorgio Vasari’s.

The Madonna is being carried from the studio of the artist Cimabue to the church of Santa Maria Novella. Cimabue himself is depicted immediately in front of the Madonna wearing a laurel wreath.

He is followed by a group including several leading Florentine artistic figures of the day and on horseback at the right edge of the image, the King of Naples, Charles of Anjou.

The Madonna depicted, as seen from a very narrow-angle in the center of the painting, is actually not by Cimabue.

This error is the result of the miss-attributions of this altarpiece, which lasted past Leighton’s time, a mistake that was not corrected until 1889.

Frederic Leighton was 24 years old when he painted this artwork, and when it was first exhibited, it was well-received. So much so that Queen Victoria purchased it on the first day of the exhibition.

The National Gallery notes Victoria’s diary entry about this painting:

“There was a very big picture by a man called Leighton.
It is a beautiful painting, quite reminding one of a Paul Veronese, so bright and full of light.
Albert was enchanted with it—so much so that he made me buy it.”
– Queen Victoria

Cimabue

Cimabue (1240 – 1302) was an Italian painter from Florence. Although Byzantine models profoundly influenced him, Cimabue is generally regarded as one of the first great Italian painters to break from the Italo-Byzantine style.

While medieval art at Cimabue’s time was scenes that appeared flat and highly stylized, Cimabue’s figures were depicted with more lifelike proportions and shading than other artists of his time.

Art History has long regarded Cimabue as the last of an era that was overshadowed by the Italian Renaissance.

Giotto eclipsed Cimabue’s fame, so much so that Dante lamented Cimabue’s quick loss of public interest in the face of Giotto’s revolution in art:

O vanity of human powers,
how briefly lasts the crowning green of glory,
unless an age of darkness follows!
In painting, Cimabue thought he held the field,
but now it’s Giotto has the cry,
so that the other’s fame is dimmed.
– Dante

Frederic Leighton

Sir Frederic Leighton was highly successful and famous during his lifetime with many works depicting historical, biblical, and classical subjects.

Leighton was educated at University College School, London, and then received his artistic training on the European continent.

At age 17, in 1847, he met the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in Frankfurt and drew his portrait, the only known full-length study of Schopenhauer done from life.

When Leighton was 24, he studied in Florence and painted the procession of the Cimabue Madonna. From 1855 to 1859 he lived in Paris, where he met Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, and Millet.

In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1864 he became an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1878 he became its President (1878–96).

Leighton was one of the most influential and accomplished artists of the Victorian era.

Leighton was the bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history, 1st Baron Leighton.

After only one day, his hereditary peerage became extinct upon his death. Leighton remained a bachelor with no legitimate children.

Leighton’s house in Holland Park, London, has been turned into a museum, the Leighton House Museum.

The Museum has many of his drawings and paintings. It displays some of his former art collection, including works by Old Masters and his contemporaries.

Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence

Title: Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence
Artist: Frederic Leighton
Created: 1853-55.
Period: Academic art
Media: Oil paint on Canvas
Dimensions: 231.8 × 520.7 cm (91.3 × 205 in)
Museum: National Gallery, London

Frederic Leighton

Name: Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
Born: 1830 – Scarborough, England, United Kingdom
Died: 1896 (aged 65) – London, England
Movement: Academicism, Neoclassicism, and British Aestheticism
Notable Works:
- Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence
- Cymon and Iphigenia
- Perseus and Andromeda
- Icarus and Daedalus
- Perseus On Pegasus Hastening To the Rescue of Andromeda
- Desdemona
- Flaming June
- The Daphnephoria

The Madonna Is Carried through the Streets of Florence

Exploring the National Gallery, London

“The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
“Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
“Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
“The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
“The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
“Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
“Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
“Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
“The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
“Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
“Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
“After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
“Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898

Frederic Leighton – A collection of works

Frederic Leighton and his ‘Private Palace of Art’

~~~

“The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the while,
I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurelled Dante’s favorite seat. A throne,”
-William Wordsworth

~~~

Photo Credit:1) Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Popular this Week Museums, Art Galleries & Historical Sites - Virtual Tours