DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61668#0262
172
POLLAIUOLO
and each niche contains a small carefully wrought
statuette. In the angles of the arches of these niches
are round apertures from which tiny heads look out, a
design followed in the architectural decoration of the
Robbia school. Between each relief is an elaborate
Gothic pinnacle ornamented with statuettes and enamels.
The decoration of the sides corresponds precisely with
the earlier part of the Altar.
The central Tabernacle is of the fifteenth century, as
is proved by the character of the statuettes which
surmount it, one of which is a copy of the Joshua of
Bernardo Ciuffagni, now in the Duomo.
Antonio’s relief, representing the Birth of the Baptist
(Plate XXXVI.), is on the left side of the Altar. It is
one of the most poetic of his works, realistic only in the
sense that it gives a faithful genre picture of a con-
temporary Florentine interior. In composition it bears
much resemblance to the same scene m the embroideries.
Here, as there, we look into the deep interior of a room,
in which the bed is placed midway. A servant brings
refreshments behind, and the child with its nurses
occupies the foreground. But the embroidery lacks the
exquisite stag-like figure of the Virgin, who enters
with her attendant, a figure which recalls so strongly
the Flora in the Primavera of Botticelli, as to suggest
that he had it in mind in painting her. The scene is
treated with greater solemnity than in the embroidery
—the figure in the bed, there verging on caricature,
is of great beauty and severity, although the attitude
hardly differs. The foreground scene—the washing of
POLLAIUOLO
and each niche contains a small carefully wrought
statuette. In the angles of the arches of these niches
are round apertures from which tiny heads look out, a
design followed in the architectural decoration of the
Robbia school. Between each relief is an elaborate
Gothic pinnacle ornamented with statuettes and enamels.
The decoration of the sides corresponds precisely with
the earlier part of the Altar.
The central Tabernacle is of the fifteenth century, as
is proved by the character of the statuettes which
surmount it, one of which is a copy of the Joshua of
Bernardo Ciuffagni, now in the Duomo.
Antonio’s relief, representing the Birth of the Baptist
(Plate XXXVI.), is on the left side of the Altar. It is
one of the most poetic of his works, realistic only in the
sense that it gives a faithful genre picture of a con-
temporary Florentine interior. In composition it bears
much resemblance to the same scene m the embroideries.
Here, as there, we look into the deep interior of a room,
in which the bed is placed midway. A servant brings
refreshments behind, and the child with its nurses
occupies the foreground. But the embroidery lacks the
exquisite stag-like figure of the Virgin, who enters
with her attendant, a figure which recalls so strongly
the Flora in the Primavera of Botticelli, as to suggest
that he had it in mind in painting her. The scene is
treated with greater solemnity than in the embroidery
—the figure in the bed, there verging on caricature,
is of great beauty and severity, although the attitude
hardly differs. The foreground scene—the washing of