Sculpture with Adoration Scene
Papier-mâché , 29 × 22.4 × 4.5 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Okay, so at first glance this little work looks a lot like many others I’ve posted, some of them painted or gilded, that are carved out of wood or sometimes stone.
This one? It’s medieval Papier-mâché!!
There were actually many small decorative art objects created in the middle ages and renaissance made out of similar mixtures (in Italian, it’s “Cartapesta”), but because the results can be fragile, not very many have survived.
According the the Met, the patterns on the standing Magi’s clothing are all original, while the Virgin’s pink robe and the yellow ochre on the kneeling figure is added later. Interestingly, the Black Magi’s skin appears to have been touched up at some point. I think it’s worth wondering if some Enlightenment era “restorer” tried to paint over his dark skin, and then someone else restored his original tone after that. Whoever it was, it looks like they did a rather good job.
One of my favorite parts of doing this research and sharing it is when I find some of the more unusual techniques used to create art in the past, like encaustic (hot wax) paintings
images etched and colored on whole sheets of ivory
entire slabs of lapis lazuli transformed by intricately incorporating natural variations into scenes
masterpieces rendered on copper sheets
And even entire figures shaped and carved out of AMBERGRIS.
Yeah, it’s real, and yes it does come from whales.
I think it’s easy to say that anyone whose art education doesn’t include weird and wonderful works like these is really being done a disservice. And guess what? Each and every one of these unusual (yet exemplary-of-the-medium) works includes at least one image of a person of color, or gives an opportunity to speak on diversity and global interconnections in the early modern world.
If you’re an educator, you can diversify Eurocentric curricula immediately by typing whatever topic you ARE required to teach into the search bar here. You can get better and more interesting works with diverse subjects that will provoke interest and maybe even some thoughtful discussions in your class right now. You can even just ASK me, and I’ll find something for you.
I want these works to be admired, shared, appreciated, and talked about. They’re always a source of inspiration for me, and I hope they can be for you, too.
