[MR] National Gallery of Art Gives Neroccio's 'Madonna and Child' a New Shot at Eternal Life - wash

[David Chessler]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/22/AR2008122202341.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Virgin Rebirth
Technology Helps Humans Work Miracles on a Renaissance Treasure

By Jessica Dawson
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, December 23, 2008; C01

"Madonna and Child With Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Sigismund" 
arrived at the 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Gallery+of+Art?tid=informline>National

Gallery of Art conservation lab 18 months ago with standard symptoms: 
darkened skin, lost pigment and damaged gilding. Most 500-year-olds 
suffer such complaints, so senior conservator Carol Christensen wasn't
alarmed.

Taking the patient's history proved a greater challenge. The 
Renaissance altarpiece doesn't turn up in the record books until 
about 1850, at a church in suburban Siena, Italy. Before that, total 
amnesia: No one knows who commissioned Sienese artist Neroccio de' 
Landi to paint it in the late 15th century or where it first hung.

 <<<snip>>>


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YIS

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