Currently not on view
Man Fighting Bird; Lovers; Wrestlers,
late 14th century CE
Spanish
y1958-19
The Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos, near Burgos, has a long and distinguished artistic legacy. Not only was the abbey renowned for the production and illumination of manuscripts, it also contributed to the revival of monumental religious sculpture in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. These wooden beams from the cloister are from the end of the Middle Ages. Painted in the fourteenth century, they are decorated with colorful secular subjects. These two examples, removed during the modern restoration and renovation of the cloister, convey the wit and imagination of the artists. Burgos was situated on the Pilgrimage Road that brought travelers from across Europe to the large cathedral of St. James of Compostella on the western coast of Spain to venerate the tomb of the apostle. This site of interchange must have exposed the artists of the Burgos wooden panels not only to new fashions from northern Europe but also to Islamic geometric patterning of southern Spain, still partly a Muslim region of the Iberian Peninsula at this date.
Information
Title
Man Fighting Bird; Lovers; Wrestlers
Dates
late 14th century CE
Medium
Tempera on wood panel
Dimensions
35 × 176 × 4.3 cm (13 3/4 × 69 5/16 × 1 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr., Memorial Collection Fund
Object Number
y1958-19
Culture
Materials
Subject
Castle of Curiel de Campos (also known as Curiel de los Ajos), Valladolid; Valladolid dealer; sold to Alexandre Soler i March by 1934 (Barcelona); Adolph Loewi Gallery (?), New York; museum purchase, 1958.
Beam from the ceiling of the Castle of Curiel de Campos (Valladolid)
- Chandler Rathfon Post and Harold E. Wethey, A history of Spanish painting, (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1930-66)., Vol. 8: p. 202, fig. 91
- Juan Contreras y López de Ayala. Marques de Lozoya, Historia del arte hispánico, (Barcelona: Salvat, 1931-1949)., Vol. 22: p. 258-59, fig. 21-273
- Ars Hispaniae: historia universal del arte hispánico, (Madrid: Editorial Plus-Ultra, 1947-1977)., Vol. 5: fig. 373 Vol. 9: p. 48-49, fig. 30
- "Recent Acquisitions," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 18, no. 1 (1959): p. 40-42., p. 40
- Agustin Ruiz, Abadia de Santo Domingo de Silos: el abad Santo: el claustro Romanico: la vida Benedictina, (Madrid: Ed. Magisteria Español, 1960)., pl. 44, 45, 62, 63
- "The Carl Otto von Kienbusch, Jr., Memorial Collection," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 36, no. 2 (1977): p. 24-32., p. 31
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Ana Carrasson Lopez de Latona, "Nuevas aportaciones sobre la pintura del alfarje mudejar del Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos)", Patrimonio cultural de España 1 (2009): p. 291-302.
