Ivo Hlobil

Commentary on the Discovery of the Beautiful Style Michigan Madonna

It is generally assumed that all wooden imitations of the Krumlov Madonna date from as late as the Post-Classical – Mannerist – development of the Beautiful Style. This opinion may change, however. Achim Timmermann is publishing the fragment of a Beautiful Style Madonna of limewood (?) from the University of Michigan Museum of Art at Ann Arbor in the journal Umění. In his analysis he sees it as a remnant of a sculpture created under the direct influence of the Krumlov Madonna. It could be considered to be her “half-sister”. Timmermann’s valuable observation and conclusions can be developed further. The faces of the Krumlov Madonna, the Altenmarkt Madonna and the Pilsen Madonna resemble each other very closely. It is difficult to decide which of them resembles the published fragment most closely. Meanwhile, all we can be sure of is that the face of only earliest of them, the Madonna of Altenmarkt from before 1393, is, like the Michigan fragment but unlike the others, not very elongated. If the Michigan fragment is found to match this sculpture, it could lead to it being dated as early as around the same year. The relative detachment of the fragment from the Krumlov Madonna is also supported by differences between the sculptures so far unmentioned. The Michigan Madonna followed an unknown Beautiful Style sculpture, probably by the Master of the Krumlov Madonna. Wooden sculptures chiselled at the back are today as a rule considered examples of the descentive phase of development of the Beautiful Style. The discovery of the Michigan fragment, closer to the classical Madonnas than anything previously known, perhaps as early as from the 1390s, relativizes this accepted opinion. Should the judgments of the first, and certainly not last, commentary on Timmermann’s remarkable discovery be correct, then the Michigan fragment of an unknown Beautiful Style Madonna is of a somewhat lower quality and earlier than Achim Timmermann judges, but all the more important when considering the development of the Bohemian Beautiful Style.

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