Eight surviving panels of Piero della Francesca’s Augustinian altarpiece have been reassembled after 450 years, possibly solving one of its enduring mysteries.
The celebrated polyptych was created by the early Italian Renaissance master specifically for the church of the Augustinians at Borgo San Sepolcro (now Sansepolcro) in his home town near Arezzo and comprised 30 panels, the majority of which have gone missing.
The eight known components of the artwork had been scattered across different locations since its dismemberment at the end of the 16th century. Throughout its history, several attempts by museums to reunite the dispersed panels from the original polyptych, located in five museums across Europe and the US, have been unsuccessful. Until Tuesday, when the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, thanks to loans from the UK, US, and Portugal, managed to reunite the eight known panels – combining their Saint Nicholas with the four from the Frick Collection in New York and those from the National Gallery in London, the National Gallery in Washington DC, and the Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon to exhibit them in the show Piero della Francesca and the Augustinian Polyptych Reunited.
The exhibition curator Machtelt Bruggen Israels poses next to the paintings of the Italian artist Piero della Francesca. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP
The director of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Alessandra Quarto, described the move as “the reunion of the century”, noting her success this time after learning the Frick collection would be closed for six months. With the works temporarily heading to storage, the New York museum agreed to the loan, facilitating agreements with museums in London, Washington, DC and Lisbon.
The exhibition showcases four sizeable panels of saints set against a striking blue background, with a blank space marking the absence of the central missing panel, lost for centuries without any known sketches or records detailing its subject.
Machtelt Brüggen Israëls, the show’s curator, told the news agency Adnkronos: “It’s a miraculous exhibition because it brings together the only surviving fragments of a great polyptych by Piero della Francesca, for the first time in over 450 years. This is truly a unique opportunity.”
A visitor looks at Piero della Francesca’s painting of Saint Michael the Archangel. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP
Israëls explains that the effort to reunite the panels also provided valuable research opportunities to conduct diagnostic investigations on the panels, revealing some of the mysteries that still surrounded this polyptych.
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“We have produced a video that also presents to the public the investigations we conducted, allowing a deeper understanding of Piero della Francesca’s technique and way of working,” Israëls added.
Using a stereo microscope, Israëls explained, it was possible to see a foot not visible to the naked eye in one of the panels, suggesting it belonged to the Virgin Mary kneeling “to receive the crown from Christ”.
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