Word: vasari
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Many painters," the biographer Giorgio Vasari noted in 1550, "achieve in the first sketch of their work, as though guided by a sort of fire of inspiration, a certain measure of boldness: but afterwards, in finishing it, the boldness vanishes." The first sketch of which Vasari spoke was usually an oil sketch on relatively fragile paper or unprimed canvas. On it, the artist of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries delineated his ideas, often in considerable detail, and submitted them to a patron for approval. The dash and daring all too often vanished when he transferred his design...
...bought by the St. Louis City Art Museum in 1943 as a Salviati (1510-63), then identified in 1951 as by Michele Tosini. But any number of other mid-16th century Italian painters have been mentioned as the artist, including Pontormo, Mirabello Cavalori, Jacopo del Conte and Vasari. At the moment, the museum displays it as attributed to Tosini, but no one is sure. Everyone agrees, however, that knowing who is portrayed in the picture would help. The painting's mood is mournful. It could be a posthumous portrait of Lorenzino de' Medici, an unhappy Florentine noble...
...California Art Collector Norton Simon, because Simon refused to buy unless he could take the painting outside the country for a thorough pre-purchase examination. Simon's skepticism was understandable. A strip at the bottom of the painting has been obviously repaired. And while the 16th century biographer Vasari mentions that Leonardo did such a painting, there is no record of what became of it or whether it is the same picture that became the property of Franz Josef's ancestors...
...Heart Skipped." Could the polyptych be by Giotto and come from the Badia? Vasari had described such a work on the high altar. Later cleaning proved Procacci's hunch correct; handwriting analysis narrowed the date of the sticker to about 1810. Procacci was then able to reconstruct what had happened: the altarpiece had been removed in 1810 by Napoleon's troops from the Badia; then in 1815, through a clerical mistake, it had been returned instead to Santa Croce. Digging through the old floor plans of the Badia, Procacci made a second discovery. The church had been rebuilt...
...over 300 years, had been found. "Our expectations were enormous," he remembers. But the rays heralded a false dawn. Says Procacci: "When we saw that the face of the angel was missing, it broke our hearts." Procacci is convinced that the face of Mary in the Annunciation fresco that Vasari so admired was similarly cut out before the wall was covered in the 17th century...