In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Massachusetts sequel -- Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (1460 - 70) and Hercules (c. 1470)

In late-November 2025 I embarked on a tour of the cities wherein the Italian painter Piero della Francesca did most of his work and where many of his existing works are still displayed. This tour was titled In the Footsteps of Pierro della Francesca and was led by Learn Italy, a small English tour company. I have previously written about the precipitating factors -- as regards the trip -- as well as our early experiences and will continue to flesh out the entirety of the trip over time. 

I have always assumed that I would see Piero paintings post that trip and made a mental commitment to treat those sightings as sequels. I had sequel-level experiences over the past weekend, encountering both Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels and Hercules.

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels, Clark Art Institute

My research had identified Clark Institute as home to the Piero work Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels but the town of Williamstown, where it resided. was so far off my beaten path that a special trip would be required. I placed it on the back burner. 

Piero della Francesca, Virgin and
Child Enthroned with Four Angels,
1460 - 1470

This past weekend I went Boston for July 4th festivities and, while there, noticed that Williamstown was slightly less than 3 hours away by car. Further, the museum was open every day of the week. I had a car and made the time, setting off early in the morning so that I could be there when the museum opened.

The Clark Art Institute was founded by Robert Sterling Clark, Yale Engineer and beneficiary of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. He began collecting art in Paris where he had settled in 1910. He met Francine in Paris and the two were married in 1919. The couple considered a number of locations as potential sites for a museum to display their collection but eventually settled on Williamstown on account of the family's past asociation with Williams College. The Clark Art Institute opened for business in 1955.

The painting under discussion was commissioned by the Gherardi family -- rich merchants in the town of Sansepulcro -- as a devotional object for their private chapel. The painting shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child attended by angels. The angel wings are partly visible. The angel in red, according to the literature accompanying the displayed work, directs our attention to the infant reaching for the flower held by the Holy Mother. The angel in white casts a shadow across the base of Mary's throne suggesting that the painting hung to the right of a window.

Detail: Statue-like baby reaching out ...

Detail: ... for flower held by mother

Detail: Top of wings in red. Also note
symmetry in bejeweled v-neck

Detail: Folds in clothing appear as
though carved from stone

Detail: Intricate design details on
capitals and lintels

As is the hallmark of this artist, the painting is immaculately designed and architected: "In this enigmatic painting, the figures seem three-dimensional, like marble statues, and occupy a space inspired by classical architecture."

This was one of Clark's early purchases and eventually reached Williamstown in 1957.

Hercules, Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston

On the day following my visit to Clark Art Institute, I paid a visit to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum to see the Piero della Francesca work in their collection.

Gardner Museum (museumsofboston.org)

Isabella Stuart Gardner and her husband traveled extensively through Europe and Asia and her experiences sparked a deep interest in arts and culture. She supplemented these experiences with classwork at Harvard where she met Bernard Berenson, her eventual art advisor. "Starting in the 1890s, she and Berenson worked together to assemble one of the most important art collections in the world, acquiring everything from major works of Italian Renaissance art to textiles to Chinese sculpture to French paintings made in the1800s.”

Construction on the museum began in 1899 and was completed in 1901. Installation of her collection took two years, with the museum opening to the public in 1903 under the name Fenway Court.

Hercules is a fresco fragment which was discovered in a room of Piero’s family home in Sansepulcro during the second half of the 18th century. The painting was initially displayed “in the upper corner of a room with the right edge bordering the wall.” Such a placement explicates the steep perspective of the image. The fresco was removed from the wall in the 1860s and did incur some damage during removal and transportation.

Hercules is Piero's only known secular work. Herein, the persona is atypically presented as a youth, with his only attire being a Lion's skin. The tail of the lion is seen between the legs of the subject. Rather than his strength being displayed in musculature, the attire implies that strength through a perceived killing of the Lion (probably with his bare hands), skinning it, and wearing the skin as a trophy.

Piero della Francesca, Hercules, 1470

The fresco was purchased by the Gardner Museum in 1903 from Joseph Linton Smith who had previously purchased it from the Florentine art dealer Elia Volpe. Transit out of Italy was delayed by the Italian Government with export rights finally granted in 1908. The piece was seized by US Customs upon its arrival for payment of duties and taxes. The fresco was released upon payment of said dues and taxes.

While at the Museum I came upon a portrait of Battista Sforza, Countess of Urbino. This was intriguing because I have been in pursuit of the Piero double portrait of her and the Duke for a while but have been unable to locate it on my visits to the Ufizzi. This is a striking facsimile of the portrait but, due to its dating, is a masterful copy of the original,

After Piero della Francesca, Battista Sforza,
Countess of Urbino, Late 18th century

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Encountering these two pieces has lit a fire under me to complete my series on the "In the Footsteps ..." series. I had been slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work required to fully cover the story of The Legend of the True Cross and had tried to everything but; I am now resolved.

My quest to recreate — longitudinally — the 2023 Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition

“Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) did not produce many paintings - probably only two a year on average - yet every one of the works of this Delft master is an extraordinary creation that elicits fascination and wonder. Vermeer takes the viewer into an introvert, tranquil world. In the interiors he painted, light plays in an inimitable way and the use of colour is always startling. Although Vermeer composes his paintings, selects motifs and alters the spaces, he achieves such a degree of illusion that his pictorial world still feels identifiable and familiar some 350 years later.” So says the Foreword to the Catalog that accompanied the Vermeer 2023 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum.

By bringing together 28 of the artists paintings — over three quarters of his surviving oeuvre — the Rijksmuseum exhibition allowed visitors to gain a “better understanding of his art, his considerations, and his decisions.” 

This was the first time in its history that the museum had devoted an exhibition solely to Vermeer and it was its most successful exhibition ever. A total of 650,000 visitors from 113 countries visited the exhibition during its 6-week run from February 10 to June 4, 2023.

The chart below shows Vermeer's oeuvre and the selection displayed at the exhibition. 

Vermeer Oeuvre (Images of the Timeline presented at 
the 2003 Rijksmuseum Vermeer Exhibition)

The timeline was photographed by a friend who had the good fortune to attend. According to the Catalog Editors, the works on the timeline "are presented in chronological order, as far as this is possible based on the mere five paintings that Vermeer himself provided with dates: Saint Praxedis, 1655; The Procuress, 1656; The Art of Painting, 1666 (or 1668); The Astronomer, 1668 and The Geographer, 1669. All of the other paintings are grouped around these, whereby the curators of this exhibition have made use of dates previously posted in the literature."

The paintings with asterisks accompanying their captions were not included in the exhibition, thus arriving at a final total of 28 works shown.

I had secured a ticket to attend the exhibition but personal reasons intervened. Subsequently I made a commitment to visit these pieces in a geographically and temporally unrestricted exhibition hall; that is, wherever they were. My quest has taken me to exhibitions and museum collections and is still ongoing. I recount my progress to date in the following.

Exhibitions

I was able to see some Vermeer pieces at two exhibitions.

Vermeer’s Love Letters at the Frick Collection

In June of 2025 I made my second visit of the year to the Frick Collection (I was there on the re-opening day) to see their exhibition titled Vermeer’s Love Letters. This exhibition featured three of the artist’s paintings — Mistress and the Maid (Frick Collection); The Love Letter (Rijksmuseum); and Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid (National Gallery of Ireland) — which “explore reading, writing, and exchanging letters, popular subjects in the artist’s circle of Dutch painters.” The exhibited pieces center on an interaction between a woman and her maidservant and were here brought together in a single gallery for the first time.

Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid,
ca. 1664 - 1667

Johannes Vermeer, The Love Letter,
ca. 1669 - 1670

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter
with her Maid, ca. 1670 - 1672

From Rembrandt to Vermeer at Amsterdam's H'art Museum

The first recorded mention of Amsterdam dates back to 1275, when it was granted a charter by Count Floris V of Holland. To celebrate its founding 750 years ago, the city hosted a number of events in 2025. One such event was an exhibition of Dutch Masters from the Leiden Collection titled From Rembrandt to Vermeer. The exhibition included 75 works by 27 artists to include the likes of Jan Steen, Ferdinand Bol, and Frans Hals but pride of place went to Rembrandt (18 works — 17 paintings and one drawing — being shown together in Amsterdam for the first time) and Vermeer (his Young Woman Seated at a Virginal is the only Vermeer in private hands).

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated
at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Museums

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

In August of 2025, I saw five Vermeers at The Met on the 5th and two at the Frick Collection on the 6th. What was amazing was the fact that, at that time, 10 Vermeers were located within 1 mile of each other in NYC: five at the Frick (including the three in the Love Letters exhibition) and five at The Met.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a
Water Pitcher, ca. 1662 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Girl Interrupted at her Music,
ca. 1658 -1659 (Frick Collection)

Johannes Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl,
ca. 1657 (Frick Collection)

Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep,
ca. 1656 -1657 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Lute,
ca. 1662 - 1663 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Allegory of the Catholic
Faith, ca. 1670 - 72 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman,
ca. 1662 (The Met)

Mauritshuis, Den Haag

Mauritshuis is famous for housing Girl with a Pearl Earring and I was able to see that piece plus two others when I visited there after my trip to the H'art Museum.

Johannes Vermeer, Diana and her Nymphs,
ca. 1655 - 1656

Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft,
ca. 1662

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring,
ca. 1664 - 1667

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The day following my visit to Mauritshuis, I visited the Rijksmuseum to view its Vermeers. We have already encountered one of their four Vermeers on loan to the Frick Collection for its Love Letters exhibition. The ones on display when i visited were as follows:

Johannes Vermeer, View of Houses in Delft
(The Little Street), ca. 1658

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid,
ca. 1658 - 59

Johannes Vermeer, Woman in Blue
reading a Letter, ca. 1662 - 1664

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Later in August I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and was able to see the following Vermeer-attributed paintings:

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat,
ca. 1669

Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing,
ca. 1665

Johannes Vermeer, Woman holding a
Balance, ca. 1662

I also saw Girl with a Flute, 1669/1675, a painting attributed to Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum exhibition but which, according to the National Gallery, was not painted by that Master’s hand.

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute,
 1669/1675

According to the National Gallery, “Her pose, expression, clothing, and surroundings resemble those seen in paintings by Johannes Vermeer. In 2020 - 2021, however, a team of National Gallery of Art researchers - curators, conservators, and scientists - determined that Vermeer did not paint Girl with a Flute. The artist who created this work was intimately familiar with Vermeer’s materials and techniques but was unable to match his delicate brushwork.”

National Gallery, London

In December 2024, I saw the two Vermeers in this institution's collection:

Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman
Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Standing
 at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Louvre, Paris

I had to return to the Louvre in order to see its Vermeers as, on the day of my initial visit, they had closed — without notice — the section wherein those paintings were housed. The Lacemaker was included in the Rijksmuseum exhibit but The Astronomer was not.

Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker,
ca. 1666 - 1668

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer,
ca. 1668

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The Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition claimed to have brought together 28 of the artists known works but research conducted by the National Gallery of Art has shown that one of these works -- Girl with a Flute -- is not of the master's hand. The total number of Vermeers in the exhibition, therefore, was 27.

As shown above, I have to date viewed 19 of the 27 Vermeers in the exhibition and 20 of the 28 paintings exhibited. The paintings that were a part of the exhibition, and that I have not yet seen, are:

• Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, ca. 1654 - 1655
• Saint Praxedis, 1655
• The Procuress, 1656
• Girl Reading a Letter at an open Window, ca. 1657 - 1658
• The Glass of Wine, ca. 1659 - 1661
• Woman with a Pearl Necklace, ca. 1662 - 1664
• The Geographer, 1669.

Conversely, I have seen Girl with a Pearl Earring, Girl with a Veil, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, A Maid Asleep, and The Astronomer, paintings that were not included in the exhibition.

The paintings that I have not yet seen and were not included in the exhibition are:

• Girl with a Wine Glass, ca. 1659 - 1661
• The Music Lesson, ca. 1662 - 1664
• The Concert, ca.. 1662 - 1664
• The Art of Painting, ca. 1666 - 1668.

Book Review: Conclave, Robert Harris

Conclave (Robert Harris), though initially published in 2016, seems rather current given the recent election of Pope Leo as the first American Pope and the ongoing war of words between that institution and the current US Administration.

A Conclave is the gathering of Roman Catholic Cardinals to elect a new Pope upon the passing of the old. The Robert Harris book covers a 72-hour-period between the death of a fictional Pope and the election of a successor after eight rounds of balloting. 

The story is told from the perspective of the Dean of the College of Cardinals, an individual who, according to Wikipedia, is “first among equals.” This particular Dean is beset by doubts of religious adequacy and that colors his actions throughout. He is the person who is constitutionally tasked with assembling and managing the Conclave.

This is a deeply researched piece which provides the reader with great insight into the procedures and working of a Conclave, the geography and structure of the Vatican, the bureaucracy of the Vatican, the history of the Papacy, and facets of both Papal and Conclave constitutions.

We are introduced to a series of candidates for the Papal position, some willing, some unwilling, and the machineries utilized to advance their candidacies. One by one leading candidates are brought down to earth by revelations arising from the past and there is the constant battle between no one being without sin and the risks to the Papacy of things coming to the fore after an election. Our protagonist is constantly in a battle as to what is right for the church versus what is right for the lord (in some cases they are not the same thing). The Cardinals are exhorted to pray and understand that with fervent prayer the Lord’s will would be revealed; but sometimes hard politics trumps prayers.

Even though dealing with a weighty topic, the book is light on its feet. It moves along at a good clip except when it gets into the sequence of events around the multiple ballots. There are a series of plot twists, with the final one being especially unexpected. The Dean finally comes to terms with his demons. A good read.

Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s Earth Skin as inspiration for dress worn to Met Gala by Suleika Jouaud, wife of Jon Baptiste

One of the stops on our (my daughter Karen and me) recent transcontinental train journey was the city of Denver and, while there, we visited the Arts of Africa collection in the city’s Art Museum. The collection had some interesting pieces and I fell behind Karen as we traversed it. At some point I heard Karen engaged in conversation  with two other voices. When I caught up with her I found her in deep conversation with two museum employees and she took me aside to show me the artwork that they had been discussing. The piece was beautiful — shimmery, textural, colorful and with impressive folds. 

Karen viewing El Anatsui’s Rain has no Father (2008)
at the Denver Art Museum on May 17, 2026.

From a distance it appeared to be made from a fabric of some type but, as I got closer, I could see the discontinuities between the individual pieces. The material, Karen said, was bottle tops tied together into a sheet-like structure. Not only was it attractive, she said, but, according to the staffers, the wife of Jon Batiste (the Grammy-award-winning musician) had worn a dress inspired by the artist’s design to the most recent  Met Gala.

I was intrigued. I was totally unfamiliar with the artist and, similarly so, with Jon Batiste’s wife. Further, I had not seen the particular piece in the few pictures I had seen coming out of the Met GalaSome investigation  was in order.

The Met Gala
The theme for the Met Gala Spring 2026 exhibition was  Costume as Art. The magazine Marie Claire identified some outfits worn that evening as resembling or drawing inspiration from iconic art works.  Among these, according to the magazine, was Suleika Jaouad in Christian Soriano inspired by Earth’s Skin by El Anatsui.

Left — Suleika Jaouad in Soriano, Right — Earth’s
 Skin (detail) by El Anatsui (Source:Marie Claire)

El Anatsui, Earth’s Skin

Who is Suleika Jaouad?
Suleika is described as a “writer, advocate and international speaker” who had developed Leukemia by the age of 22 and “documented her odyssey of illness, healing, and self-discovery in the New York Times Best Seller Between Two Kingdoms.” A fuller description of Suleika and her accomplishments can be found on her self-titled website. 

Who is El Anatsui?

The colossal, tactile artworks of contemporary Ghanaian artist El Anatsui have a ghostly, liminal quality that is impossible to pin down, hovering somewhere between sculpture, woven textile, and installation. Made from salvaged scraps of plastic, wood, and, most recently shiny metal, his suspended structures perform the challenging trick of turning discarded scraps into treasure; whether rippling against a flat wall or hung mid-air, the glittering, sensitively rendered surfaces he creates are great teeming masses of energy and life, filling the spaces they occupy with a commanding physical presence, while speaking of quiet, abstract narratives related to his African heritage and its place in the world today (blog.fabricstore.com).

El Anatsui was born and grew up in Ghana. He studied sculpture at Kwame Nkrumah University and gained a teaching appointment at the Sculpture Department at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Given the paucity of sculptural source material in the area of the University, El Anatsui encouraged his students to look at their own surroundings for subject matter. He practiced what he preached focusing his practices in African themes and traditions.

Some of his earliest found-object works were from driftwood found on a beach in Denmark while he was doing a residency there. He subsequently created works using milk-bottle lids, cassava graters and foil bottle tops. He discovered that cutting the bottle tops up and binding them together with copper wire gave him source material that was pliable and portable and allowed flexibility in the creation of finished pieces. Sculptures made from the material had a “densely layered and richly tactile hand-made quality.

El Anatsui’s works can be found amongst some of the most prestigious art collections in the world including permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; The British Museum; the Vatican Museum and many more. In 2023 he was awarded the highly reputable Hyundai Commission by Tate Modern (elanatsui.com).

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In re the Met Gala, Marie stated thusly: “The outfits that shone brightest, however, were those that felt loosely spectacular — bold silhouettes, creative craftsmanship and looks that could genuinely be counted as costume.”

Book Review: Culpability, Bruce Holsinger

Really good read. The name should actually be “Shifting Culpability” given the frequency with which “responsibility/fault” flips between the cast of characters. Has an “I did not see that coming” kind of an end.

The book explores navigating the power dynamics in a marriage where the husband is plodding along in a safe, unspectacular job while the wife is a world-class, in-demand technology superstar with controlled mental issues and how they react when their lives are upended by an accident that should not have happened, includes their children, and results in the death of others.

This books treatment of artificial intelligence — its adoption, as well as the moral and ethical implications surrounding its use — is especially relevant given the issues that we as a society are confronting today.

Ethics and technology are key threads linking a series of events where responsibility/ownership keeps shifting between the players. Everything “works out” in the end but, given the prominence of ethics and morality in the book, it leaves a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth.

A quick read given text size, spacing, and the author’s knack for keeping the reader engaged. I heartily recommend this book.

Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit

Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit resides at Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana, its home since its acquisition by the Cardinal and his donation of his holdings in 1618. The piece was likely acquired directly from the Lombard painter by the Cardinal based on the intercession of one of Caravaggio's patrons.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit,
1597-1600 (Biblioteca Ambrosiano, Milan; viewed
in situ, 4/17/26)

There is a lack of consensus as to the painting’s actual date. The home institution dates it to between 1597 and 1600 while Spine claims 1596 and Pugliosi 1601. Jannick (Caravaggio’s Fruit … short.purdue.edu, 2010) sides with the 1601 date because “The fruit baskets in both Summer at Emmaus and Still Life with a Basket of Fruit are the same, perched precariously on the edge of a table, but with a different collection of fruit. … I suggest that this may have been (either) a preparatory painting for the larger Supper at Emmaus …”

In the absence of any earth-shattering, contravening information, I will go with the date stipulated by the organization which should, arguably, know more about the painting than anyone else.

The painting showcases a selection of fresh and withered fruit and leaves that gradually dessicate, all held within the confines of a wicker basket. Atypical of the paintings that came to characterize the Lombard painter, this piece does not exhibit the sharp delineation between light and dark. The contrast here is, rather, between the colorful fruit in the foreground and the unadorned, neutral background.

This painting has been characterized as exhibiting both "great realism" and attention to detail. The leaves, for example, summarize the life cycle (caravaggio.org):

• Still reaching towards the sun on the upper left
• Drooping on the lower left; and
• Withering and dying on the right.

Jannick verbally describes the detail that has been presented in the painting and I have illustrated it graphically in the below chart.

According to Poter (Michelangelo Merisi, Basket of Fruit, Emerging Infectious Diseases 2003 Dec 9(12)1663 - 64), "... the basket comments on the complexity and vanity of nature. Defying the moment of creation, the diverse image spans instead the life of the fruit, commenting on its inevitable decay. The blemishes, intentional and central to the theme, are not brought on by precipitous mishap but by nature. Uncontrolled environment (temperature, moisture, organisms) has disrupted the fruit's normal physiology, devitalizing the skin, allowing intrusion of pathogens, and promoting decomposition."