Andea Mantegna’s Adoration of the Magi and its Ming connection

Interesting lecture at the British Museum given by Caroline Campbell, a National Gallery curator, and looking at a Mantegna picture in the current Ming exhibition which features one of the Magi holding a Ming bowl.

She talked about Mantegna as an artist and how this picture is a rare survival on linen. She also looked at how artists chose to depict foreignness or otherness in pictures and compare magi pictures and pictures of the circumcision, the next episode in the life of Christ.

She pointed out that the bowl in question was already about 40 to 50 years old when the picture was painted. Was this object owned by the patron? How did Mantegna know of works like this? She mentioned that there is also Ming wears in Bellini’s “Feast of the Gods” and the inventory made after Isabella d-Este’s death implied she may have owned some porcelain.

I found this a fascinating talk. I sensed from the Q&A session that some people would have liked a bit more about the bowl and had maybe hoped to have it identified. But then I guess there were two audiences for the talk, those who were into Renaissance art (including me) and those who were into Chinese porcelain.

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