Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades looking at the recent exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on Pesellino. I had already done a talk by the curator and the lady who restored the two main panels in the show as well as seeing the show itself but this lecture was being done by Richard Stemp and it’s always worth hearing his take on a subject. The added insight he brought was to compare the two panels in the life of David in the show to the chapel of the Magi by Gozzoli in the Medici Palace which I love. Rather than my assumption that Pesellino had been inspired by the later Stemp pointed out that the chapel was of a later date so Gozzoli was probably influenced by the panels which were possibly made for the new palace rather than to ark a wedding.   A complex argument but anything Medici related has me hooked. He also took us through the other works in the show, clearly telling the stories in the small   predella panels and discussing how the Pistoia Santa...

Fascinating exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the 15th century Florentine artist Francesco Pesellino. I’d done a useful online talk about the show a few days ago which really illuminated the show. It was based around two panels on the stories of David which the gallery owns and has recently been conserved. I love the detail in them and a long time studying them. Pesellino was best known for his small works and was known as a book illuminator but he did also do altarpieces, one of which is in the show albeit that it was finished by Fra Filippo Lippi on his death. it was lovely to have the small works hung at eye level. Closed 10 March 2024 Reviews Times Guardian Telegraph

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery introducing their exhibition on the 15th century artist Pesellino. The show marks the conservation of two panels on the story of David by Pesellino and the talk brought together Laura Llewellyn, the curator of the show and Jill Dunkerton who had worked on the conservation. Llewellyn talked us through the other works in the show and outlined what we know about the artists short life describing their technique and content. She focused in particular on the galleries own Pistoia Santa Trinita altarpiece which had been cut up in the 19th century and entered the collection incrementally in pieces. Dunkerton then talked about how she conserved the two David panels and what she learnt from the process. She talked about the quality and amount of gold work on them, how she had managed to reveal it and the effect it would have had. Having just done a course on Lorenzo de Medici I was fascinated her theory that they were painted as part o...