Welcome to the brand new Arthive! Discover a full list of new features here.

button-pro-crown
PRO accounts for artists
check
Sales via Facebook and Instagram store
check
Managing clients and sales via CRM
check
Artworks mailing lists
check
Sales of reproductions and digital copies
Read more
button-pro-crown
PRO accounts for artists
arrow-toparrow-down
check
Sales via Facebook and Instagram store
check
Managing clients and sales via CRM
check
Artworks mailing lists
check
Sales of reproductions and digital copies
Read more

Leonardo da Vinci's The Adoration of the Magi returns to Uffizi after restoration

The unfinished early work by the great Leonardo after 6 years of its restoration is returning to Florence on display at the special exhibition along with another renowned painting. After da Vinci has left the city not finishing the work for the monks, the job was commissioned to another worthy master, the teacher of Botticelli.
Leonardo da Vinci's The Adoration of the Magi returns to Uffizi after restoration
At more than two metres square, the early panel painting is the largest surviving example of this type of work by da Vinci. Its composition surprises scholars, and the painting has earned a reputation of "one of the most enigmatic works by Leonardo." Discussions about its restoration have not abated over the years.
Restoration of any of da Vinci’s works is anticipated as a "failure". Expert opinions always differ dramatically, and only a good reason allows to disturb the work of the master. In case of The Adoration of the Magi, the necessity to restore the artwork was evident due to problems with its wooden support.

Since November 2011, this large-scale job was in hands of the experts from the restoration Laboratories of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure at the Fortezza da Basso (Florence) who have inspected the painted surface as well. As a result, the restorers thoroughly cleaned the painting of the traces of previous restoration and reconstruction works. Now the figures became more clear and the painting got brighter.

No denial has been published yet to the allegations, stated back in 2002, that the painting was later finished by some other artist, because the masterpiece started crumbling without a varnish.

Apparently, hopes to find DNA traces of the Italian genius were dashed as well. Otherwise the sensational news should have already spread all around the world. To recall, The Leonardo Project, had hopes to reveal the artist’s characteristics by searching out DNA from traces of fingerprints, flakes of skin and hair. The first tests were carried out on da Vinci’s masterpiece The Adoration of the Magi. Every square centimeter of the artwork was examined under an electron microscope. The idea behind the Project, founded in 2014, has inspired and united anthropologists, art historians, genealogists, microbiologists, and other experts from leading universities and institutes in France, Italy, Spain, Canada and the USA.

Perhaps, hopes of the experts were tied to the results of another research published in 2016 — the successful tracing of 35 likely DNA relatives of Leonardo living today.

The exhibition "Magic Cosmos: the Adoration of the Magi Restored," scheduled to open on March 28, 2017 at the Uffizi Gallery, is dedicated to the masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. Alongside the unfinished artwork by the genius, there will be another famous painting with the same name and subject matter by Filippo Lippi from the museum’s collection.
Fra Filippo Lippi is a Florentine artist and a sensualist monk, a teacher of Botticelli and the owner of one of the most adventurous biographies among masters of the Early Renaissance
The Renaissance is the period that began around the 14th century and ended at the late 16th century, traditionally associated primarily with the Italian region. The ideas and images of the Renaissance largely determined the aesthetic ideals of modern man, his sense of harmony, measure and beauty. Read more
. See our separate article.
The Adoration of the Magi was commissioned to Leonardo da Vinci as an altarpiece by the monks of the Florentine monastery of San Donato a Scopeto in 1481. However, the next year, the master moved to Milan, leaving the work behind, unfinished. It passed into the hands of the ruling Medici family, who established their private museum in the Uffizi a century later.

… Leonardo hadn’t returning, so the monks got Filippino Lippi to complete the painting. The exhibition in Florence not only reveals the details of the restoration, but also demonstrates the changes in the historical context and trends in art that took place in ten years or so, when these two artworks were created.
Recommended artworks:
Yuri Valentinovich Zorko. Noon in Crimea
Noon in Crimea
2000-th , 60×62 cm
$541.00
Original
Edward Potashev. The Way
  • Ad
The Way
2024, 85×25 cm
Nina Rassen. "Cosmic Xalaharias All Legends of the Universe."
  • Ad
"Cosmic Xalaharias All Legends of the Universe."
2023, 2000×3000 cm
€200.00
Digital copy
Vladimir Sergeevich Barkov. PENTATONICS
  • Ad
PENTATONICS
February 2022, 130×160 cm
$10,839.00
Original
Gennady Nikolayevich Zhikharev. Tree Man
  • Ad
Tree Man
08.03.1989, 127×67 cm
$20.00
Original
The display is on view since March, 28 till September 24, 2017.
Written by Olga Potekhina on materials of theartnewspaper, art net.