A Ceramic Plaque Representing a Part of the Moses Panel by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the East Baptistery Doors (Florence, Ital
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A Ceramic Plaque Representing a Part of the Moses Panel by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the East Baptistery Doors (Florence, Italy) Pamela B. Vandiver Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona, Program in Heritage Conservation Science, Tucson, AZ, 85716 ABSTRACT A ceramic plaque was studied that depicts the figurative part of the lower half of the Moses Panel from the gilt bronze doors that Lorenzo Ghiberti and his workshop installed on the east side of the San Giovanni Baptistery in Florence, Italy. The doors were completed in 1452, and thermoluminescence dating of two areas of the ceramic relief panel gave a broad, but consistent fifteenth century date. No differences were found in the composition, microstructure or phase assemblage of the two stylistically distinct parts of the ceramic panel. Microscopy and radiography were used to reconstruct the forming methods and sequence of steps in manufacture and restoration. INTRODUCTION Lorenzo Ghiberti (ca 1379-1455 CE), the Renaissance Florentine sculptor, is best known for his two sets of bronze doors for the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. The first set on the north side of the Baptistery was sculpted and cast between 1404 and 1424, and the east doors facing the Duomo were contracted in 1425 and cast, chased, gilded, mounted and installed in the period from 1437 to 1452. Since Vasari’s time the latter doors have been called the “Gates of Paradise,” a title ascribed by legend to Michelangelo, and it is this appellation by which they have been known to the present day [1]. We have only the most vague idea of how Ghiberti worked, and this is based solely on what he himself wrote [2]. In his autobiography written during the winter of 1447-1448, he mentioned that models were made of wax and clay as preparations for his castings of sculpture. Because the models were studies made of base materials and not meant to be permanent or art objects, they presumably were destroyed. In the opinion of some scholars, no wax or terracotta models made by Ghiberti or members of his workshop have survived. One work that has challenged this opinion is a little known terracotta sketch of a part of the panel depicting Moses on Mount Sinai. The bronze panel shows the laws given by the Lord to Moses on the burning mountain, as trumpets sound and as onlookers view the sight above them (Fig. 1). The ceramic plaque was purchased by Allan Marquand in Siena during 1892 and is now housed in the Princeton Art Museum. Marquand justified the authenticity of the sketch in a short article published in 1894 [3], citing stylistic similarities as the basis of his argument. For instance, he supported his view by stating that the construction of the different, individual characters, built in relief by adding layers that increase in number and thickness from the base and feet to the heads cross section near the base and the presence of a basal flange, is similar. Marquand also described the “individualizing” of the figures as a Ghiberti trait. However, the ceramic plaque depicts
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