Duccio di Buoninsegna active 1278; died 1319
NG 1140 
The Healing of the Man born Blind

Dillian Gordon, 2011

Extracted from:
Dillian Gordon, The Italian Paintings Before 1400 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2011).

Predella panel from the Maestà

1307(?)/8–11

Egg tempera on wood, 45.1 × 46.7 cm

Christ, accompanied by the disciples, came upon a blind beggar. Christ spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and put it on the eyes of the blind man, telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9:1ff.). On the right the blind man has laid down his stick, washed his eyes in a fountain and recovered his sight.

Technical Notes

Panel structure and condition

The original panel has been trimmed to the painted surface, 43.6 × 45.2 cm. Overall size, including non‐original edge, 45.1 × 46.7 cm. The back is no longer visible as it has been reinforced with balsa wood, which has narrow wood strips attached all round. Knots in the wood can be seen in the photograph in the Conservation dossier, taken on 29 September 1982 after a cradle had been removed and before the balsa wood had been put on. Before the cradle was attached, the panel had been thinned to c. 0.6 cm.¹

Near the bottom edge, in particular below Saint Peter’s right foot, are traces of original gold, probably from the gilding of the original engaged frame.

Painting condition and technique²

Cleaned and restored in 1982–3.

The water‐gilded background is somewhat worn, as is the gold of Christ’s halo. The halo (fig. 1) is incised freehand with a diamond and circles in the cruciform and tendrils in between.

The only mordant gilding is on the edge of Christ’s robe, where the mordant appears yellow‐brown as in NG 1139 and NG 566.

Infrared reflectography reveals a detailed underdrawing for the figures (fig. 4), done with a brush, similar to that found in the Annunciation (NG 1139, see pp. 157–8, figs 2, 3 and 4) and thus attributable to Duccio. Both the underdrawing and the incisions in the architecture have undergone numerous changes. Two hands seem to have been involved.³ The buildings were initially drawn freehand, almost certainly by Duccio; another hand refined the architecture. Some of the architecture that was drawn was never painted, such as the capitals on the tower on the right and a lunette over the door in the central tower, as well as a lunette in the door beside that.

The second hand seems to have been responsible for the more precise and mathematically designed features of the architecture (see fig. 6). All the straight lines have been incised with the help of a straight edge. These incisions are frequently longer than necessary or continuous where they do not need to be.⁴ Internal proportions, such as the spaces below the crenellations or the shuttered windows in the tower at the right, have been marked off along these lines with a sharp point, leaving small depressions. Some changes were made to the incised composition, such as the overhang housing a small staircase which itself was a revision to the freehand underdrawing (see fig. 4). The paint of the architecture was also meticulously applied, sometimes leaving small gaps between areas of colour, or neatening straight edges by ruling into the wet paint, or reinforcing them with metalpoint when the paint was dry;⁵ final incisions, although not with metal‐point, were also ruled into the wet paint of the Annunciation (NG 1139, see p. 159, fig. 6).

Infrared reflectography also reveals several changes made in the final painting of the figures. In the group of the Apostles changes were made to the underdrawn faces, mostly moving their eyes and foreheads a small amount.

The blind man in front of Jesus was painted as drawn, but the same figure at the fountain has undergone numerous changes, which are difficult to interpret (figs 2 and 3).⁶ Duccio seems to have had difficulty in arriving at a solution for his left shoulder and hand beside the fountain. He may originally have been drawn lower down. The height of his left shoulder has been altered at least twice. It was drawn and part‐painted broader and higher than in its present painted position. His left hand seems to have been grasping folds of drapery away from his body; in the final solution both the underdrawing and the painting of this hand were executed with very emphatic lines as if to conceal earlier attempts at the pose or make clear which lines represent the final pose. His cape is longer than the one he wears when he is shown in front of Christ, again possibly to disguise earlier solutions to the position of the arms.

Although some of the paint surface, particularly in the draperies of the Apostles, is abraded, generally it is in good condition, except for a large loss at the right‐hand edge: missing is the top of the fountain and much of the blind man’s face, most importantly his left eye, reconstructed when the painting was cleaned in 1982–3. There is a loss in the neck and shoulder of Christ, and in the middle of the foreground (where there are also deep scratches) and all around the edges. The losses at the edges were caused by the removal of the engaged frame. The painting of the figures seems to have been done by Duccio with the help of assistants. The flesh painting, which has been underpainted with green earth, has been thinly painted and is quite worn.

Christ’s cloak has been painted with a very high quality of ultramarine; his red robe is painted with red lake mixed with white, with red lake for the shadows. The garments of the Apostles have been painted with vermilion, red lake, green earth, ultramarine, white, azurite, black, and brown earth.

Unlike the pink walls in the Annunciation, there is no grey under the pink paint of the buildings. The pigments used for the architecture are red, yellow and brown earths, red lake, black and white.

Iconography

NG 1140 was probably the seventh of probably nine narrative scenes on the back predella of Duccio’s Maestà (see p. 175, fig. 2), which was devoted to Christ’s ministry. It came after Christ and the Woman of Samaria and before the Transfiguration (NG 1330).

The subject is taken from the Gospel of Saint John (19:1). As Pieter Singelenberg has shown, it is found in both Western and Eastern art: for example, in a fresco in Sant’Angelo in Formis (fig. 5), where the blind man is shown bending over the fountain and the water is pouring from the mouth of a lion, as in NG 1140, a feature which Singelenberg states is found elsewhere; and in a Byzantine manuscript (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS Gr. 510, f. 316).⁷ James Stubblebine also suggested that NG 1140 was based on a Byzantine manuscript source, for example, an eleventh‐century manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (grec 74), or a near contemporary thirteenth‐century Codex in Mount Athos (Iviron 5) showing around thirty scenes from Christ’s life.⁸ As Stubblebine pointed out, usually the composition follows a fixed scheme, with Christ instructing the blind man to go to the pool of Siloe (or Siloam) on the left and the blind man bending over to wash [page 168] his eyes on the right, whereas NG 1140 differs from these in that it shows the blind man standing upright. John White provided the explanation for the change: the blind man, his sight now restored, looks up at the transfigured Christ, who radiates divine light in the next scene, the Transfiguration (NG 1330).⁹ The thematic connection which might explain the choice of these two scenes and their juxtaposition lies in the words of Christ as he explains why he must accomplish this miracle: ‘As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (John 9:5).

Marcia Hall has noted that undyed cloth was worn by beggars and outcasts,¹⁰ although Christoph Wagner states that this is not intended as social comment; he sees the scene as depicting blindness as a metaphor for the sins of the world, and brown as the colour associated with sin, emphasised by the contrast between the colourful left side of the composition and the drab colours on the right.¹¹

A drawing of this subject dating from the second half of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (1895–9‐15–680) has been shown to derive from NG 1140.¹²

Attribution

NG 1140 was attributed by Stubblebine to Pietro Lorenzetti.¹³ As discussed above, there are at least two hands at work: Duccio was responsible for the design and part of the execution, for example the face of Christ. The draperies and faces of the Apostles seem to have been painted by assistants. An unidentified painter, expert in the depiction of architecture, painted the buildings. He is probably Simone Martini, who almost certainly trained with Duccio; some of the architecture is very similar to that in Simone’s altar piece of Beato Agostino Novello (Siena, Pinacoteca), particularly in the scene of the miracle of a child saved from a dog.¹⁴

For further comment on Duccio’s Maestà see pp. 174–87.

Exhibited

London 1989–90, National Gallery, Art in the Making. Italian Painting before 1400, 20 November–28 February (3b).

Provenance

Purchased from C. Fairfax Murray of Florence, 1883 (Clarke Fund).¹⁵

Notes