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Investigation of Madonna in the travel altar of Robert of Anjou from the collection of moravian gallery in Brno
Fogaš, I. ; Wörgötter, Z. ; Hradilová, J. ; Hradil, David ; Zikmund, T. ; Kaiser, J.
An exceptional Gothic work of art, a travel altar of Robert of Anjou, is one of those donated by John II of Liechtenstein to the Franz Museum in Brno in 1896. Light has been newly shed on the circumstances of Prince's acquisition of the altar; it refuted the thoughts about the altar's Central European provenance, because as it is being documented, the purchase took place directly in Florence in 1890. It has been recorded already back then that the Tabernacle is complemented by a (damaged) statuette of Black Madonna made of Carrara marble. The description of its damage, secondary additions and polychromy construction was the main aim of the artwork's survey by non-invasive methods (mobile XRF, computed tomography); on the basis of their results, a careful micro-sampling has been performed followed by material analysis. Most importantly, it was found out that the material of the statue is not Carrara marble, but an alabaster, which is not in disagreement with the assumed provenance (northern Italy), but due to its weight and fragility, the statuette could only hardly be an original part of the altar. Concurrently, the analysis of the oldest layers of polychromy proved that the Madonna has not been originally black and that this adjustment has been executed secondarily and intentionally.
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