An important ceiling panel in resinous wood, known as tavoletta, painted a tempera representing a madman between two pilasters whose capitals are decorated with crossbows and foliated and flowery scrolls. The half-bodied figure of the jester wears a donkey-eared hood with seven bells, also in the form of a bracelet and at one end; he hides part of his face with his right hand and with the other he holds a marotte ending in a donkey's tail.
Northern Italy, Lombardy, ca. 1480
Height: 45.6 cm - Width: 46.7 cm
(small missing parts, stains)
Provenance: Former collection of Nicole Amigues, ballet dancer at the Paris Opera
In the south of France, mainly in the Languedoc region, and in northern Italy, painted ceilings are found in the form of decorated panels between the joists, along the walls or along the main beams. The Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris has a set of painted panels from a house in Cremona by Bonifacio Bembo, a painter born in Brescia. In contrast to the rectangular Languedoc panels, known as closoirs - more spontaneous in their construction and often anecdotal in their theme, like the whimsical subjects that animate the margins of medieval manuscripts - the Italian panels, known as tavoletta, often present bust figures. This large painted panel belongs to this production, and the jester appears here as part of these courses of Italian noble families among the young people usually depicted.
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