Il Saracino FOUND on the Upper East Side, Six Years Later

In 2012, after completing a graduate degree in art history and teaching at the university level, I got my Grand Tour, combing through centuries of European art, architecture, and history. One Florentine friend that I unsuccessfully searched for at the Bargello surprised me by popping up in New York City six years later, in 2018. Yes. I'm always thinking of lost art loves (recall this post: What Did I Miss?). 

The Met Breuer, formerly the Whitney Museum, had an incredible exhibition, Life Like: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300-Now), that incorporated medieval and modern works centered on wide-ranging interpretations of realism in bodily figuration. The exhibition was on my list of things to see during our too-short trip to my home state, but I had no idea that Mr. Bargello would be there. As sometimes happens in the presence of art, I unselfconsciously screamed when I turned a corner to behold. Is this a sign, never give up? Is six years the magical number for solutions, resolve, closure? Let's go with it!

I have to say, seeing this sculpture in person, unexpectedly, is very high on my list of insanely gratifying professional moments (a couple others include: while presenting my paper in Spain, I visited Ripoll for the life-size interactive sculptural facade and on another trip to Spain, I was allowed to open up a medieval sedes sapientiae reliquary from someone's personal collection. The smell of history, 1000 years?, nearly knocked me out!). These encounters are reminders to nourish what makes you happy or simultaneously what drives you mad, what makes you thrive and engage with the world. It's a reminder to take those adventures! In 2012 the adventures were slightly more agile. Traveling with a toddler to New York is not for the faint hearted. But, for me, it is essential. Seeing this sculpture with my kid was incredible and so meaningful. Maybe for her, too. 

All the way from 1579 and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy...The Saracen Jousting Figure (Il Saracino)

That face. Full of feeling and character. It's interesting that this figure is meant to be a target, representing Saracens (a general pejorative term given to Muslims, the enemy of Christendom). The sensitivity with which this figure was rendered really shows that the conflict between these groups was much more complicated than a simple us vs. them. So many questions about the artist, of course, unnamed. From other works, especially ceramics, we know that Muslim artisans were respected and commissioned by the church to create decor with Christian iconography. 

Painted (polychromed) wood. 

Made for the wedding festivities of Francesco I de' Medici and Bianca Cappello.

The jousting figure would have held a weapon in his right hand.

I've had an enduring fascination with the use of Medusa and female gorgons as protection/repulsion. These faces are usually put on shields or breastplates. 

Florentine crest, elegant slippers, and the added bonus of my barely dressed foot reflecting in the plexi.

Patient child, museum hopping (MoMA for Tarsila do Amaral's exhibition and to see, once again, a favorite painting: A Negra. Carol, pictured, and I had seen it together in São Paulo two years before).