ew scholars accepted Berenson's ideas, though, and as the scholarly debate continued up to the beginning of the Second World War, most European art historians, Italian and otherwise, preferred to interpret these works as Italo-Byzantine paintings in the later thirteenth century. The great Russian Byzantinist, Victor Lazarev, writing in the 1930s was the most important spokesman for this point of view. He wrote: "Both paintings are as remote from genuine Constantinopolitan works as, let us say, German impressionist pictures from works of Monet or Pissarro." He argued that in both of these paintings we are dealing with an eclectic art that, notwithstanding its affinity to Byzantine sources, is a typically Italian modification, as he saw it. Although he agreed that the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas were perhaps the most purely Greek of all Italian Duecento painting, he argued that they were done by Byzantine-trained South Italian painters in Sicily in the middle years of the thirteenth century, comparing them to mosaics in the church of San Gregorio in Messina.

Head of the Virgin Mary (c. 1260s). Detail from Virgin Mary from Deësis Group in south gallery of Haghia Sophia, Istanbul. Mosaic. (Courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.)

Following Kurt Weitzmann's pioneering article in 1944 introducing the notion of thirteenth-century Byzantine manuscript illumination in Constantinople during the Latin Occupation (1204–61), Otto Demus, the distinguished Austrian Byzantinist and the foremost authority on Byzantine mosaic decoration in Italy, formulated what was, until the 1980s, the standard opinion on the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas. In the context of his studies on the origins of Byzantine painting during the Palaeologan Dynasty (1261–1453), Demus argued that they were stylistically closely comparable to the fragmentary remains of the Deësis mosaic of Christ, the Virgin and St. John the Baptist, in the south gallery of the great church of Haghia Sophia. On this basis, he proposed a Byzantine artist in Constantinople painted them both in the mid-thirteenth century.

In response to these arguments, and stimulated by the mid 1960s work of James Stubblebine at Rutgers, Belting in 1982 proposed some challenging new hypotheses. First, Belting argued that the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas occupy a special place in the development of panel painting in relation to Italian Duecento painting, what he calls the lingua franca as distinct from the maniera greca. By this he meant that these works belong to a Mediterranean tradition of painting that is characterized by a full understanding of the Byzantine style, as opposed to the more formulaic attempts to emulate Greek icons from a greater cultural and geographic distance, the latter being what Vasari called the maniera greca in Italy. Second, Belting argued in great detail that the two panels were created by different painters, one Byzantine (the Kahn Madonna master), the other Italian (the Mellon Madonna master, who may have worked in the region of Pisa). Third, central to Belting's interpretation is his analysis of the conditions under which the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas were painted, which led him to propose that they were both done in Italy, in Tuscany in fact. Indeed, he attempted to position both works prior to the Rucellai Madonna of Duccio in circa 1285.

Duccio, the Rucellai Madonna (c. 1285). Virgin and Child Enthroned with Kneeling Angels. Panel painting (4.50 x 2.90 m). (Courtesy of Uffizi Gallery, Florence, with the permission of the Ministry for Cultural Properties and Activities.)

Thus, Belting apparently accepted the idea of a Constantinopolitan origin for the Kahn Madonna artist, but stated that, while he may have been Greek, he painted the Kahn Madonna in Italy for an Italian patron at the latest around 1280. As evidence for the Italian location, Belting pointed to the tooled gold haloes, the high-backed throne, and the full-length format of the image meant to serve as an altar panel. Meanwhile, he affirmed the likelihood that the Mellon Madonna master was an Italian, indeed Tuscan, artist who imitated a work such as the Kahn Madonna and may have even known the Kahn Madonna itself.

n my opinion, there can be no doubt that Belting was correct in differentiating the hands of two separate painters. I also accept the hypothesis that the Kahn Madonna master could have been a Byzantine Greek and the Mellon Madonna master was probably Italian. In fact, all of the arguments summarized above have something positive and important to contribute to the understanding of these panel paintings. The difficult issues of the meaning and function of these panels along with where and when these artists worked must, however, be reconsidered. Indeed, their artistic meaning and context merits further discussion in the light of our new understanding of Crusader and Byzantine painting in the Near East between 1250 and 1291.

If we ask the question, To which more or less contemporary works are the Kahn and Mellon Madonnas most closely related? It seems significant that the head of the Virgin in the Haghia Sophia Deësis, embodies even in the mosaic medium, the formal handling, the painterly softness, and the sensitive dignity of the Byzantine concept of the Virgin seen in the two Washington panels, as Demus first observed in 1958. Second, although everyone sees composite characteristics combining Eastern and Western aspects in both panels, there also seems to be general agreement that the Byzantine tradition is stronger in the Kahn Madonna, whereas the composite aspects—what I would call, "Crusader aspects"—are stronger in the Mellon Madonna.

With these points in mind, let us begin to reconsider each work as what Belting calls "a document which provides enough information to explain the conditions which helped shape its composite character and unusual appearance." Constantinople is obviously the point of departure for the location of at least one of the artists, the Kahn Madonna master. But there are other important possible centers in the eastern Mediterranean at this time, such as Nicosia on Cyprus, St. Jean d'Acre, or Antioch in the Crusader States for the Mellon Madonna master. In all of these places, Byzantine-trained and Crusader artists of Italian or French backgrounds could be found working together for patrons and clients from among the Crusader settlers and Italian or French merchants from the maritime cities such as Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Marseilles, among others. From this perspective, I submit that the composite characteristics noted in these two panels can more reasonably be accounted for under "Eastern" circumstances. Thus, for example, the Latin blessing gesture of Jesus can be seen as one of the iconographic modifications typically made for patrons among the so-called Crusader icons. Or the whole discussion of the gesture of the Virgin touching the knee of Jesus as possible Western influence seems in effect to reverse the circumstances we would expect. No Byzantine-trained artist working in the East would need to see the Rucellai Madonna of Duccio (1285) or any other Western example to introduce that iconography into his painting, because this motif existed in the East from the sixth century (e.g., in the mosaic at Kiti on Cyprus) or in middle Byzantine ivory carving of the twelfth.

The imagery of the two thrones seen in these panels is indeed much more controversial, but discussion of their sources and meaning is quite revealing of their Eastern context. Even though the large and expansive carpentered throne seen in the Kahn Madonna is a type widely found in Italy, especially in Tuscany in the second half of the thirteenth century, as seen, for example, in the work of Cimabue (Assisi, circa 1285), its origins appear to derive from Byzantium. Not only do we have an example from a Byzantine Gospel book of the third quarter of the thirteenth century as a devotional image, but we also find an earlier narrative example in a Crusader manuscript, the Riccardiana Psalter, circa 1235, in the image of the Three Magi with the enthroned Virgin and Child. In the Kahn Madonna, then, it is a heavenly throne made of gilded wood, set against the gold ground, a grand vision of Mary as the "Hodegetria" gesturing to her divine Son in an chair-throne that is practically dematerialized against the golden background. In sum, as a concept, and in its technique of execution, this image is profoundly Byzantine in origin, strongly traditional, but in its presentation here as a large, nearly life-sized full-length sacred image, it demonstrates Crusader innovation, an impressive majestic image meant to stimulate prayer and devotion in a holy setting!

In the Mellon Madonna, by contrast, we have a remarkable round-backed throne that is represented as being made of either wood or, possibly, ivory. It is clearly so different in its monumentality, its shape and color, and in the quasi-architectural motifs of its ornamentation that many questions have arisen about its origin and meaning. Whereas other thrones used for this type of imagery tend to be imperial bench thrones, or lyre-back thrones, as found in Byzantine icons, or generic heavenly thrones set against a gold ground, as with the Kahn Madonna, this throne is more original, more unusual, and more challenging. Art historians have long remarked on the unique character of this piece of celestial furniture without being able to account for its form. What is the meaning of this extraordinary royal seat?

(More, to Part 3 of 3)

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