Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday, 6 March 2025

A Donatello sculpture found in Slovakia


ArtNet reported yesterday the discovery of a bust by the fifteenth century Florentine sculptor Donatello in a small museum in Slovakia. The carving is a portrait of Cecilia Gonzaga and is thought to have travelled to what was then northern Hungary through a family marriage.

The survival of the work is fortuitous considering its treatment since 1945, and one must hope indeed that it receives a new setting appropriate to its importance.

The article about the work, with a photographic scan of the sculpture can be seen at Donatello Masterpiece Identified After Decades in Storage

Wikipedia has a short account of the family estate and house where the sculpture was kept until 1975 and which can be seen at Spišský Hrhov



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