Adoration in the Forest (Lippi)
Encyclopedia
Filippo Lippi
Fra' Filippo Lippi , also called Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Italian Quattrocento .-Biography and works:...
, of the Virgin Mary and the newly born Christ Child lying on the ground, in the unusual setting of a steep, dark, wooded wilderness. There are no shepherds, kings, ox, ass – there is no Joseph. "Lippi removes a whole range of narrative details which would have been present in a standard Nativity
Nativity of Jesus in art
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. The artistic depictions of the Nativity or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and further elaborated by written, oral and...
- he creates a whole set of mysteries, and then preserves them." It was painted for one of the wealthiest men in Renaissance Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, the banker Cosimo de Medici. In later times it had a turbulent history. Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
ordered it to be hidden in WW2 and it became part of the story of a mutiny in the U.S. Army - 'the only known case in the whole Second World War of American officers refusing an order.' It is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...
.
Cosimo de Medici and Filippo Lippi
FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in the 1440s was at an expansive moment in its history. A lot of money was going into building, including the future home of Lippi's Adoration
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a Renaissance palace located in Florence, Italy.-History:...
, Cosimo de Medici's home. Cosimo was the wealthiest man in Florence, a man of power, an adept Italian politician and his home spoke of an attitude of powerful confidence. Yet , in private, he was also a troubled man. He had led a sinful life, had fathered a bastard child on a slave girl, and grown rich by lending money and charging interest – usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
– a practice to be punished by an eternity in Hell. Tim Parks
Tim Parks
Tim Parks is a British novelist, translator and author.-Life:Tim Parks was born in Manchester in 1954, the son of a clergyman. He grew up in Finchley , London and was educated at Cambridge University and Harvard. He has lived near Verona in Italy since 1981...
: " He was a genuinely religious man, concerned about his soul, and that was a rather large problem for a banker." He set about making amends for his sins in building and art. "Inside his new palace, the first domestic chapel built in all of Italy, as a peace offering to God; a place for Cosimo to kneel and do penance
Penance
Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...
. The walls were decorated with extravagant frescoes, including a portrait of Cosimo himself. But the heart of the room would be the altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...
- this would be a Nativity, but of a kind never seen before, one that would echo Cosimo's very deepest hopes and fears. " He chose an artist famous not just for his art, but one whose eye for beauty extended beyond pictures, to women , with scandalous results; - a Carmelite friar
Friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...
- Fra Filippo Lippi. Born in Florence around 1406, Lippi's father was a butcher, and the family home on the south bank of the Arno River. By the age of 8 Lippi was an orphan, and placed into the care of the local convent, Santa Maria del Carmine
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Santa Maria del Carmine is a church of the Carmelite Order, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, in Tuscany, Italy. It is famous as the location of the Brancacci Chapel housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi.-History:The...
, which towered over the neighbourhood. So Lippi had not chosen to become a monk, but was to be trained to be one. It was a fortunate home for a youngster of an artistic bent; in the 1420s a chapel there was being decorated - 'and the result was one of the most groundbreaking and beautiful works of the Italian Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
.
The artist was Masaccio
Masaccio
Masaccio , born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone, was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari, Masaccio was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense...
. In his art, "Biblical characters suddenly seemed real people..lit by the sun...moving in the real world, convulsed by real emotions.' Jeffrey Ruda: " Masaccio's work was profoundly important for Filippo Lippi - it gave him a profoundly new way to think about representation, about showing figures, using light and shadow to bring out a sense of shape and presence and to give the figures placement in a world that was grounded in gravity." "Lippi's earliest surviving work shows the influence of Masaccio's bold sculptural figures, transformed by a grace and delicacy that were Lippis own." By the age of 30 Filippo Lippi had left the convent and begun to earn a living as a professional artist though he remained a friar. As the years passed, his growing fame drew him inexorably into the circle of the city's leading artistic patron, the de facto ruler of Florence, the man who would commission The Adoration, Cosimo de Medici. At first Cosimo paid Lippi to produce pleasing religious scenes for his new home. Lippi had, all the while , the reputation of a man who liked to live life to the full - but in the late 1450s real scandal broke, and Lippi embroiled in a Nativity all of his own. For three years he had been working in the small town of Prato
Prato
Prato is a city and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city is situated at the foot of Monte Retaia , the last peak in the Calvana chain. The lowest altitude in the comune is 32 m, near the Cascine di Tavola, and the highest is the peak of Monte Cantagrillo...
, near Florence, painting a huge fresco cycle in the Cathedral
Prato Cathedral
The Cathedral of Prato is the main Catholic church of Prato, Tuscany, Central Italy and seat of the bishop. It is dedicated to St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. It is one of the most ancient churches in the city, existing already in the 10th century and having been built and in several...
– also conducting a daily Mass – in the local nunnery. The story goes that he persuaded the abbess to let a young nun he liked - Lucrezia Buti - sit for him - and then she and Lippi absconded together. Just 20 at the time, Buti's seduction by the 50 year old friar threw Prato into an uproar. A son Filippino Lippi
Filippino Lippi
Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working during the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy.-Biography:...
, later a famous painter himself, duly arrived. Cosimo however, smoothed over any scandal and Lippi returned to Florence to create Cosimo's groundbreaking Nativity.
John the Baptist, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Trinity
It is likely that the patron and the artist discussed the plan for the altarpiece carefully – it would need to reflect and deepen Cosimo's penitent mood. The painting was a defining example of a new genre in art – The Adoration – which focuses intensely on Mary and the Infant Christ, and for this Lippi drew upon the teachings of a medieval saint, Bridget of SwedenBridget of Sweden
Bridget of Sweden Bridget of Sweden Bridget of Sweden (1303 – 23 July 1373; also Birgitta of Vadstena, Saint Birgitta , was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after the death of her husband of twenty years...
, who in visions had seen exactly how Christ had entered the world. "This wasn't God floating amid the cumuli, this was God made man, put amongst the rocks, the very stuff of which our world was made."
And instead of shepherds and wise men, Lippi introduced two humbly dressed saints, fitting role models for the wealthy patron. John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
, said to have left home at the age of 7 to lead an austere life in the desert, here wears his traditional hair-shirt and carries a scroll that proclaims in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Behold the Lamb of God
Lamb of God
The title Lamb of God appears in the Gospel of John, with the exclamation of John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" in John 1:29 when he sees Jesus....
. Above him, kneeling behind a natural prayer-stool of rock, is a monk, Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O.Cist was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian order.After the death of his mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order. Three years later, he was sent to found a new abbey at an isolated clearing in a glen known as the Val...
, the founder of the Cistercian Order – a monk who had a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, – here he faces her, lost in meditation. The two saints are not the only unexpected presence - few, if any, previous Nativities had included the entire Holy Trinity - God the Father, His Son, and the dove of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
. It was a subject dear to Cosimo, after he helped to resolve a theological dispute about the nature of the Trinity and is depicted here wreathed together in rays of celestial light. But the painting also has a darker side. All round the new-born Christ child wild flowers grow, their delicacy concealing a sombre meaning - their five petals represent the Five wounds
Holy Wounds
The Five Holy Wounds or Five Sacred Wounds refer to what are believed to be the five piercing wounds that was suffered during the crucifixion of Jesus....
Jesus will receive during his Crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
. Such symbols abound – on the ground a goldfinch
Goldfinch
Goldfinch may refer to any of the following species of bird from the genus Carduelis:* American Goldfinch, Carduelis tristis* European Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis* Lawrence's Goldfinch, Carduelis lawrencei...
rests – the bird that feeds on the seeds of the thorn bush, calling to mind the Crown of Thorns
Crown of Thorns
In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...
. Further, there is the unsettling landscape, not a stable or open rolling countryside, rather, immersed in a dark dense forest - "this was Lippi's innovation and Cosimo's obsession." Lippi chose an unusually specific landscape - it is the high woods at Camaldoli
Camaldoli
Camaldoli is a frazione of the comune of Poppi, in Tuscany, Italy. It is mostly known as the ancestral seat of the Camaldolese monastic order, originated in the eponymous hermitage, which can still be visited....
, east of Florence, where in the 11th century Romuald
Romuald
Saint Romuald was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century "Renaissance of eremitical asceticism"....
had founded a monastery, to which the Medici were very devoted. The Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
would have recognised at once the landscape, resonant with the austere and ascetical spirit of one of the great monastic orders, the Camaldolite Order
Camaldolese
The Camaldolese monks and nuns are part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities which follow the way of life outlined in the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the 6th century...
. Camaldoli had another specific link to the painting: the monks there ran a timber business, chopping down the tall pines of the forest to provide wood for the buildings of Florence. These fallen trees are strewn through the painting and would have reminded Cosimo of the Biblical words of John the Baptist (Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, chapter 3) :Now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees, and in the end, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire - a clear evocation of the Last Judgment
Last Judgment
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...
, of the end of time. "Cosimo is a tall tree..."
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Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
, coloured pigments bound in egg-yolk, the standard medium of the day. This, " has to be applied very gently, very delicately, little parallel strokes, literally stroking paint on to the surface. A great master like Lippi would have created seamless transitions which are barely visible now..He must have had wonderfully fine brushes, I don't know how many he got through each day, wearing them out." Lippi knew that his painting was to be displayed in a very particular environment , the windowless chapel of the Medici palace, so it would be seen only by candlelight. A small part of Mary's cloak bears traces of damage from the naked flame of an altar candle. Lippi used the darkness, and finished the painting with a breathtaking display of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
. His use of gold was both , "very extravagant and virtuoso, but also very restrained..halos with their incised and punched decorations..and sometimes he's not even using gold, he's using little dots of yellow and ochre to suggest the play of light across a golden surface, set next to actual gilding
Gilding
The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...
." For Cosimo, the banker, the gold might also have held a very personal meaning. Tim Parks: "To me , the most important part of the picture is the amount of gold that's used, this extraordinary superimposition of cash and the sacred - the darkness at the centre of the painting does nothing but set off the gold here. He wanted to make his money religiously respectable - I think that's absolutely key to the whole thing..." Unlike most artists of the day Lippi chose to sign his picture, on the handle of the axe, 'with panache, in a virtuoso display of foreshortening.' By the year 1459 Lippi's work was finished, and the painting placed above Cosimo's private altar. Four years later, Cosimo died. Lippi's fame continued to grow - he fathered another child with Lucrezia and the Pope offered to release the couple from Holy Orders
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....
so that they could be married - Lippi declined. A decade after finishing his Adoration Fra Filippo Lippi died.
Lippi's inspiration continued - the young Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
, once Filippo Lippi's pupil, adopted his style and Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
praised him. Soon his Adoration had become one of the most copied paintings of the 15th century, an image in demand for the houses of the rich and poor alike. Yet its fame did not mean it was secure in its home, and it faced threats from rebellion and war.
Fate of the painting
In 1494 the Medici family was expelled from Florence, their palace ransacked, and many statues and paintings carried off. The most important artworks were seized by the state and taken to the seat of government, the Palazzo della SignoriaPalazzo Vecchio
The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls of Tuscany...
. Lippi's Adoration was installed over the altar of the Republican government's own chapel. Just two decades later however the Medici returned to Florence in triumph and moved back into their palace - citizens and state alike gave up their looted art and so the Adoration found its way back to its original home. It remained there for three centuries , until the first years of the 19th century , when a wealthy English trader living in Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, Edward Solly
Edward Solly
Edward Walter Solly was an English cricketer who played eight first-class games for Worcestershire as a professional between 1903 and 1907....
, entered its story. Solly was a merchant who had settled in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, a trader in timber and grain - Prussia lived off trade with these goods and trade to Britain was an important part of the Prussian economy. He had become one of the wealthiest men in Berlin and had a palatial mansion yards from the Brandenburg Gate
Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate and one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which...
. He also had a passion for early Italian art and begun to build up an extraordinary collection of over 3000 paintings, the largest private collection of western art in the world. It was a good moment for collectors - Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
was in control of Italy and had imposed punitive taxes on its wealthy families, forcing them to sell off much of their art - Solly acquired Lippi's Adoration, most probably for just a few pounds.
But it was Napoleon who was also to prove the undoing of Solly when he established a naval blockade across the seas of Europe. "Solly was one of the people very personally affected by that because his own specialty was no longer possible - legally at least." At first Solly did well, making huge profits, as his merchant ships ran the blockade, but then disaster struck. The Danish, allies of Napoleon, seized no fewer than 20 of his ships, complete with cargo. Solly was in danger of going bust - his proposed solution - to sell his entire art collection to the Prussian state. The price , 500000 thaler
Thaler
The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
s, represented 1% of the entire state budget, but it was still a bargain. In 1821, at a stroke, when the deal was sealed, Prussia could boast one of the finest art collections in the world. Lippi's Adoration now went on display to the general public for the first time, at the Royal Museum
Altes Museum
The Altes Museum , is one of several internationally renowned museums on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. Since restoration work in 1966, it houses the Antikensammlung of the Berlin State Museums...
, Berlin, - ' and Lippi's star was in the ascendant.' A real appreciation of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
culture was abroad, and it was also the time of the arrival of Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
- the birth of the notion of the artist, 'as mad, bad, and possibly sad, in order to be wonderfully creative, and Lippi and his affair with Lucrezia Buti was irresistible.' In the year the Prussian state bought his Adoration the artist Paul Delaroche painted Lippi with Buti, and many other artists had an eye for a fallen nun. By mid-century poets had joined the Lippi cult, - Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
, living and working in Florence, published an imaginary monologue in which a drunken Lippi tottered through the backstreets of the city proclaiming his libertarian creed : You should not take a fellow eight years old, And make him swear to never kiss the girls. I'm my own master..
In Berlin its fame quietly grew but the new twentieth century brought new threats. 1940: the Nazi authorities put into action careful plans to keep its art treasures safe. Renaissance art was particularly prized and Lippi's altarpiece described as unersetzlich, irreplaceable. Strange as it seems, the safest place in Berlin was deemed to be an anti-aircraft installation, the Friedrichshain
Friedrichshain
Friedrichshain is a part of Berlin's borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, and like Kreuzberg across the river it has its own distinct character, with the result that the new double name is hardly ever used outside government administration. From its creation in 1920 until Berlin's 2001...
Flak tower
Flak tower
Flak towers were 8 complexes of large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers constructed in the cities of Berlin , Hamburg , and Vienna from 1940 onwards....
- 'the bunkers had concrete walls of 3 metres and more' , and for five years, deep inside the flak tower the painting remained. But by 1945 Berlin was about to fall and at the last moment an order came from Hitler for the paintings to be evacuated. Under cover of darkness they were transported to the small town of Merkers
Merkers-Kieselbach
Merkers-Kieselbach is a municipality in the Wartburgkreis district of Thuringia, Germany.-Salt mine:The Merkers area of the municipality is famous for its salt mine, in which large amounts of Nazi gold, and many stolen works of art were discovered by the United States Army in 1945. General Dwight D...
and hidden deep underground in a potassium mine. Lippi's sacred masterpiece was housed alongside Nazi gold and the stolen jewelry of concentration camp victims. In April 1945 American troops found the art treasures.
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program under the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies was established in 1943 to assist in the protection and restitution of cultural property in war areas during and following World War II...
were now told to ready it to be shipped out. In an unprecedented turn of events they refused. It is 'the only known case in the whole of the Second World War of American officers refusing an order.' Anne Webber, (Commission for Looted Art in Europe): 'The Nazis had committed the greatest art thefts
Looted art
Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act, or may be a more organized case of unlawful or unethical pillage by the victor of a conflict."Looted art"...
in history, seized hundreds of thousands of works of art and they were to be prosecuted at Nuremberg
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
..the Monuments Men said there was no distinction in their minds between what the Germans had done in 'safeguarding art' and what the Americans were doing on the same pretext.' Eventually though, amidst threats of courts martial the Monuments Men gave way. 202 of the very finest artworks, Lippi's Adoration among them, were picked out and prepared for shipping to Washington. Upon arrival their condition was assessed - Lippi's after 6 years of war - 'fair, undamaged' - but by now, public opinion was turning decisively against American appropriation of the paintings. Putting them on display no longer seemed wise - instead they were hung under armed guard in the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
underground vaults, for three years, before it was decided that the artworks should after all be sent back to Germany. But not before an extraordinary event took place at the National Gallery of Art and they went on display, a 'blockbuster exhibition', 'the crown jewels of the German collections'; in the first week , 100,000 people came. Following public wishes for wider access, the paintings were toured through 12 other cities so that over 10 million came to see them. In 1949 Lippi's Adoration returned to Germany. Over the coming years, in a politically divided Berlin, it would hang in a succession of temporary homes until the new Gemäldegalerie was finally built. Here it presides over a room especially designed for it - and is one of the prize exhibits.