MUNICH.- Last weekquite literally at the eleventh hourthe
Bavarian State Painting Collections received news that the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the authorities for cultural-heritage protection in Milan and Rome have granted permission for Caravaggios world-famous ornamental shield depicting the severed head of Medusa to leave the country and feature as another high-profile loan in the exhibition Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe.
Joining Caravaggios renowned Entombment of Christ from the Vatican Museums, his Penitent Saint Jerome (1605) from the collections of the Benedictine Abbey at the Museum of Montserrat near Barcelona, as well as his Fortune Teller (1595/96) from Romes Capitoline Museums, the Medusa (1596/97) represents an additional highlight by the hand of the Italian Baroque painter to go on show in Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe.
The Medusa Murtola, signed, dated to around 1596/97, and currently in a private collection, has been identified as the earlier of two extant versions of the painting, largely thanks to X-radiograph images that reveal alterations during the painting process. Caravaggios second version is now housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. This first version takes its name from the Italian poet Gaspare Murtola (d. 1624/25), who wrote in a madrigal from 1603: Flee, for if your eyes are petrified in amazement, she will turn you to stone.
Medusas macabre facial expression, her hair of living, writhing snakes, and the blood sprouting from her throat all make this work one of Caravaggios most gruesome and, at the same time, most impressive. Even once severed by the hero Perseus, the head of the Gorgon Medusa was still deadly: one look into her eyes or those of the snakes was enough to turn the viewer to stone. The Gorgons head was thus an ideal motif for a shield held up against ones enemies.
The Medusa is on view as part of the exhibition until 21 July 2019.