{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O125214"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O125214/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BW3364/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BW3364/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2008BW3364","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2007BM4993","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HX3351","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KK8235","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KK8281","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW8078","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW7954","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW7941","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW7920","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW7901","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018KW7898","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O125214/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O125214","accessionNumber":"251-1876","objectType":"Relief","titles":[{"title":"A Scene of Conflict between Men and Women (Lycurgus and the Maenads?)","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"This relief, and another version which is very similar in the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in Siena, are probably based on an unidentified bronze relief. The subject of the scene remains open to debate, but most likely represents the Homeric myth of Lycurgus's slaughter of the Maenads . According to the writer Diodorus, the Greek god Dionysus was betrayed by the Thracian king Lycurgus, who slaughtered Dionysus’s female followers, the Maenads, as they passed through his lands.\n\nThe relief uses the technique of linear perspective, developed in the early fifteenth century, which assisted artists to depict three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. The handling of the buildings clearly shows one of the key points of the technique: that lines should recede to a single vanishing point (located here in the centre of the relief).\n\nFrancesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) was one of the earliest artists in Siena to use detailed and logical  perspective within his relief work, and his  figures vary from faint profiles to fully modelled  statuettes. His work moved on from that of his  master, Lorenzo Vecchietta, in stylistic, if not  iconographic, ways. Francesco's style provided a logical representational  technique, a grasp of movement, and a sense  of atmosphere. His contact with Leonardo da Vinci while they were both in Milan is evident in the style of this relief.","physicalDescription":"Relief in stucco, covered with a light greyish-brown paint. The relief and the frame are moulded as one. The relief portrays an open square, with buildings to the right and left, and receding into the distance along a street. The foreground shows armed men attacking unarmed women, most of the people represented are nude. In the building to the left nude men on the ground floor, some of whom are armed, and upper floor balcony are watching the scene. There is one robed female figure in the centre, and in the loggia to the right a man seated on a throne pointing to a man and a woman fighting.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Francesco di Giorgio Martini","id":"A8647"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"stucco","id":"AAT14966"}],"techniques":[{"text":"moulded","id":"x30076"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Moulded and painted stucco","categories":[{"text":"Sculpture","id":"THES48896"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"SCP","id":"THES48600"},"images":["2008BW3364","2007BM4993","2015HX3351","2017KK8235","2017KK8281","2018KW8078","2018KW7954","2018KW7941","2018KW7920","2018KW7901","2018KW7898"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"64A","id":"THES49095"},"free":"","case":"9","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Relief","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Siena (town)","id":"x30333"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"possibly"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1474-1480","earliest":"1469-01-01","latest":"1480-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"47.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"68","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"4.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Measured for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This relief was purchased in Florence (Cavaliere Emilio Santarelli), and on acquisition was described by Fortnum as being “in the manner of Leonardo da Vinci”. The same composition exists in a second version in the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in Siena. Both are very close in style and handling to two reliefs in bronze, a Lamentation in the Carmini in Venice, and a Flagellation in the Pinacoteca at Perugia.\r\n\r\nIt has been attributed at various points to Leonardo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo di Giovanni, and to Francesco di Giorgio. In favour of the latter artist are: the relation of the architectural features in the relief, the Perugia Flagellation, and to motifs in Francesco's work at Urbino and elsewhere; that the Venice Lamentation was originally in the Oratorio di Santa Croce in Urbino, where he is known to have worked; the connection between the figures in the relief to drawings by the artist.\r\n\r\nIf the relief, like the Lamentation, was executed in Urbino it can be dated to after the bronze was cast, in 1475-7. The relief in the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini has been somewhat damaged, and seems to be blunter than the V&A’s piece. The main differences between the two are that in the Chigi-Saracini relief the right arm and stave of the central female figure are missing, and the feet of the male nudes standing in the central archway are shown.\r\n\r\nIt is possible that the two reliefs are earlier and later casts taken from a wax model, or alternatively that they are modified casts from a bronze relief. However the evidence is inconclusive.\r\n\r\nOn acquisition, the relief was described as “the Genius of Discord and the results of her influence”. As a narrative, the main features are: that it represents a conflict in which a number of unarmed women are slaughtered by men; all the figures apart from the fleeing female figure in the centre and one ambiguous figure by the throne, are nude; the dominant figures are the fleeing woman in the centre and the male nude on the right whose gesture seems to be one of pleading but who conceals a sword behind his back; that all the male figures on the left are spectators of, not participants in, the scene. Various interpretations have been ascribed to the scene, including the slaughter of the Maenads by Lycurgus, or that it is an Amazon scene. However they have been rejected for want of conclusive representations within the scene of attributes associated with these legends.\n\nThis relief demonstrates the use of linear perspective in representing the buildings and figures in the distance. The key principle of this technique was that there should be one vanishing point within the work, and this can be seen in the centre where the buildings recede. This technique was particularly useful for relief sculpture of complicated scenes, as it gave the sculptor a way of depicting naturalistic backgrounds as well as introduce many more figures and motifs into the scene in the middle- and back-ground.","historicalContext":"Francesco di Giorgio was one of the earliest artists in Siena to use detailed and logical perspective within his relief work, and his figures vary from faint profiles to fully modelled statuettes. His work moved on from that of his master, Lorenzo Vecchietta, in stylistic, if not iconographic, ways. Francesco di Giorgio’s approach embodied a logical representational technique, a grasp of movement, and a sense of atmosphere. While in Milan, he had been in contact with Leonardo da Vinci, a connection that comes through in the style of this relief.","briefDescription":"Relief, 'A Scene of Conflict between Men and Women (Lycurgus and Maenads?)', painted stucco, by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Siena, ca. 1474-1480","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Motture, Peta, ed., <u>Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance</u>, London: V&A Publishing, 2023.","id":"AUTH394323"},"details":"cat.2.11, p. 156, entry by Sabrina Villani  ","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Alessandro Angelini and Gabriele Fattorini (eds), <i>Urbino crocevia delle arti. La corte di Federico da Montefeltro tra Piero della Francesca e Francesco di Giorgio</i> (Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Ancona), Venice 2022, pp.102–5, cat.III.7a (G. Fattorini)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Marc Bormand, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Francesca Tasso (eds), <i>Il corpo e l'anima: da Donatello a Michelangelo scultura italiana nel Rinascimento</i>, exh. cat., (Castello Sforzesco, Milan 2021), pp.104–5, cat.15 (P. Motture)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Marc Bormand, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Francesca Tasso (eds), <i>Le corps et l’âme. De Donatello à Michel-Ange. Sculptures italiennes de la Renaissance</i> (Musée du Louvre, Paris 2020, pp.94–5, cat.17 (P. Motture)\r\n\r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Victor Hugo López Borges, ‘A stucco relief by Francesco di Giorgio Martini: Conservation and technical considerations’,<u> V&A Conservation Journal</u>, Autumn 2009/10, 58, p. 34-35 "},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Luke Syson et al, Renaissance Siena. Art for a City, (National Gallery, London, 24 October 2007 – 13 January 2008), London, 2007, pp. 190-193, cat. 44 (Luke Syson) "},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Wright, Alison, The Pollaiuolo Brothers. The Arts of Florence and Rome, New Haven and London, 2005, p. 415-416"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bellosi, Luciano, ed. <u>Francesco di Giorgio e il Rinascimento a Siena 1450-1500</u> Exhibition catalogue, Siena, 1993,  pp. 346-349"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Poeschke, Joachim <u>Die Skulptur der Renaissance in Italian, Band I - Donatello und seine Zeit </u> Munich, 1990, pp. 177-8, fig. 79"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Gentilini, Giancarlo <u>Collezione Chigi Saracini: La Scultura</u> Siena, 1989, Vol. 1, pp. 99-110"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Gentilini, Giancarlo. <font -u>In</font>: Gentilini, Giancarlo and Sisi, Carlo. <font -u>Collezione Chigi-Saracini: Arti Sorelle.</font> Siena, 1989, I. pp. 99-110"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Toledano, Ralph <u>Francesco di Giorgio Martini pittore e scultore</u> Milan, 1987, p. 130"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bober, P. P. and Rubinstein, R. O. <font -u>Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, A Handbook of Sources.</font> Oxford, 1986, pp. 181, 186"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Rubinstein, Ruth O. and Bober, Phyllis Pray. <u>Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, A Handbook of Sources</u> Oxford, 1986, pp. 181, 186"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Scaglia, Gustina. Autour de Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Ingénieur et Dessinateur. <font -u>Revue de l'Art.</font> 1980, 48, p. 8"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"del Bravo, Carlo <u>Scultura senese del Quattrocentro</u> Florence, 1970, pp. 93, 94, 100, fig. 336"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Seymour Jr, Charles <u>Sculpture in Italy 1400 - 1500</u> Pelican History of Art, Harmondsworth, 1966, p. 246, n. 4"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Pope-Hennessy, John, assisted by Lightbown, Ronald. <font u>Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum</font> London, 1964. Text: Vol.I, No. 282, pp. 266-8; Vol. III, fig. 281-2, pp. 176-7"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Maclagan, Eric and Longhurst, Margaret H. <font -u>Catalogue of Italian Sculpture.</font> London, 1932, p. 96"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"<font -u>List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington, Acquired During the Year 1876, Arranged According to the Dates of Acquisition.</font> London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., p. 20"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"women","id":"AAT25943"},{"text":"men","id":"AAT25928"},{"text":"men","id":"AAT25928"},{"text":"swords","id":"AAT37048"},{"text":"arches","id":"AAT994"},{"text":"corpse","id":"x36214"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"a scene of conflict, possibly the\r\nmurder of the maenads by lycurgus\r\nAbout 1474–80\r\nFrancesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1502)\n\nThe handling of the buildings shows clearly one of the key points of the perspective technique: that lines should recede to a single vanishing point (located here in the centre of the relief). The use of<i> rilievo schiacciato</i> (or squashed relief) in the background gives the impression that the buildings recede even further into the distance.\n\nItaly, Siena\r\nStucco\r\nMuseum no. 251-1876","date":{"text":"2009","earliest":"2009-01-01","latest":"2009-12-31"}},{"text":"<b>Unidentified Classical Scene</b>  \r\nBy Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Sienese. 1475-1500.  \r\nThis composition and a version with slight variations in the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini, Siena, are probably based on an unidentified bronze relief.\r\nThe subject of the scene has not been satisfactorily interpreted, though it has long been described as an Allegory of Discord. The relief is closely related in style to a Lamentation over the Dead Christ (now in the Carmini church at Venice) that was originally in the Oratorio di Santa Croce, Urbino, and was probably cast about 1475. The treatment of the figures throughout is strongly influenced by Antonio Pollaiuolo.","date":{"text":"July 1979","earliest":"1979-07-01","latest":"1979-07-31"}},{"text":"<b>RELIEF with an unidentified classical scene</b>   \r\nAbout 1475-1500.  \r\nFrancesco di Giorgio Martini, Siena. \r\n\r\nThis relief uses the technique of linear perspective, developed in the early 15th century, which enabled artists to depict three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. The handling of the buildings shows clearly one of the key points of the technique: that lines should recede to a single vanishing point (located here in the centre of the relief).\r\n\r\nItaly, Siena\r\n\r\nStucco\r\n\r\nMuseum  no. 251-1876","date":{"text":"Nov 2006","earliest":"2006-11-01","latest":"2006-11-30"}}],"partNumbers":["251-1876"],"accessionNumberNum":"251","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1876,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LM9738","2019LN5074","2019LT5991","2019LW2454","2020MP0467","2022NE8191"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-06-03","recordCreationDate":"2006-06-15","availableToBook":false}}