Il mendicante moro (The Moorish beggar) (1725–30) by Giacomo Ceruti
Uffizi Galleries, Florence
The Uffizi Galleries have acquired this uncommon portrait of a Moor by the Italian painter Giacomo Ceruti (1698-1767). The portray, depicting a beggar, is without doubt one of the earliest recognized portraits—versus generic depictions—of a Black man in Italian portray. Ceruti was often known as Il Pitocchetto (“the Little Beggar”), on account of his curiosity in portray the poor and dealing class of Lombardy. However it could have been uncommon to see a Black man wandering rural northern Italy; most Africans delivered to Italy have been family servants. This work was included within the Ceruti exhibition that travelled from Santa Giulia Museum in Brescia to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2023.
Cup of Pleasure from Japanese Khorasan (Eleventh-Twelfth century) Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Cup of Pleasure from Japanese Khorasan (Eleventh-Twelfth century)
Toledo Museum of Artwork, Ohio
When the Eleventh- or Twelfth-century Kiddush Cup of Pleasure bought for $4m (with charges) at Sotheby’s in October, it set an public sale document for a ceremonial object of Judaica. Kiddush cups, usually product of silver (like this one), are used to sanctify the Shabbat and Jewish holidays. This instance is assumed to have been made in a workshop within the Central Asian area of Khorasan. Its vine-leaf motif and Arabic wording are typical of Central Asian silversmithing of the time, and it’s inscribed “Simcha son of Salman”—the title of the cup’s first proprietor.
Virgin and Baby (Virgo Lactans) by Circle of the Biberach Grasp (early Sixteenth century) Photograph: Charlen Christoph/SBM; courtesy of Bode-Museum, Berlin
Virgin and Baby (Virgo Lactans) by Circle of the Biberach Grasp (early Sixteenth century)
Bode-Museum, Berlin
The centrepiece of the Bode-Museum’s present exhibition Again in Berlin: A bust of the Virgin Mary and the Benoit Oppenheim Assortment (till 31 Could) is a lately acquired early Sixteenth-century limewood sculpture of a nursing Madonna. The Higher Swabian reliquary as soon as belonged to Oppenheim, a Berlin banker who collected Medieval sculpture. It handed to the Jewish banker Jakob Goldschmidt in 1928, however his assortment was forcibly bought by the Nazis in 1936 and the bust ended up within the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It was restituted to Goldschmidt’s heirs in 2023, bought at Christie’s in 2024 for £26,460 (with charges) and has been purchased for the Bode-Museum’s everlasting assortment.
