{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Given in memory of Allan Marquand, Class of 1874, and Mrs. Marquand, by their daughters","caption":"Follower of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti (Italian, 1376–1455), Study for or after Moses on Mount Sinai, from the Gates of Paradise, Baptistry in Florence (1425-52). Terracotta; 39.8 x 32.7 cm. Given in memory of Allan Marquand, Class of 1874, and Mrs. Marquand, by their daughters (y1950-13)","cultureterms":[{"id":2031625,"culture":"Italian"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2054791,"term":"sculpture","aatid":300047090,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2055330,"term":"reliefs","aatid":300047230,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2031625,"term":"Italian","aatid":300111198,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2055657,"term":"figures (representations)","aatid":300189808,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2088151,"term":"children (people by age group)","aatid":300025945,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2051797,"term":"studies (visual works)","aatid":300081053,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2133987,"term":"bible stories","aatid":null,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2095964,"term":"religious art","aatid":300248179,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2160936,"term":"terracotta","aatid":300010669,"termtype":"Materials"}],"geography":[],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"39.80"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"32.70"}],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"1950-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":6109,"displayname":"Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti","displaydate":"Italian, 1376–1455","datebegin":1376,"dateend":1455,"prefix":"follower of","suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"follower of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, Italian, 1376–1455","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":1644,"signed":null,"restrictions":null,"classification":"Sculpture","packages":[{"packageid":210962,"name":"Z_JS European On View 10 years"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2055330,"classification":"reliefs"},{"id":2054791,"classification":"sculpture"},{"id":2051797,"classification":"studies (visual works)"}],"exhibitions":[],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1950-13"],"displaytitle":"Study for or after Moses on Mount Sinai, from the Gates of Paradise, Baptistry in Florence (1425-52)","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"follower of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, Italian, 1376–1455","captionhtml":"Follower of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti (Italian, 1376–1455), Study for or after Moses on Mount Sinai, from the Gates of Paradise, Baptistry in Florence (1425-52). Terracotta; 39.8 x 32.7 cm. Given in memory of Allan Marquand, Class of 1874, and Mrs. Marquand, by their daughters (y1950-13)","displaydate":null,"medium":"Terracotta","media":[{"id":11891,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/y1950-13","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"Photo"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":false,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Recent acquisitions\", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 9, no. 2 (1950): p. 15.","citation":"\"Recent acquisitions\", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 9, no. 2 (1950): p. 15., p. 15","date":1950,"id":3749,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774242"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"European Painting and Sculpture ","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199321,"term":"European Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1600-1700","dateend":1892,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Study for or after Moses on Mount Sinai, from the Gates of Paradise, Baptistry in Florence (1425-52)","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":null,"objectnumber":"y1950-13","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"Said to have been in possession of a Sienese family; Fratelli Bassetti, Siena, purchased by Allan Marquand, 1892; daughters of Allan Marquand, by descent; given to Princeton University Art Museum, 1950.","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"

Allan Marquand wrote about this relief in 1894, and recognized it as a detail from Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law on Lorenzo Ghiberti’s bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery. he believed that the disparities between its figures and those on the door indicated that the relief seen here was a preparatory sketch model. Most scholars now consider it a copy made after the door was finished. Thermoluminescence tests that might date the terracotta have been inconclusive.

\r\n

It is unclear why a copy of a detail might have been made, but there may be a parallel with young Michelangelo’s drawings after figures in frescoes by Giotto and Masaccio. Like those masters, Ghiberti was revered in the later fifteenth century—it was Michelangelo who gave the Bapistery doors the name The Gates of Paradise. An artist of his generation might have made this relief as an exercise and homage to a great Florentine sculptor. The presence of a head not in the finished relief, wearing a hat in later-fifteenth-century style, seems to support this hypothesis.

","remarks":"K1-3 May 2012"}],"datebegin":1396,"sortnumber":"1950 13y","published_date":"2026-02-11 09:58:48.521431","objectid":23844,"dimensions":"39.8 x 32.7 cm (15 11/16 x 12 7/8 in.)","on_view":false}