Petruschki's Journey Into The Blue- Chapter 16 - Plautilla Nelli - Pray For The Paintress

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In December 2019 we went on a journey by bus and train through Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland. The aim was the exhibition Protest! by Derek Jarman in Dublin, there was so much to see on the way there. We visited 21 exhibitions and discovered many stories. More about this in Chapter 1 Dreaming into the Blue. We are still at the very beginning of our trip in Paris. We visited the Greco exhibition in the Grand Palais. There are 3 chapters about the Greco exhibition. The first chapter you can see here: Crackling colors and the celebration of the vertical, the second here The Green between Heaven and Earth and here the third The long limbs dance in light and Shadow

What a tender, comforting gesture. Come on, you may rest on my bosom. The head leans tenderly and lightly on Jesus' chest, despite all the grief in the hour of parting. Tender and light, like a bird, Jesus holds his favorite disciple John and caresses his ear. Nothing is difficult.

This is a detail from the painting “The Last Supper” by Plautilla Nelli, a painting nun, or rather, a female painter who was a nun. She saw herself as a painter, what her signature on the Lord's Supper shows us. She was born near Florence in 1524 and is considered the first female Renaissance painter.

Plautilla Nelli Signatur “The Last Supper” 1560

Plautilla - orate pro pictora is written in the upper left corner of the picture. Plautilla - prays for the painter. It was absolutely extraordinary for a woman to sign a painting.

Plautilla Nelli The Last Supper

There is so much movement in this painting, which Plautilla Nelli created in 1560. And how much emotion can be seen in the faces and through the postures. The picture is 7 meters long and two meters high. The colors shine deep and warm.

“Plautilla Nelli had a bold brushstroke with a lot of color. She knew what she wanted to depict and she also knew how to achieve it.” says restorer Rosella Lari.

Judas is sitting in front of the table. He shares bread with Jesus. He is holding the money bag in the other hand. Three flowers are embroidered on it. Why something so feminine ... in this group of men ... we don't know.

Plautilla Nelli The Lord's Supper1560

Until 1817 the Lord's Supper hung in the monastery where Plautilla Nelli had lived and painted. It was then taken to the Santa Maria Novella monastery. There the painting was put in some storage room and 1966, when the great flood hit Florence, the picture, like many other works of art, suffered considerable damage.

Plautilla Nelli The Last Supper 1566

Aside from the bright colors, I fell in love with a lot of details. Like the folds of the tablecloth. Which, by the way, are very similar to the one at Da Vinci's Last Supper. Sure, Sor Plantilla couldn't travel to Milan to see it, but it is believed that she could see da Vinci's sketches for the Last Supper. And we know for sure that Plautila Nelli taught herself painting skills by copying other painters' paintings.

There is a secret here: the face of the disciple, the second from the right ... (If the disciples are seated in the same arrangement as with da Vinci - that would be Thaddaeus). It's painted with a different stroke and the treatment of the light that models the face is even more artful. You can see someone else painted this face. But we don't know who it was ...

Also all the bread, the wine, the bowls, the leaves and the salt pots. But above all, the hands and all the bare feet of the 12 apostles inspire and make me happy.

Since October 2019, the Last Supper of Plautilla Nelli can be seen again in the museum of the Santa Maria Novella monastery in Florence: after four years of restoration made possible by Advancing Woman Artists.

Here is a Video about the restoration of the Last Supper.

Plautilla Nelli Lamentation with Saints 1569

Plautilla Nelli Lamentation with Saints 1569

The lower part of the picture in higher resolution. What wonderful colors.

Jane Fortune was an American philanthropist and patron of the arts who lived in Florence. She researched forgotten female artists and discovered this painting by Plautilla Nelli in a very poor condition: Compianto sul Cristo morto from 1569. She raised money and in 2006 the restoration could begin. The experienced restorer Rosella Lari took care of that and later restored also the Last Supper. Here is an interview Video with her. about her work and about Plautilla Nelli. I highly recommend it. Incredibly exciting. In Italian with English subtitles.

In order to continue the rediscovery of women artists and the restoration of their works, Jane Fortune founded Advancing Woman Artists AWA in 2009. So far they have been able to repair more than 60 works by forgotten female artists from Florence. The very interesting website still exists, but after Jane Fortune's death the organization was unfortunately disbanded.

Mater Dolorosa Plantilla Nelli

At the age of 14 Plautilla Nelli entered the monastery of Santa Caterina di Cafaggio, in the course of her life she was prioress there three times. The monastery was subordinate to the Dominican monastery of San Marco, which was directed by Savonarola. At that time half of all young girls came to the monastery in order to save the families the expanses of their living. So that they would not lapse into idleness, Savonarola asked them to paint religious pictures. This gave Sor Plantilla Nelli the opportunity to paint. She was self-taught and learned by copying other works. She was particularly inspired by the work of Fra Bartholomeo. The monastery became a center for painting nuns. She herself taught at least three nuns from her monastery and another three nuns from another monastery. Nelli had many clients for her pictures and was very valued. The sixteenth-century art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote: "And there are so many pictures of her in noble houses all over Florence that it would be tedious to talk about them all."

One can assume that the monastery of Santa Caterina di Cafaggio was transformed into a prosperous painter's workshop by Plautilla Nelli and the painting nuns, into an early feminist business.

Drawing by Plautilla Nelli Foto: Roberto Palermo

Foto: By Uffizi Galleries - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sources: Wikipedia and the Article “El milagro de la monja” in La Razon by Ismael Monzon from October 30th. 2019

I will certainly leave the route more often to introduce some female painters like I did with Artemisia Gentileschi in chapter 2 . Suzanne Valodon, for example, who went from model and lover Henri Toulouse-Lautrecs to an independent paintress. And a later chapter, which I am particularly looking forward to, is devoted to the Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola.

The next chapter goes back to the journey. In Paris, we visit the Toulouse-Lautrec Résolument Moderne - Resolutely Modern exhibition at the Grand Palais

Toulouse-Lautrec Seule