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Moderno, The Adoration of the Magi.
Galeazzo Mondella, called Moderno (c.1467-1528/9), The Adoration of the Magi, gilt-bronze, cast and chased plaquette, attributed to the late 16th century, the Magi with a long entourage of servants with horses and camels, pay tribute to the Christ child, 76 x 110mm (Kress 144). Plugged with a small lug for suspension, very fine, thought to be a late 16th century cast.
The attribution of the date is based on comparison with two other plaquettes: The Penitent Magdalene (Weber 1041.4), and The Repentance of Peter (Weber 1043; Warren 2014 no. 506) - the example studied of the second of these being identical to the example in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (accession no. WA1897.CDEF.B864), which was donated by the prodigious collector C. D. E. Fortnum, in 1897. While the size, fabric, method of manufacture, and border of the Moderno show differences, the gilding is identical. Warren attributes The Repentance of Peter to the Netherlands. Perhaps the Moderno was also reproduced to supply a northern European market for devotional art. In the deeply religious societies of late medieval and renaissance Europe the concept of the Magi gave a precedent for the otherwise mutually exclusive notions of piety and great wealth.