Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 104. (Budapest, 2006)
ANNA EÖRSI: "...there is One Among You Whom You Do Not Recognise": Some Golden Threads to Miklós Boskovits with Reference to Duccio's Saint John the Baptist
resplendent glory. 4 ' This is expressed by the two successive scenes of the Healing of the Blind and the Transfiguration: the man born blind casts the first glance of his eye on the Christ of the Transfiguration, whose robe, this time, is exceptionally not radiating with white but with gold. From among the post-Resurrection scenes, only the last depiction of the central panel, representing Christ in the company of the disciples at Emmaus, shows him without his robe radiating with gold. This time he happens to wear the camelhair tunic of the Baptist. With this exception, the painter may refer to the incognito of the Saviour, to the fact that the disciples' "...eyes w T ere prevented from recognising him." 46 As in the Budapest painting the Messiah reveals himself to John for a short time in advance, not yet publicly, here —at a later date, but also temporarily and also in a secret way — he hides his divine essence. In both cases, the painter expresses this with the device of the golden striations. Finally, the Budapest painting also would fit vertically into the back of the altarpiece, above with the Resurrected appearing through the locked door, his robe and body shining with gold. As regards the potential relationship of the Budapest panel with the front side of the Maestà: as a painting representing the outset of the Mission, the first appearance of the adult Saviour, it would perfectly correspond to the Annunciation, the first scene on the front predella. 4 In both cases, golden striations symbolise the divine nature appearing in the given moment. Moreover, the iconography of the painting would be an adequate continuation of the last scene of the infancy on the front side, which shows the twelve-year-old Christ in the moment before his self-revelation. 4S Finally, in one of the Passion-scenes, Duccio, although with a different sign similarly plays with presence and hiddenness, visibility and invisibility as in the panel of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. In the scene of the Washing of the Feet, apparently eleven but actually twelve disciples are present. The head of Judas not wearing a halo, seen from the back, is hardly discernible (fig. 7). It can also be told about him —mutatis mutandis —that "there is one among you whom you do not recognise." Miklós Boskovits backed up his theory that the painting belonged to the Maestà with stylistic arguments. 49 The physical state of the picture does not rule out, and the iconographical analysis definitely corroborates his supposition. With all probability the painting in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, originally belonged to the predella of Duccio's Maestà. Anna Eörsi is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art History, Eötvös Loránd University of Sciences, Budapest.
