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The Fireflies

The Pietà, Christ’s Left ArmClarence Kennedy, Gelatin silver print, 1929,

sheet: 24.3 × 16.4 cm (9 9/16 × 6 7/16 in.) mount: 49.6 × 30.6 cm (19 ½ × 12 1/16 in.)

Transferred from Section of Slides and Photographs, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.

Desiderio da Settignano (ca. 1429/30-1464), like most sculptors before Michelangelo, was long overlooked by scholars, who focused their attention almost exclusively on Donatello, the great master of the quattrocento. And yet Desiderio, who may have began his career in Donatello’s workshop, becoming one of the most original and influential sculptors in Florence. His impact is clear in the numerous replicas of his Virgin and Child reliefs as well as copies of the Bambino in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. His work, showing an early interest in sfumato, may even have influenced the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. Sweetness, strength, and luminosity are the principal qualities of Desiderio’s oeuvre. 

Marina Tsvetaeva, from Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917-1922; “A Hero of Labor”

Moon Shadow on Jupiter