A New Look at Cimabue - At the Origins of Italian Painting

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

January 22 to May 12, 2025

For the first time, the Musée du Louvre is hosting a landmark exhibition dedicated to Cimabue, a titan of 13th-century art. This display highlights the museum's recent restoration of the Maestà and the acquisition of the newly rediscovered National Treasure, Christ Mocked.

Bringing together forty works, the exhibition showcases how Cimabue revolutionized Western art by moving away from Eastern conventions toward naturalism. Through volume, shading, and human emotion, he fundamentally shifted how we perceive space and the human form.

Exhibition Highlights:

The Maestà: Recently restored to reveal its original vibrant colors and intricate details, this masterpiece is considered by many a foundational act of Western painting.

The Diptych Panels: For the first time, the Louvre has reunited the only three surviving panels of Cimabue’s eight-panel diptych, highlighting his influence on Duccio.

The journey concludes with Giotto’s Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, illustrating how Cimabue’s vision paved the way for his successors, Duccio and Giotto, to define the dawn of the 14th century.