La Collegiata, San Querico d’Orcia, Italy
This is one of the finest intarsia panels made by Antonio Barili (see earlier post on Barili). It was part of a set made around 1500. What first attracted me to this work was the life-like representation. The pose is interesting with the man leaning out the window and resting his arm on the sill. There are layers of planes setting up the three-dimensionality of the picture. The arm is on the sill and the hand is on the vertical. The window itself is done in one-point perspective. behind the figure there are architectural members and beyond that a landscape.
Note that there is some color on the tunic. Originally the panel would have had many colors, but they turned out to be fugitive and now all that’s left is some faded bluish-green. Nevertheless the panel has a great presence.