Lazzeri Davide, Nicoli Fabio
Department of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, Villa Salaria Clinic, Rome, Italy.
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
Indian J Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Mar-Apr;22(2):283-286. doi: 10.4103/ijem.IJEM_13_18.
George Salting was an art collector, who bequeathed his collection of paintings to the National Gallery of London. The present investigation has revealed five portraits of five different artists belonging to this collection in which the Holy Mother holding the child has been portrayed with a variable grade of thyroid gland enlargement. The name Salting, applied to the Madonnas with child by Antonello da Messina, Robert Campin, Dirk Bouts, Cima da Conegliano, and Andrea del Verrocchio, denotes George Salting, the collector who donated the masterworks to the gallery in 1910.
The five paintings were analyzed to determine the accuracy of the diagnosis of neck swelling and the underlying iconographical significance of this depiction, which is relatively uncommon in religious artworks.
The present investigation highlighted an abnormal profile of the neck of the Virgin Mary, which is suggestive of a presumptive medico-artistic diagnosis of goiter. The inclusion of thyroid swelling in a holy sitter is relatively uncommon and is related to specific meanings that the painter wanted to illustrate in the work, the reasons for which are herein discussed.
It seems likely that the integration of the goiter in the paintings is a stylistic hallmark. Indeed, the depiction of a slight neck enlargement is most probably a rhetorical tendency of representing an idealized female beauty, especially in holy sitters, imbued by a balanced neck and graceful body. At the same time, it probably also reflects better anatomic accuracy and knowledge of Renaissance artists applied toward a more realistic and precise representation of subjects.
乔治·索尔廷是一位艺术收藏家，他将自己的绘画收藏遗赠给了伦敦国家美术馆。本次调查发现，该收藏中有五幅出自五位不同艺术家之手的肖像画，画中的圣母抱着圣婴，其甲状腺肿大程度各不相同。安东内洛·达·梅西纳、罗伯特·康平、迪尔克·布茨、奇马·达·科内利亚诺和安德烈亚·德尔·韦罗基奥所作的圣母与圣婴画像被称为“索尔廷圣母像”，这里的“索尔廷”指的是收藏家乔治·索尔廷，他于1910年将这些杰作捐赠给了美术馆。
对这五幅画作进行分析，以确定颈部肿胀诊断的准确性以及这种描绘在宗教艺术品中相对罕见的潜在图像学意义。
本次调查突出了圣母玛利亚颈部的异常轮廓，这提示可能存在甲状腺肿的医学艺术诊断。在神圣人物画像中加入甲状腺肿大相对罕见，且与画家想要在作品中阐明的特定含义有关，本文将讨论其中的原因。
画作中甲状腺肿的融入似乎是一种风格标志。的确，颈部轻微肿大的描绘很可能是表现理想化女性美的一种修辞倾向，尤其是在神圣人物画像中，这类画像具有匀称的颈部和优雅的身姿。同时，这可能也更好地反映了文艺复兴时期艺术家在更真实、精确地表现人物时所具备的解剖学准确性和知识。
