Through an agreement with the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and the Museo Opificio delle Pietre Dure (Florence, Italy), ARTstor supported the rich photographic documentation of the recently restored bronze doors on the east side of the Florentine Baptistery, universally known as the “Gates of Paradise” (in Italian, “Porta del Paradiso”). The sculptural relief panels of the “Gates of Paradise,” produced during the second quarter of the fifteenth century by the great Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), constitute one of the most important art works of the early Italian Renaissance. After more than twenty-five years of work, the restoration of Ghiberti’s famous “Gates of Paradise” is now complete. ARTstor sponsored the comprehensive photographic documentation of the Gates of Paradise in their newly restored state. This photographic campaign produced nearly 750 stunning, detailed photographs of Ghiberti’s relief sculptures in both their uncleaned and their restored states, all of which have been digitized by ARTstor and are available as part of the ARTstor Digital Library.

“These splendid new photos finally allow Ghiberti’s work to be seen and studied as the three-dimensional, sculptural masterpieces they are,” according to Gary M. Radke, Professor of Fine Arts at Syracuse University and Curator for Exhibitions of Italian Art at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. “Never before have we been able to study Ghiberti’s works so clearly and in such exhaustive detail. Taken from a wide variety of angles and under lighting conditions that reveal the full subtlety of Ghiberti’s modeling and finishing, these images will transform thinking about Ghiberti for decades to come.”
We are pleased to announce that we have just released the final 30 images, depicting the cleaned Noah panel.There are 30 images of the panel in both black-and-white in addition to the existing images of the uncleaned panel. These comparative materials underscore the importance of the recent restoration campaign and its photographic documentation by ARTstor.

To locate these and other images from the Ghiberti campaign in the ARTstor Image Gallery most readily, search for “Ghiberti Quattrone Noah,” so as to retrieve only these new photographs (produced by the outstanding Florentine photographer, Antonio Quattrone).

For more information about this collection see the Ghiberti Gates of Paradise Collection page.

You may also be interested in “A peek behind Ghiberti’s Florentine Baptistery Doors.“