Sotheby's. Master Paintings & Sculpture Evening Sale, New York, 25 Jan 2017, 06:00 PM
Botticelli and Studio, The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel
Lot 11. Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli, and Studio (Firenze, 1445 - 1510), The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel, tempera on panel, a tondo, diameter: 34 3/8 in.; 86.3 cm. Estimate 600,000 — 800,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.
Provenance: Presumably sold by the Estate of Dominique Vivant Denon, Paris, Commissaire-Priseur Masson, "Description des objets d'arts qui compensent le cabinet de feu M. le Baron V," 2 May 1826 (as Botticelli, for 265 francs);
Del Nero collection, Rome, before 1890;
Leo Nardus (né Leonardus Salomon), Paris, by 1925 (as Botticelli);
By whom offered, Amsterdam, Mak van Waay, 26-27 May 1925, lot 9 (as Botticelli, bought in);
Leo Nardus (né Leonardus Salomon) and Arnold van Buuren, Haarlem (in joint ownership);
Confiscated from the van Buuren residence, Haarlem, August 1942 and transferred to the bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co, Amsterdam;
By whom sold, Cologne, Lempertz, 2 June 1943, lot 7 (as School Sandro Botticelli, sold for RM 19,000);
Private collection, Cologne;
By whom sold, Cologne, Van Ham Kunstauktionen, 14 November 2014, lot 502 (as Botticelli and Studio, sold pursuant to a settlement agreement between the consignor and the heir of Leo Nardus);
There acquired by the present owner.
Literature: G. Mandel, in C. Bo, L'opera completa del Botticelli, Milan 1967, p. 99 under cat. no. 93 (as a variant of the Galleria Borghese tondo);
R. Lightbown, Botticelli, Paris 1990, p. 401, under cat. no. c50 (as a variant of the Abernon tondo);
N. Pons, Botticelli, Catalogo Completo, Milan 1989, p. 80, under cat. no. 91(as a variant of the Galleria Borghese tondo).
Notes: This impressive Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel is a late work by Sandro Botticelli, one of the most distinctive and recognizable figures of the Italian Renaissance. The tondo was most likely painted in the last five years of the artist’s life, between 1505 and 1510 with the assistance of members of his studio. The composition is known in different iterations executed by both Botticelli himself and various members of his workshop. According to Ronald Lightbown, each of the variants ultimately derives from a Madonna and Child with an Angel, formerly in the collection of Lord Abernon, of which an almost identical version is in the collection of the Bob Jones University, Greenville (fig. 1).1 In the Abernon and Greenville tondi, the Christ Child stands upright in his mother’s lap, while in the present painting he is cradled in a fold of her mantle, his legs kicking to the right. The same model for these figures recurs in Botticelli’s Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist in the São Paolo Museum of Art, São Paolo (fig. 2) and again in the tondo of the same subject by a follower, this time with an older Saint John, in the Indianapolis Museum of Art (inv. no. 2014.85). The model for each of the Madonna figures is the same, down to the green lining of the mantle folded over her knees and the forefinger of her left hand tucked under its trim. The background and accompanying lateral figures vary, presumably according to the desires of the patron.
Fig. 1. Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli (and Studio), Madonna and Child with an Angel / Bob Jones University



