Lot 7. Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli, and Studio (Florence 1445 - 1510), The Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, oil on panel, a tondo; diameter: 34 1/4  in.; 87 cm. Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

Provenance: Lady Florence Emily Fermor-Hesketh (née Sharon) (1858-1924);
By whose Estate sold, London, Christie's, 6 March 1925, lot 121, to Smith (as Botticelli);
Dr. Seymour Maynard, M.D., 16 Prince Edward Mansions, Pembridge Square, London; 
By whose Estate sold, London, Christie's, 29 January 1954, lot 72, for 2000 guineas, to Engel (as Jacopo del Sellaio).

Bibliography: C. Thompson and H. Brigstocke, National Gallery of Scotland, Shorter Catalogue, Edinburgh 1978, p. 10, under cat. no. 1563 (as ascribed to Jacopo del Sellaio);
R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, Complete Catalogue, Los Angeles 1978, vol. II, p. 135, under cat. no. C36 (as ascribed to Jacopo del Sellaio). 

Notes: This beautiful tondo by Sandro Botticelli, executed with assistance from his workshop, likely dates to the second half of the 1480s, when the artist had returned to Florence from Rome following the completion of his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.  The design for the kneeling Virgin relates to Botticelli’s celebrated Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, which also dates to circa 1485 (fig. 1, inv. no. NG 2709).  The heavy, hooded mantle pools in similar folds on the ground and she clasps her hands in the same, quintessentially Botticellian gesture, crooking the little finger of each hand.  Unlike the Edinburgh Virgin, however, in the present painting the figure’s mouth is slightly open and there is a delicate shadow between her lips, a characteristic detail that is typical of the artist in this period.  He paid careful attention to light, depicting the highlights on the ox’s muzzle and horn with great sensitivity.  The veils that cover the Virgin’s head are rendered with similarly meticulous care.  The more the layers overlap, the more opaque they become, appearing whiter, an effect accomplished by building up fine layers of pigment in diagonal lines, mimicking the weave of the linen.