Maria mit Kind in einer Nische / Virgin and Child in a Niche

After Donatello

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi

Florence ca. 1386-1466

Virgin and Child in a Niche

Bronze, with traces of silver

20,3 x 15,3 cm

Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung, Inv. SKS 3044.

Bode-Museum, on view.

Provenance

Berlin, Hainauer Collection (before 1906); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (1906-1939); Berlin, storage (1939-1945); Merkers, storage (1945); Wiesbaden, Central Collecting Point (1945-1956); West Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Museum Dahlem (1956-1990); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Museum Dahlem (1990-1997); Berlin, storage (1997-2006); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Bode-Museum (since 2006).

Acquisition

Gift of Henry Duveen, Duveen Brothers, London, 1906; as by Donatello. Acquisition file n°F. 1395/06 (untraced).

Other versions

• Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung, Inv. SKS 76. Painted stucco.

• Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Inv. No. 2049: Stucco, 69 x 32 cm.

• Florence, via del Corso.

• Florence, via Ghibellina.

• London, The Wallace Collection. Inv. S 297. Bronze, 20.3 x 15.3 cm.

• London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. 7385-1861. Stucco, 47,5 x 32,5 cm; 20 x 15,5 cm without frame.

• Orbignano (Pistoia), Santa Maria. Marble.

• Paris, Musée du Louvre, Inv. 704. Terracotta, 21.8 x 16.9 cm.

• Ravenna. Marble.

• Sinalunga, SM delle Nevi.

• Vatican State, Museo Sacro. Marble (KIF 171507).

• Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, Kress Collection, Inv. 1957.14.131. Bronz ( Formerly Paris, Gustave Dreyfus collecti.)

• Formerly Amsterdam, private collection.

• Formerly Florence, Grassi collection. Bronze (Photo Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz n°59966).

• Formerly London, Christie’s, sale 7th July 1987, lot 150.

• Formerly New York, sale of the Raoul Tolentino collection, 1926, lot. 719. Stucco.

Curatorial Files in the Bode-Museum

Letter from Ulrich Middeldorf to Peter Metz, 9 January 1961: discusses the rediscovered version in Orbignano.

Comment

This bronze relief of the Virgin and Child is known in several other versions, the closest two to the present one being in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and in the Wallace Collection, London. The Virgin holds her standing Child with her left hand, while gesturing invitingly toward the viewer with the other – a gesture echoed by the right hand of Christ, who holds onto the neck of his mother with his other hand, in a realistic depiction of trying to maintain balance. Both figures are seen behind a balustrade on which the Child is standing, and a vase is displayed; they stand out from a niche seen in perspective, which appears to be at some distance behind them.

It is not a coincidence that the name of Donatello has always been mentioned when discussing this typology of the Madonna and Child: the pose of the Madonna with the left arm parallel to the picture plane recalls another plaquette with a Donatellesque attribution (see Inv. SKS 1028), while the open right hand is a motif used in the High Altar of the Santo in Padua. The anatomy of the Child is typical of Donatello, as is the way his left arm is hidden behind his mother’s head, with only the tips of the fingers discernable (see Inv. SKS 1940). The architecture of the niche, seen in perspective and with reference to Antique forms that are now in ruins, is present in many works by the artist, such as the bronze relief of the Feast of Herod made for the Baptistery Font in the Cathedral of Siena. Rather than Donatello himself, whose direct style cannot be recognized in any version of the series, the critics have generally and convincingly seen the relief as by an artist from his school, probably after a model by the master (Bode 1897; Schubring 1907b). In 1961, a Madonna relief in marble was found in Santa Maria, Orbignano and attributed to Donatello by the local press (N. V. 1961); however, this relief is too weak to be by Donatello and is certainly by Urbano da Cortona instead, who authored the reliefs from the Chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie in Siena Cathederal, now in the Museo dell’opera metropolitana, Siena.

The composition was reproduced in a drawing by the school of Pisanello preserved in the Musée Condé, Chantilly (the absence of a vase having made Jolly 1998 think that is was missing from the original composition, which is far from convincing). Christiansen 2004 related the work to Florentine painters such as Paolo Uccello and the Master of Pratovecchio; the echoes of such a composition are also especially important with artists in the region of Padua, such as Giorgio Schiavone (National Gallery, London); Marco Zoppo (British Museum, London, Inv. 1920-2-14-2); Niccolò Baroncelli (the Miracle of St Gilles, Museo Civico, Padua; see Galli 2010); or Andrea Mantegna (see Edskerdjian 1992). It is conceivable that the prototype for this work was made by Donatello between Padua and Florence, i.e. during the 1440s.

Literature

Molinier 1886

Émile Molinier, Les Bronzes de la Renaissance. Les plaquettes. Catalogue raisonné, Paris, Jules Rouam, 1886, I, p. 34 cat. 64: Donatello, mentions the bronze version in the G. Dreyfus collection now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the variant in terracotta in the Musée du Louvre.

Bode 1897

Wilhelm Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Hainauer, Berlin, W. Büxenstein, 1897, pp. 29, 80 cat. 127: school of Donatello.

Schubring 1907a

Paul Schubring, Donatello. Des Meisters Werke in 277 Abbildungen, Stuttgart and Leipzig, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1907, pp. 170, 201: circle of Donatello.

Schubring 1907b

Paul Schubring, “Gli acquisti del museo ‘Kaiser Friedrich’”, L’Arte, X, 1907, p. 452: not Donatello, but a pupil.

Bange 1922

E. F. Bange, Die Italienischen Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, Zweiter Teil: Reliefs und Plaketten, Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter, 1922, p. 1 cat. 3: Donatello.

Kauffmann 1935

Hans Kauffmann, Donatello. Eine Einführung in sein Bilden und Denken, Berlin, Grotesche Verlagsbuchandlung, 1935, pp. 156, 223.

Landais 1958

Hubert Landais, Les bronzes italiens de la Renaissance, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1958, p. 33: close to Donatello; same artist as the bronze Flagellation in Berlin (Inv. SKS 1027); the Camondo Crucufixion in the Musée du Louvre, Paris; and the St Sebastian in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris.

N. V. 1961

N. V., La Nazione, 19 juin 1961, p. 5: original version by Donatello in Santa Maria, Orbignano.

Pope-Hennessy 1964

John Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1964, I, p. 91: style of Donatello.

Pope-Hennessy 1965

John Pope-Hennessy, Renaissance Bronzes from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, London, Phaidon Press, 1965, p. 21: related to cat. 60 in the Kress collection; style of Donatello, made by a member of Donatello’s Paduan workshop; the gesture of the Virgin is a derivation from the St Giustina made for the High Altar at Padua.

Metz 1966

Peter Metz, Bildwerke der christlichen Epochen von der Spätantike bis zum Klassizismus aus den Beständen der Skulpturenabteilung der Staatliche Museen, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem, Munich, Prestel, 1966, p. 89-90, cat. 501: after Donatello.

Markham Schulz 1983

Anne Markham Schulz, Antonio Rizzo. Sculptor and Architect, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 26: probably after an original by Donatello; derivation in a tondo by Antonio Rizzo in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Luchs 1985

Allison Luchs in Italian Renaissance Sculpture in the Time of Donatello, exh. cat. (Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 23 October 1985-5 January 1986 and Fort Worth, Kimbell Museum of Art, 22 February-5 April 1986), Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1985, p. 140: formerly in Berlin, “also extremely good”.

Luchs 1986

Allison Luchs in Alan Phipps Darr and Giorgio Bonsanti (eds.), Donatello e i suoi, exh. cat. (Florence, Forte del Belvedere, 15 June-7 September 1986), Detroit and Florence, The Detroit Institute of Arts, La Casa Usher and Arnaldo Mondadori Editore, 1986, p. 167: destroyed.

Avery 1989

Charles Avery, “Donatello’s Madonnas Revisited”, in Donatello Studien, Munich, Brückmann, 1989, pp. 226-227: after Donatello, ca. 1427-1430.

Kokole 1990

Stanko Kokole, “Notes on the Sculptural Sources for Giorgio Schiavone’s Madonna in London”, Venezia Arti, 1990/4, p. 52: after Donatello in Padua; discusses the Washington version only; Virgin and Child by Giorgio Schiavone in the National Gallery, London (Inv. NG 904), is seen as a derivation.

Avery 1991

Charles Avery, Donatello. Catalogo completo delle opere, Florence, Cantini, 1991, p. 50 cat. 31: Donatello; discusses the Washington and Wallace Collection versions only.

Christiansen 1992

Keith Christiansen, “Early Works: Padua”, in Jane Martineau (ed.), Andrea Mantegna, exh. cat. (London, Royal Academy of Arts, 17 January-5 April 1992; and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 9 May-12 July 1992), Milan, Olivetti-Electa, 1992, p. 97: Mantegna depends on that type and of Inv. SKS 1028.

Jolly 1998

Anna Jolly, Madonnas by Donatello and his Circle, Frankfurt am Main et al., Peter Lang, 1998, p. 148 cat. 44.1: after an original by Donatello, late 1420s or early 1430s; the drawing of Pisanello after the relief (Musée Condé, Chantilly) has no vase, which suggests that none existed in the original version; compared with the Feast of Herod by Donatello in the Baptistery, Siena (for the missing stones in the architecture), with the Tombstone of Bishop Giovanni Pecci in the Cathedral, Siena (for shell niche); Inv. SKS 3044 is the “best surviving example of this type”.

Christiansen 2004

Keith Christiansen in Matteo Ceriana et al. (eds.), Fra Carnevale. Un artista rinascimentale da Filippo Lippi a Piero della Francesca, exh. cat. (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004, p. 168: circle of Donatello; the background accentuates the pathos, as in the “Pazzi Madonna” (Inv. SKS 51), the Chellini Madonna (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) or the Madonna del Perdono (Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana, Siena); compared with a Virgin and Child by Paolo Uccello in the National Gallery of Art, Dublin and a Virgin and Child by the Master of Pratovecchio in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge; the gesture of the Virgin is compared with the bronze doors of the Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence; the Child is compared with the putti above the Cavalcanti Annunciation, the architecture to the Feast of Herod in the Baptistery, Siena, and in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille.

Pizzo 2006

Marco Pizzo in Davide Banzato et al. (ed.), Mantegna e Padova, exh. cat. (Padua, Musei Civici di Padova, 16 September 2006-14 January 2007), Milan, Skira, 2006, p: 242 cat. 47.

Bormand 2008

Marc Bormand, Donatello. La Vierge et l’Enfant. Deux reliefs en terre cuite, Paris, Musée du Louvre and Somogy, 2008, pp. 13-14, 40: circle of Donatello, ca. 1430; compared to a drawing by Pisanello in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Discusses only the Washington version.

Galli 2010

Aldo Galli, “Vocazione e prime esperienze di Antonio di Cristoforo e Niccolò Baroncelli, scultori fiorentini a Ferrara”, Prospettiva, 139-140, July-October 2010, p. 44: cites only the Washington version as the best one, by Donatello in the time of the Feast of Herod made for the Siena Font; the arch is repeated in a relief by Niccolò Baroncelli in the Museo Civico, Padua (A Miracle of St Gilles, 1440-42).

Neville Rowley (24 May 2016)