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拍品专文
This remarkably well-preserved, jewel-like Madonna and Child is a rare painting by the Master of Monte Oliveto, an artist working in the circle and visual idiom of Duccio di Buoninsegna. Painted at the dawn of the fourteenth century, this panel, with its refined tooling and elegant figures, exemplifies the finesse and poetic lyricism of the early Sienese artists.
The anonymous painter is named after the Maestà at the monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a painting that Giacomo de Nicola first published as being by the same Duccesque artist as the Jarves diptych (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, inv. no. 1871.10a-b; G. de Nicola, ‘Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School in Mostra di Duccio at Siena’, The Burlington Magazine, XXII, 1912, p. 147). Cesare Brandi, who assigned the sobriquet ‘The Master of Monte Oliveto’, expanded the painter's initial catalogue to include a triptych in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), a small panel formerly in the collection of Viscount Lee of Fareham at Richmond (Newark, DE, Alana Collection; see A. Labriola, The Alana Collection: Italian Paintings from the 13th to 15th Century, I, Florence, 2009, p. 105), two works that Raimond van Marle had previously recognised as being by the same hand (R. van Marle, ‘Quadri ducceschi ignorati’, La Diana rivista d'arte e vita senese, VI, 1931, pp. 56 and 58), and the early Crucifix in the parish church of Montisi (C. Brandi, La regia pinacoteca di Siena, Rome, 1933, p. 177). The artist was subsequently studied by Esther Mendelsohn (E. Mendelsohn, The Maestro di Monte Oliveto, Master’s Thesis, New York University, 1950), Gertrude Coor-Achenbach (G. Coor-Achenbach, ‘A New Attribution to the Monte Oliveto Master and Some Observations Concerning the Chronology of his Works’, The Burlington Magazine, XCVII, 1955) and James H. Stubblebine (Stubblebine, op. cit.), helping to augment the artist’s oeuvre, which is composed of small panels and portable altarpieces dating to the first three decades of the fourteenth century (Labriola, op. cit., p. 104).
As observed by Coor-Achenbach, the artist’s compositions and iconography reveal his proximity to Duccio, though his tall figures with oval heads and slender bodies, along with his pronounced interest in angular outlines and sharp folds, also demonstrate an affinity to Segna di Bonaventura (Coor-Achenbach, op. cit., p. 207). She further notes the Master of Monte Oliveto’s association with the territory to the south-east of Siena, around Asciano – the site of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and the original location of another Madonna and Child by the artist (see ibid., p. 207). Recent scholars, including Ada Labriola, have argued that the Master of Monte Oliveto did not assimilate Duccio’s innovations directly, but instead through Segna di Bonaventura, who was also active in Asciano while working on a commission for the Collegiata di Sant’Agata (op. cit.).
Indeed, the present Madonna and Child was considered to be by Segna di Buonaventura while it was with Luigi Bellini. Stubblebine was the first to publish the painting with an attribution to the Master of Monte Oliveto, noting close parallels between the head of the Child – his square nose, the shading around his mouth and the distinctive ringlets of his hair – and a number of other paintings by the artist (op. cit., p. 99). He dates this painting to circa 1320, the artist’s ‘middle period’, during which he produced his finest works, including the triptych in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the ex-Lee panel and a lost fragmentary Enthroned Madonna and Child (see Labriola, op. cit., p. 109). The earliest works ascribed to him, like the Madonna in the Pinacoteca in Nocera Umbra, as noted by Labriola, lack the decorative richness and linear elegance evident in this painting (Labriola, loc. cit.). Moreover, complex punchwork motifs, as found along the edge of this composition, became more prevalent in Siena around 1320 – an innovation generally credited to Simone Martini (E.S. Skaug, Giotto and the Flood of Florence in 1333: A Study in Catastrophism, Guild Organisation, and Art Technology, Florence, 2013). The sweetness and delicate sensibility of these figures, with their clear ivory-like flesh tones and expressive physiognomy, further reflect the influence of Simone Martini, whose courtly elegance had permeated Sienese painting by this date.
Gaudenz Freuler, in an unpublished essay, posits that the present Madonna and Child is compositionally inspired by Duccio’s Maestà of circa 1316 for the Cathedral of Massa Marittima, thus providing an approximate terminus post quem (fig. 2). The Madonna’s positioning, with her arm supporting the Child, who in turn grasps the corner of her headdress, and the distinctive sombre expressions of both figures are analogous to Duccio’s posing of the Madonna and Child.
The panel has never been shaved down or cradled and retains its engaged frame as well as the original faux porphyry on its reverse. Traces of hinge marks suggest it once formed the left side of a portable diptych, the right half of which was independently identified by Mojmir Frinta and Laurence Kanter as the artist's Crucifixion in the Cincinnati Art Museum (fig. 3; written correspondence, see Spike, op. cit., p. 53). The dimensions and elegant punchwork of both panels match exactly, substantiating such an association. Pairing the poetic beauty of the Virgin and Child with the tragic mood of a tortured Christ in a small diptych was a popular format amongst early fourteenth-century Sienese painters, as seen in examples by Simone Martini, which are sometimes catalogued as attributed to or by a close follower of the artist, in the Horne Museum, Florence (inv. nos. 55 and 56), and a pair of panels forming a diptych by Segna di Bonaventura (formerly attributed to the Master of Monte Oliveto) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. nos. 1975.1.1 and 1975.1.2).
It is unknown when this and the panel now in Cincinnati were separated. The Crucifixion was acquired by one ‘Lamnertz’ in 1840 in Perugia, according to a German label on the reverse and was subsequently owned by two English collectors until it was sold Sotheby’s, London, 18 May 1949, lot 75, with an attribution to Ugolino. The panel was then with Ettore Sestieri, Rome, from whom it was purchased and gifted to the Cincinnati Art Museum by the Duke and Duchess of Talleyrand in 1953 (Spike, op. cit., p. 53). The Madonna and Child is first documented in a sale at Sotheby’s in 1960 with a generic attribution to the Sienese School (see Provenance). The diptych may well have still been intact in 1840 and disassembled while passing to or between English collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Madonna and Child is next recorded in Florence with Luigi Bellini, who exhibited it between the years 1961 and 1967, with the panel being acquired by a Swiss collector shortly after that date.
We are grateful to Keith Christiansen for dating the panel to the 1320s on the basis of digital images, to Laurence Kanter for proposing a date in the 1330s and to Peter Jonathan Bell for his assistance in cataloging this lot.
Please note that the Cincinnati Art Museum has expressed an interest in reuniting their Crucifixion with this Madonna and Child, initially for study purposes and possibly on temporary loan.
The anonymous painter is named after the Maestà at the monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a painting that Giacomo de Nicola first published as being by the same Duccesque artist as the Jarves diptych (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, inv. no. 1871.10a-b; G. de Nicola, ‘Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School in Mostra di Duccio at Siena’, The Burlington Magazine, XXII, 1912, p. 147). Cesare Brandi, who assigned the sobriquet ‘The Master of Monte Oliveto’, expanded the painter's initial catalogue to include a triptych in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 1), a small panel formerly in the collection of Viscount Lee of Fareham at Richmond (Newark, DE, Alana Collection; see A. Labriola, The Alana Collection: Italian Paintings from the 13th to 15th Century, I, Florence, 2009, p. 105), two works that Raimond van Marle had previously recognised as being by the same hand (R. van Marle, ‘Quadri ducceschi ignorati’, La Diana rivista d'arte e vita senese, VI, 1931, pp. 56 and 58), and the early Crucifix in the parish church of Montisi (C. Brandi, La regia pinacoteca di Siena, Rome, 1933, p. 177). The artist was subsequently studied by Esther Mendelsohn (E. Mendelsohn, The Maestro di Monte Oliveto, Master’s Thesis, New York University, 1950), Gertrude Coor-Achenbach (G. Coor-Achenbach, ‘A New Attribution to the Monte Oliveto Master and Some Observations Concerning the Chronology of his Works’, The Burlington Magazine, XCVII, 1955) and James H. Stubblebine (Stubblebine, op. cit.), helping to augment the artist’s oeuvre, which is composed of small panels and portable altarpieces dating to the first three decades of the fourteenth century (Labriola, op. cit., p. 104).
As observed by Coor-Achenbach, the artist’s compositions and iconography reveal his proximity to Duccio, though his tall figures with oval heads and slender bodies, along with his pronounced interest in angular outlines and sharp folds, also demonstrate an affinity to Segna di Bonaventura (Coor-Achenbach, op. cit., p. 207). She further notes the Master of Monte Oliveto’s association with the territory to the south-east of Siena, around Asciano – the site of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and the original location of another Madonna and Child by the artist (see ibid., p. 207). Recent scholars, including Ada Labriola, have argued that the Master of Monte Oliveto did not assimilate Duccio’s innovations directly, but instead through Segna di Bonaventura, who was also active in Asciano while working on a commission for the Collegiata di Sant’Agata (op. cit.).
Indeed, the present Madonna and Child was considered to be by Segna di Buonaventura while it was with Luigi Bellini. Stubblebine was the first to publish the painting with an attribution to the Master of Monte Oliveto, noting close parallels between the head of the Child – his square nose, the shading around his mouth and the distinctive ringlets of his hair – and a number of other paintings by the artist (op. cit., p. 99). He dates this painting to circa 1320, the artist’s ‘middle period’, during which he produced his finest works, including the triptych in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the ex-Lee panel and a lost fragmentary Enthroned Madonna and Child (see Labriola, op. cit., p. 109). The earliest works ascribed to him, like the Madonna in the Pinacoteca in Nocera Umbra, as noted by Labriola, lack the decorative richness and linear elegance evident in this painting (Labriola, loc. cit.). Moreover, complex punchwork motifs, as found along the edge of this composition, became more prevalent in Siena around 1320 – an innovation generally credited to Simone Martini (E.S. Skaug, Giotto and the Flood of Florence in 1333: A Study in Catastrophism, Guild Organisation, and Art Technology, Florence, 2013). The sweetness and delicate sensibility of these figures, with their clear ivory-like flesh tones and expressive physiognomy, further reflect the influence of Simone Martini, whose courtly elegance had permeated Sienese painting by this date.
Gaudenz Freuler, in an unpublished essay, posits that the present Madonna and Child is compositionally inspired by Duccio’s Maestà of circa 1316 for the Cathedral of Massa Marittima, thus providing an approximate terminus post quem (fig. 2). The Madonna’s positioning, with her arm supporting the Child, who in turn grasps the corner of her headdress, and the distinctive sombre expressions of both figures are analogous to Duccio’s posing of the Madonna and Child.
The panel has never been shaved down or cradled and retains its engaged frame as well as the original faux porphyry on its reverse. Traces of hinge marks suggest it once formed the left side of a portable diptych, the right half of which was independently identified by Mojmir Frinta and Laurence Kanter as the artist's Crucifixion in the Cincinnati Art Museum (fig. 3; written correspondence, see Spike, op. cit., p. 53). The dimensions and elegant punchwork of both panels match exactly, substantiating such an association. Pairing the poetic beauty of the Virgin and Child with the tragic mood of a tortured Christ in a small diptych was a popular format amongst early fourteenth-century Sienese painters, as seen in examples by Simone Martini, which are sometimes catalogued as attributed to or by a close follower of the artist, in the Horne Museum, Florence (inv. nos. 55 and 56), and a pair of panels forming a diptych by Segna di Bonaventura (formerly attributed to the Master of Monte Oliveto) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. nos. 1975.1.1 and 1975.1.2).
It is unknown when this and the panel now in Cincinnati were separated. The Crucifixion was acquired by one ‘Lamnertz’ in 1840 in Perugia, according to a German label on the reverse and was subsequently owned by two English collectors until it was sold Sotheby’s, London, 18 May 1949, lot 75, with an attribution to Ugolino. The panel was then with Ettore Sestieri, Rome, from whom it was purchased and gifted to the Cincinnati Art Museum by the Duke and Duchess of Talleyrand in 1953 (Spike, op. cit., p. 53). The Madonna and Child is first documented in a sale at Sotheby’s in 1960 with a generic attribution to the Sienese School (see Provenance). The diptych may well have still been intact in 1840 and disassembled while passing to or between English collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Madonna and Child is next recorded in Florence with Luigi Bellini, who exhibited it between the years 1961 and 1967, with the panel being acquired by a Swiss collector shortly after that date.
We are grateful to Keith Christiansen for dating the panel to the 1320s on the basis of digital images, to Laurence Kanter for proposing a date in the 1330s and to Peter Jonathan Bell for his assistance in cataloging this lot.
Please note that the Cincinnati Art Museum has expressed an interest in reuniting their Crucifixion with this Madonna and Child, initially for study purposes and possibly on temporary loan.