Madonna and Child

The painting, attributed to Neri di Bicci (1418/1420–1492) by Federico Zeri (1955), depicts the Madonna and Child giving their blessing. The Virgin is adorned with a translucent veil, holding her son who is standing on her knees. The direction of the Child’s gaze upwards suggests that this panel might be part of a larger composition, such as a polyptych or a tabernacle. In the extensive production of Neri and his workshop, which was active in the Florentine and Tuscan art market in the latter half of the fifteenth century, this work can be compared with the panel featuring the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints delivered in 1463 to the oratory of the church of San Verano in Peccioli (near Pisa), now housed in the local Museo d’Arte Sacra and documented in the Ricordanze del pittore a Pisa in December 1463 (Carocci 1906, p. 31, Santi 1976, p. 217).
There is also a similarity with the Madonna and Child in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1946.242), attributed to Neri around 1460, of which the panel in the Palazzo Venezia appears to be a more standardized variant. This small group of works shares features such as the robust and rigid anatomy of the Child, the juxtaposition of his halo in foreshortening, and the disc-shaped halo behind his mother’s head (the solution is different in the Cleveland panel), and Mary’s dress with a border on the neckline and sleeves that end in cuffs. A photo from July 1940 held in the archives of the Museo di Palazzo Venezia shows the background damaged by drops of color, leading us to believe that an undocumented restoration took place after the work entered the museum, undertaken to repair these gaps.

Alexandre Vico

Poor.

Rome, Collezione Giulio Sterbini;
Rome, Collezione Lupi;
Rome, Collezione Giovanni Armenise, 1940;
Rome, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia, donazione 1940.

Venturi Adolfo, La Quadreria Sterbini in Roma, in «L’Arte», VIII (1905), pp. 422-440;
Venturi, Adolfo, La Galleria Sterbini in Roma: saggio illustrativo, Roma 1906;
Francis Henry S., Recent Gifts to the Museum, in «The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art», n. 34, vol. I., 1947, p. 14;
Berenson Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places, London 1963, vol. I, p. 153;
Carocci Guido, Un dipinto di Neri di Bicci nella chiesa di S. Verano a Peccioli (Pisa), in «L’Illustratore fiorentino», Vol. III, (1906), pp. 31- 32;
Zeri Federico (a cura di), Catalogo del Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale. 3. I dipinti del Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Roma, Roma 1955, pp. 7, 17, n. 81;
Santi Bruno, Dalle Ricordanze di Neri di Bicci, in «Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore», ser. III, vol. III-I (1973), p. 173;
Stechow Wolfgang, Cleveland Museum of Art. European Paintings Before 1500, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland 1974, pp. 46-47;
Santi Bruno (a cura di), Neri di Bicci, Le Ricordanze, Pisa 1976;
Frosinini Cecilia, Il passaggio di gestione in una bottega pittorica fiorentina del primo ‘400: Bicci di Lorenzo e Neri di Bicci, in «Antichità viva», 26, 1 (1987), pp. 5-14;
Thomas Anabel, The Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany, Cambridge 1995, pp. 265-296;
Holmes Megan, Neri di Bicci and the Commodification of Artistic Values in Florence Painting (1450-1500), in Fantoni Marcello, Matthew Louisa C., Matthews-Griego Sara F. (a cura di), The Art Market in Italy (15th-17th Centuries). Il Mercato dell’Arte in Italia (secc. XV-XVII), Modena 2003, pp. 213-223;
Poletti Federico, Biografia scritta di Neri di Bicci pittore “visibile pregare”: percorsi tra parola e immagine nelle opere di Neri di Bicci, in «Letteratura e Arte», I (2003), pp. 111-126;
Darrow Elizabeth Jane, Neri di Bicci and the Practice of Renaissance Devotional Painting, in Darrow Elisabeth Jane, Dorman Nicholas (a cura di), Renaissance Art in focus: Neri di Bicci and Devotional Painting in Italy, catalogo della mostra (Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, 25 marzo-13 giugno 2004), Seattle 2004, pp. 13-33;
Domenici Raffaelle, Madre e Madonna. Tra arte e sentimento, Lucca 2018.