Details

LOT 0324

Italian Virgin of Tenderness Icon

CIRCA 19TH CENTURY A.D.

11 5/8 in. (279 grams, 29.5 cm high).

A painting on wood of the Virgin of Tenderness, copying an earlier work, depicting Mary dressed in blue robe ornamented with gold stars with an off-white veil delicately framing her face; gently supporting the Child dressed in red tunic; both figures nimbate and affectionately leaning towards each other with their cheeks touching; the scene enclosed in a gilt pseudo-Gothic crenelated frame, an inscription in new Gothic uncial style to the bottom reading 'AVE GRATIA PLENA' for 'hail full of grace'; mounted on a 19th century crenelated wooden pedestal fitted with candle holder to each side in the shape of a flower.

Provenance

Property of a London lady, part of her family's collection.

Literature

Cf. the Virgin with the Child of Sano di Pietro, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1975.1.51, for similar painting; cf. also Mazzoni, G., Falsi d'autore. Icilio Federico Joni e la cultura del falso tra Otto e Novecento, Siena, 2004, p.162, no.43.

Footnotes

The panel has many stylistic similarities with that of Icilio Federico Joni (1866-1946) assigned to the style of Sano di Pietro. Compared to that, the head of the Virgin has been realised in a more archaic Gothic style. With their faces gently pressed together, the interaction between the Virgin and the Child evokes a tender intimacy. This motif appears in numerous works by Sano di Pietro and his workshop (for example, in another painting in the Lehman Collection in MET, 975.1.39). The particular manner of concealing the Child’s right cheek behind the Virgin’s face was probably inspired by Madonna painted by the Sienese master Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena).