National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Madonna and Child
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Provenance

Prince Bartolomeo Corsini [1729-1792], Villa di Mezzomonte, near Florence, by 1763;[1] by inheritance to Prince Tommaso Corsini [1767-1856]; by inheritance to Prince Andrea Corsini [1804-1868]; by inheritance to Prince Tommaso Corsini [1835-1919], who in the early 1870s had it transferred to Palazzo Corsini in Via del Parione, Florence;[2] by inheritance to his daughter, Beatrice Corsini Pandolfini [1868-1955]; (Professor Luigi Grassi [1858-1940], Florence); sold August 1930 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The inventory of the Villa di Mezzomonte, dated 1763 (Archivio Corsini, stanza VI, arm. 4, no. 14), describes in the first room on the lawn side, "un tabernacolo intagliato e dorato in parte e parte tinto di verde entrovi la S.ma Vergine con Gesu Bambino. Dipinto su asse" ("a tabernacle in part inlaid and gilded and in part painted green, containing the Holy Virgin and the Child Jesus. Painted on board"). In the transcription of the inventory done by Tommaso Corsini, an annotation indicates that the painting is "oggi in Galleria" ("now in the Gallery"). According to Ulderico Medici, Catalogo della Galleria dei Principi Corsini in Firenze, Florence, 1880: 65, the painting was moved to Palazzo Corsini in Via del Parione from a Corsini family villa in 1870. Perhaps this is only an approximate date; in any case, in the "Prospetto della corrispondenza dei diversi inventari (secondo l'ordine dei quadri nel 1872)" ("Outline of the corresondence between the various inventories [following the order of the pictures in 1872]") (Archivio Corsini, stanza VI, arm. 4, no. 74), lists "no. 3 Lippi (?). Madonna a tabernacolo. 1864 Mezzomonte" ("Madonna in a tabernacle. 1864 [meaning that in this year the painting was still preserved there])." The painting is not yet listed in the 1727 inventory of that villa.

[2] Tommaso Corsini was a man of vast cultural interests (see Nidia Danelon Vasoli, "Corsini, Tommaso," Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 1983: 29:680-683). As soon as he acceded to his title in 1868, he began to reorganize the family's historic gallery, entrusting the task to the sculptor Ulderico Medici, who also prepared the catalogue of the works exhibited. Of this painting, Medici 1880: 56 notes: "nel 1870 Sua Eccellenza il Principe Don Tommaso lo fece restaurare e dispose che fosse collocato nella di lui Galleria" ("in 1870 His Excellency Prince Don Tommaso had it restored and placed in his gallery").

[3] Until 1935 (see Lumachi, Florence: A New Illustrated Guide, 2nd ed., 1935: 213) and in some other guides even later, the painting continued to be listed as no. 176 in Room IV of the Corsini Gallery. However, as is documented by the label on the back of the painting, its ownership had already passed by inheritance to Prince Tommaso's daughter Beatrice, who in 1889 married Count Roberto Pandolfini. (The label is only partly legible today and reads "Prop. B. Pandolfini / Prov. Casa Corsini / Cat. N... Nota N..." Per a letter of 20 October 1936 from Duveen Brothers' office in Paris to the one in New York, the obscured line originally read "Cat. N. 858. Nota N. Specale.") Apparently soon after Tommaso Corsini's death his heirs began to negotiate the sale of some paintings from the Gallery; in 1920 a Duveen Brothers agent was invited to examine them in the gallery (see Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 123), but the company did not purchase the Botticelli until 1930. It was by then in the hands of the dealer and restorer Luigi Grassi, who showed it to Bernard Berenson in February 1930; Berenson promptly recommended the purchase to Duveen Brothers (Box 233, Folder 3, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; copies in NGA curatorial files).

[4] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Exhibition History

Bibliography

1937
Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: repro. p. 12 as The Corsini Madonna
1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 29.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 76.
1949
Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 26, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 17
1968
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 10, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 36, repro.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:80-81, II:pl. 54
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 55, repro.
1997
Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA: One Hundred Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. St. Louis, 1997: 138-139, 210, color repro.
2003
Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 152-156, color repro.

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