Madonna and Child

1460s or later

Anonymous Artist

Sculptor

A woman and child are carved in low relief from a white marble, vertically oriented, rectangular panel, which is set within a painted wood frame. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she looks down in that direction at the child seated on her lap. She has a long, delicate nose, a pointed chin, and her lips are closed. Her wavy hair is pulled back under a cloth that covers her heads and drapes over her shoulders. Her cloak waves in lively but shallow folds across the surface of the marble. She rests the long fingers of one hand on the baby’s shin and braces his side torso with the other. The nude boy has short, curly hair, round cheeks, chubby proportions, and his lips are parted. He holds a cylindrical object in one hand and reaches his right hand, to our left, to touch the woman’s clothing near her neckline. They both have flat, disk-like halos. The background is lightly carved to resemble an arched niche with leafy and geometric patterns and a leafy garland hanging from loops at the top corners. The marble panel is rounded at the top to encompass the woman’s halo and the top of her head. The frame is painted with stylized flowers and patterns in dark red, sky blue, ivory white, and black against a muted white background. Some of the stepped molding in the frame is gilded. A band across the top of the frame has roundels with two haloed women to either side and a nude baby carrying a cross over one shoulder, appearing to float against a blue background. Three roundels in a band below show women with long hair and halos, each holding objects like palm fronds, a plate, wheel, and a book.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 5

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    marble

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 72 x 57.3 cm (28 3/8 x 22 9/16 in.)
    framed: 117.3 x 86.7 x 6.7 cm (46 3/16 x 34 1/8 x 2 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.116

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Godefroy Brauer [1857-1923], Paris and Nice;[1] purchased 1907 by J.P. Morgan [1837-1913], New York, until at least 1923;[2] (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased January 1935 by Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.;[3] deeded 1 May 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] Belle de Costa Greene of the J.P. Morgan Gallery stated in a letter dated 22 January 1940 that Morgan bought the work from "G. Brauer," most likely the dealer and collector Godefroy Brauer.
[2] Provenance prior to Andrew Mellon is according to a letter from the Pierpont Morgan Library, in NGA curatorial files, which indicates the work may have come from the Hainauer Collection. From 1907-1916 the work was on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as indicated in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. II, 1907. A letter dated 22 January 1948 from M. Knoedler & Company, in NGA curatorial files, states that in 1916 the work was relocated to the Morgan Library. Morgan lent the sculpture to The Metropolitan Loan Exhibition of Arts in the Italian Renaissance in 1923.
[3] The 1940 letter (see note 1) states that Morgan sold the work to Mellon through Knoedler & Company.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1907

  • On loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1907-1916.

1923

  • Loan Exhibition of the Arts of the Italian Renaissance, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1923, no.48.

Bibliography

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 217, no. A-5.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 253, repro. 223.

1943

  • Swarzenski, Georg. "Some Aspects of Italian Renaissance Sculpture in the National Gallery." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th series, 24 (September 1943): 150 fig. 1, as by Agostino di Duccio.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 154, repro.

  • Seymour, Charles. Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art. Washington and New York, 1949: 177, note 25, repro. 91-94.

1951

  • Pope-Hennessy, John. 'Review: Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art by Charles Seymour." The Burlington Magazine 93, no. 576 (March 1951): 98.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 11.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 145.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 129, repro.

1973

  • Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 38, 39 repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 20, repro.

1997

  • Johnson, Geraldine A. "Art or artifact? Madonna and Child reliefs in the early Renaissance." In The Sculpted Object 1400-1700. Aldershot, England and Brookfield, Vermont, 1997: 5, 15 n. 25.

2017

  • Catterson, Lynn. "Stefano Bardini and the Taxonomic Branding of Marketplace Style: From the Gallery of a Dealer to the Institutional Canon." In Eva-Maria Troelenberg and Melania Savino, eds. Images of the Art Museum. Connecting Gaze and Discourse in the History of Museology. Berlin and Boston, 2017: 45-48, 46 fig. 2.

  • Dickerson III, C.D. "The Sculpture Collection: Shaping a Vision, Expanding a Legacy." _ National Gallery of Art Bulletin_ 56 (Spring 2017): 2-3, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63810170

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