Madonna and Child
1460s or later
Sculptor


West Building Main Floor, Gallery 5
Artwork overview
-
Medium
marble
-
Credit Line
-
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