The Madonna of Humility, c. 1423/1424

[1] Relating the results of a 1930 trip to investigate the painting's provenance, Edward Fowles, of Duveen's Paris office, wrote to Bernard Berenson on 7 April 1930 (Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, near Florence; copy in NGA curatorial files): "It comes from the Lonyays, a very good family. They inherited it from Princess Anna de Croy who was of German origin but married a Hungarian who was a general in the Austrian Army. The family's idea is that he 'commandeered' the picture in one of the Austro-Italian wars..." This information seems trustworthy, although not precise. According to the Almanach de Gotha (1877: 103, and 1895: 136), in 1864 Prince Leopold-Emmanuel-Louis Croy Dülmen married Béatrice, widow of the Count Laval de Nugent, and after her death married a second time, in 1881, Rosa Anne von Sternberg, widow of Count Hohenlohe Bartenstein. Prince Leopold was in the Austrian military service, but it seems unlikely that the painting could have come from the spoils of war. More probably it belonged to his first wife, the daughter of Massimiliano Strozzi Sacrati of Mantua; she was a descendant of an old Florentine family, and one of her forebears, Giulio Cesare, is said to have had an art collection that included fragments of Michelangelo's cartoon of the Battle of Cascina (see Pompeo Litta, Famiglie celebri italiane, ser. 1, vol. 5 [n.d.], pl. xiv). Fowles, in any case, reports "testimony of people of the family that the picture has been known in the family as far back as 1886."

[2] Count Albert Lónyay, general of the Austrian Army, in 1885 married Marie Henriette Hohenlohe Bartenstein, daughter of Princess Rosa Anne von Sternberg from her first marriage (see Almanach de Gotha, ed. 1895: 159).

[3] On 2 April 1929 the Paris office of Duveen Brothers wrote to the New York office, sending a photograph "of the Masaccio 'Madonna' which we have purchased from a private family in Hungaria [sic]. The picture is on panel and will need carefully [sic] cradling and cleaning before shipment" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 264, Folder 13, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).

Early in 1930 the painting was sent to Florence for examination by experts of the Soprintendenza there. This came about because, according to Martin Porkay, Auf dem Karussell der Kunst, Munich, 1956: 178, "the restorer P. [Porkay himself?] who had left the Vienna 'Atelier' on account of financial controversies with the proprietor, took revenge by going to Duveen himself and telling him that the picture had been faked." Actually, the "betrayal" of the restorer was probably only one of the reasons for which Sir Jospeh Duveen was "in the dumps over the Masaccio," as Nicky Mariano, Berenson's secretary, put it in a letter of 2 April 1930 (copy in NGA curatorial files; Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, near Florence). In correspondence dated 16 March 1930 Raimond van Marle advised Duveen's New York office that, "Professor [August L.] Mayer just wrote me that he is going to publish number of faked pictures of which he says to know the origin...amongst which the Madonna which Berenson has published as by Masaccio," and this message was relayed by the New York office to the Paris office on 28 March. The situation quickly changed: on 18 April 1930 Duveen wrote to the dealer Julius Böhler, "I understand that Dr. Mayer had a doubt, but has since told my Paris people that he was in error and that he is now quite satisfied." (Copies of this correspondence in NGA curatorial files; Box 264, Folder 13, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). Presumably Duveen convinced Mayer that the examination at the Soprintendenza earlier that year had confirmed the painting's authenticity; Carlo Gamba, in a letter of 20 February 1930 to Berenson (copy in NGA curatorial files; Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, near Florence), recognized Masaccio's authorship and lamented the seriously repainted condition of the panel, commenting very acutely: "forse le carni wono tutte ripasste e non ci rimane che la preparazioneverdastra e rosea come nella Madonna di Londra, ma togliendo i pasticci, resta il modellato di Masaccio con tutto il suo vigore" ("the flesh tones may all be retouched and all that is left is the greenish and pinkish preparation as in the Madonna in London [that is, in the central panel of the Pisa altarpiece in the National Gallery], but taking away the pastiches there remains the modeling of Masaccio in all its vigor"). Subsequently the painting was kept in Duveen's London office (see Samuel N. Behrman, Duveen, New York, 1952: 171, and Porkay 1956: 178).

The account given of the painting's provenance by Porkay 1956: 177 is different and seems less reliable. He claims that the painting was acquired by an unnamed dealer in Vienna in 1927 and was cleaned and repainted in Masaccio's style in the dealer's atelier. Subsequently, the dealer took the result of his efforts to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna to be examined by the Museum's experts and, having obtained a positive response, sold the picture to Duveen "durch den ungarischen Grafen Lónyay, der als Besitzer fungierte" ("through the Hungarian Count Lónyay who appeared as the owner"). Although it is sometimes stated that the painting came from Hungary, this apparently is not the case. Although the Lónyays were of Hungarian origin, they resided mainly in Vienna, and the painting probably remained there even after the the death of Princess Rose Croy Dülmen in 1918.

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