Madonna and Child
Sandro Botticelli·c. 1470
Historical Context
Botticelli's Madonna and Child from around 1470 is an early work painted before he had fully developed the distinctive linear elegance and melancholy grace of his mature style. The intimacy of the two-figure composition — mother and child in close physical contact — reflects the Florentine tradition of devotional Madonnas as personal objects of meditation, their small scale indicating private rather than public use. Botticelli trained under Filippo Lippi, whose influence is visible in the tender physicality of the figures, and was absorbing the lessons of the Pollaiuolo brothers' dynamic linearity. The painting belongs to a period when Florentine art was moving decisively toward the new naturalism of the early Renaissance, and Botticelli was beginning to develop the individualistic style that would make his mythological paintings of the 1480s among the most celebrated images in Western art.
Technical Analysis
Botticelli's early tempera technique shows the refined, linear approach he developed under Filippo Lippi. The Madonna's face is modeled with delicate, luminous tones, while the flowing lines of her veil and drapery create the rhythmic, musical quality that characterizes Botticelli's art. The gold ground reflects traditional devotional convention.
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 [1858-1937, 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.
