Lot 42: Bartolo di Fredi Cini (Siena circa 1330-1410) The Madonna and Child

The Madonna and Child
tempera on gold ground panel, shaped top
58.7 x 49.7cm (23 1/8 x 19 9/16in).

PROVENANCE:
With Knoedler, London
Sale, Spink and Son London, 1925

LITERATURE:
Broggi, Inventario generale degli oggetti d'arte della Provincia di Siena (1862-1865), Siena 1862, p.222
Perkins, 'Pitture senesi poco conosciute', La Diana, VIII, 1933, p.51
G. Freuler, Bartolo di Fredi Cini, (Switzerland, 1994), pp.448-449, cat.no.20, illus.p.448 (as Workshop of Bartolo di Fredi)

Freuler believes that the present panel was once a full-length depiction of the Madonna and Child enthroned and that it has been cut down both above and below the figures. Since the sale at Spink and Son, a section of gold ground panel (approximately 4.5 cm. wide) has been added along the width of the upper edge.

Given the present state of the picture, one is able to reassess the quality, authorship and date of the work. Freuler now believes that The Madonna and Child is a fully autograph painting of the late 1380s and that it can be compared to The Madonna and Child formerly in the Oratorio della Pietrina, Iano (see G. Freuler, Bartolo di Fredi Cini, Switzerland, 1994, p.273, fig.249). This work in turn is considered contemporary with Bartolo's celebrated altarpiece for Sant'Agostino in San Gimignano, which, according to Vasari, was signed and dated 1388. The punched ornament on the tooled haloes is most particular for this artist. It appears in the halo of the mourning Mary Magdalen in the Deposition of Christ in Montalcino, dated 1383 (op.cit.,p.181, fig.173) and also in the fragment of the painting of Saint Stephen, previously in the Blumenthal Collection, New York (op.cit., p.493, fig.400). The latter painting has also been cut down in the lower half, in the same way as the present work. Given the size of the Saint Stephen it may have formed part of a lateral panel to the present painting, which is undoubtedly a fragment of the central panel of a dismantled triptych or polyptych.

We are grateful to Professor Dr. Gaudenz Freuler for his kind assistance in the catalogue entry for this lot and also for confirming the attribution, on the basis of photographs.