Lot 22: LORENZO DI BICCI

MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED

112 by 52.5 cm.; 44 1/8 by 20 3/4 in.

tempera on panel, gold ground, pointed top

Grafen von Reischach collection (by family tradition for generations), in whose private chapel at Schloß Riet, Baden-Wurttemberg, it hung until the 1950s;
Private collection, Ulm (Germany), until recently.

A leading figure in Florence during the second half of the 14th century, Lorenzo di Bicci belonged to the first of three generations of successful artists: his son Bicci di Lorenzo and grandson Neri di Bicci both succeeded him in running the family workshop for a period that spanned almost a century. Lorenzo di Bicci is recorded as a member of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali from 1353 to 1386, but is not documented as a painter in Florence until 1370; the year by which he was enrolled in the Florentine painters' guild. His first documented work is a painting destined for the church of Orsanmichele, datable to shortly after 1380. Seven years later Lorenzo was employed alongside Spinello Aretino and Agnolo Gaddi to help decorate the Duomo, for which he provided drawings for four statues of apostles destined for the façade of the cathedral. Despite his success, there is a notable scarcity of documented works in Lorenzo di Bicci's oeuvre and many of his commissions appear to have come from the clergy and the lower-middle class Florentine guilds.

This impressive panel almost certainly formed the central part of a triptych and, given its size, was probably destined for a chapel. It may be compared to similar panels by Lorenzo di Bicci in which the Madonna and Child appear either alone or with saints standing alongside them: compare, for example, the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Peter, formerly with Wildenstein, New York, which is the central panel of a triptych (the two lateral leaves of which are in the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa); (1) and the Madonna and Child, also formerly with Wildenstein, New York. (2)

The Madonna and Child are seated on a ledge draped with a sumptuous cloth: the delicate sgraffito reveals that the gold ground also runs beneath the lower part of the picture, indicating that no expense was spared on this commission. The decoration on the Child's drapery also reveals that silver leaf (now oxidised) originally lay beneath and the neckline and cuff of His yellow tunic are embellished with a delicate pattern in gold. The ledge on which the Madonna and Child are seated is not dissimilar to that in the central panel of Lorenzo di Bicci's triptych in the Museo della Collegiata, Empoli. (3) The overall design is reminiscent of a number of Lorenzo di Bicci's compositions in which the Madonna leans into the Christ Child, enveloping him affectionately in her arms: compare, for example, the painting in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. (4) This painting is an early work by the artist and although it is characteristic in type, the figures recall similar compositional motifs by Andrea Orcagna in whose workshop Lorenzo di Bicci may have trained.

We are grateful to Prof. Miklós Boskovits for proposing an attribution to Lorenzo di Bicci on the basis of photographs; an attribution independently endorsed by Dott. Andrea de Marchi and Everett Fahy, to whom we are also grateful.


1. The Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Peter, measuring 118 by 68.5 cm., was sold, London, Sotheby's, 1 November 1978, lot 3, and is published by R. Offner, in A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. A Legacy of Attributions, ed. H.B.J. Maginnis, New York 1981, p. 41, reproduced fig. 81. The lateral leaves showing Saints Anthony Abbot, Lawrence, and Lous of Toulouse and Saints Francis, Catherine, and Michael respectively are published in idem, p. 42.
2. The Madonna and Child, measuring 122 by 74 cm., was sold, London, Sotheby's, 1 November 1978, lot 4, and is published by Offner, op. cit., p. 41, reproduced fig. 82.
3. Reproduced by R. Fremantle, Florentine Gothic Painters, From Giotto to Masaccio, London 1975, p. 411, fig. 837.
4. Reproduced by Fremantle, op. cit., p. 411, fig. 839.