Lot 154: MARIOTTO DI NARDO AND WORSHOP

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS JOHN THE BAPTIST, FRANCIS OF ASSISI, ANTHONY ABBOT AND CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

34 by 19 3/4 in.; 86.4 by 50.2 cm.

tempera on panel, gold ground, shaped top

M. Salmi, "Spigolatura d'arte Toscana", in L'Arte, 1909, vol. VII, p. 179;
Bulletin of the Art Division. Los Angeles County Museum, Summer 1950, vol. 3, p. 17, no. 3 (as Mariotto di Nardo);
B. Berenson, "Quadri denza casa; il Trecento fiorentino, III", in Dedalo, XI, 1930-1, p. 1300, reproduced, p. 1308 (as by a follower of Mariotto di Nardo);
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, exhibition catalogue, Stockholm 1954, 13, cat. no. 6;
P. Wescher and E. Feinblatt, Los Angeles County Museum, Catalogue of Paintings I: Catalogue of Italian French and Spanish Paintings, XV-XVIII Century, Los Angeles 1954, p. 13, cat. no.6, reproduced (as Mariotto di Nardo);
B. Berenson, Homeless Paintings of the Renaissance, London 1970, p. 123 (as by a follower of Mariotto di Nardo);
B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1972, p. 591 (as Mariotto di Nardo);
S. Schaefer, et al., European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1987, p. 64, reproduced (as Workshop of Mariotto di Nardo);
S. Caroselli, Italian Panel Painting of the Early Renaissance, Los Angeles 1994, pp. 31, 36, 40, 101, reproduced.

Achille de Clemente, Florence;
His sale, New York, American Art Association, January 15, 1931, lot 495, for $1,200 to Hearst;
William Randolph Hearst, New York and Los Angeles, until 1948, by whom bequeathed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1948 (acc. no. 48.5.7).

Although attributed to Mariotto di Nardo when in the collection of William Randolph Hearst, this panel is now widely considered to be a product of Mariotto's workshop. As early as 1930 Bernard Berenson had in fact cast the attribution into doubt, but it appears in subsequent publications of the 1950s and in Fredericksen and Zeri's 1972 census of North American public collections as fully attributed to Mariotto. The design and positioning of the Madonna and child certainly echo those of several autograph works, namely the central panel of his triptych in Panzano, Pieve di S. Leonino, (1) as well as the Madonna and child with angels and SS. Lawrence, John the Baptist, Anthony Abbot, Nicholas, Philip and Bernard in Siena, Palazzo Saracini. (2) Prof. Miklos Boskovits, who inspected the painting in Los Angeles in the 1980s, considers the painting a serial product from the artist's late phase and one therefore in which it is impossible to determine the level of involvement of the master himself.

1. See B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School, vol. I, Greenwich (Ct.) 1963, p. 132, reproduced plate 530.
2. Berenson, op. cit., 1930-1, reproduced p. 1304.