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Lot Essay
This is a studio reduction of one of Botticelli's outstanding masterpieces, the Madonna of the Pomegranate (the Madonna della Melagrana) of the Uffizi, Florence (no. 1607). Horne believed that the Wernher panel was based not on the Uffizi picture, but on the cartoon for this: the difference in scale would of course preclude a precise dependence upon such a cartoon. The panel is smaller (the diameter of the prototype is 143.5 cm.) and the two angels who flank the Madonna in the Uffizi picture are omitted, as is the lily held by the angel on the left in that work. The studio hand responsible for this panel also simplified a number of details: thus less of the pomegranate is peeled than in the Uffizi picture and the modelling of the hands, for example, is inevitably less subtle than in in Botticelli's prototype.
The original was recorded in the posthumous inventory of October 1675 of the collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici. It is again described in a document of 19 October 1780, recording its transfer at the command of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi. It remains in the original frame mentioned in the 1675 document; this is carved with a band of interlacing stems enclosing fleurs-de-lys, a Florentine emblem, on a blue ground. Milanesi in 1878 argued that the frame demonstrated that the tondo was painted for a Florentine public office, proposing that it was a commission for the Magistrato de' Massai della Camera. Neither Horne nor Lightbown could find any documentary evidence for this, but Horne accepted that Botticelli did paint the tondo for a Florentine public office in 1487, a view which, although not universally accepted, was supported by Berenson and is followed by Lightbown.
It is perhaps surprising that the Wernher picture is the only studio tondo based on so monumental and successful a composition for a public setting. The figures of the Madonna and Child were, however, also used for a panel once in the Aynard collection, Lyons, which was also evidently a product of Botticelli's large studio.
Edward Solly (1776-1844), a timber merchant who lived for many years in Berlin, assembled an unparalleled collection of early Italian and other pictures. Financial reverses caused the sale of the entire collection to the King of Prussia in 1821, and this still constitutes the core of the Gemäldegalerie at Berlin. Solly returned to London, where he formed a second, smaller collection, much of which was dispersed in 1847. Solly had been a pioneer in his interest in Botticelli, owning the monumental Saint Sebastian (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, no. 1128), as well as a version of the Venus Pudica (Berlin, no. 1124) and the so-called Madonna dei Candelari (Berlin, no. 102), which is generally regarded as a studio production. The Wernher tondo may have been acquired as a substitute for the pictures he had sold to Berlin. This picture, like other quattrocento works in Solly's second collection, is not mentioned in Waagen's Works of Art and Artists in England of 1838, suggesting that it may have been acquired after the author's first visit to England.
The Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley (1787-1863) had inherited Wootton Hall, Staffordshire in 1822 and first visited Italy in that year. By the 1840s he had formed a collection of considerable range and distinction, securing many key works at auction at Christie's and elsewhere. He owned such masterpieces as Bellini's Agony in the Garden, (London, National Gallery) and Giotto's Dormition of the Virgin (Berlin).
The original was recorded in the posthumous inventory of October 1675 of the collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici. It is again described in a document of 19 October 1780, recording its transfer at the command of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi. It remains in the original frame mentioned in the 1675 document; this is carved with a band of interlacing stems enclosing fleurs-de-lys, a Florentine emblem, on a blue ground. Milanesi in 1878 argued that the frame demonstrated that the tondo was painted for a Florentine public office, proposing that it was a commission for the Magistrato de' Massai della Camera. Neither Horne nor Lightbown could find any documentary evidence for this, but Horne accepted that Botticelli did paint the tondo for a Florentine public office in 1487, a view which, although not universally accepted, was supported by Berenson and is followed by Lightbown.
It is perhaps surprising that the Wernher picture is the only studio tondo based on so monumental and successful a composition for a public setting. The figures of the Madonna and Child were, however, also used for a panel once in the Aynard collection, Lyons, which was also evidently a product of Botticelli's large studio.
Edward Solly (1776-1844), a timber merchant who lived for many years in Berlin, assembled an unparalleled collection of early Italian and other pictures. Financial reverses caused the sale of the entire collection to the King of Prussia in 1821, and this still constitutes the core of the Gemäldegalerie at Berlin. Solly returned to London, where he formed a second, smaller collection, much of which was dispersed in 1847. Solly had been a pioneer in his interest in Botticelli, owning the monumental Saint Sebastian (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, no. 1128), as well as a version of the Venus Pudica (Berlin, no. 1124) and the so-called Madonna dei Candelari (Berlin, no. 102), which is generally regarded as a studio production. The Wernher tondo may have been acquired as a substitute for the pictures he had sold to Berlin. This picture, like other quattrocento works in Solly's second collection, is not mentioned in Waagen's Works of Art and Artists in England of 1838, suggesting that it may have been acquired after the author's first visit to England.
The Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley (1787-1863) had inherited Wootton Hall, Staffordshire in 1822 and first visited Italy in that year. By the 1840s he had formed a collection of considerable range and distinction, securing many key works at auction at Christie's and elsewhere. He owned such masterpieces as Bellini's Agony in the Garden, (London, National Gallery) and Giotto's Dormition of the Virgin (Berlin).