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Lot Essay
This remarkably well-preserved gold-ground panel is an important early work of the Sienese artist Benvenuto di Giovanni. He is first recorded working as an artist in 1453, at the Siena Baptistry, possibly under the direction of il Vecchietta. Benvenuto may also have trained in the workshop of Sano di Pietro, but it was mainly from the great Sienese masters of the previous century that he took his inspiration. His work of the 1460s shows a clear awareness of this artistic tradition, the Annunciation of 1466 at San Girolamo, Volterra, for example, is indebted to Simone Martini's masterful treatment of the subject (Florence, Uffizi). Indeed it was Benvenuto's imaginative reworking of trecento motifs that marks him out from his contemporaries and informed his religious sensibilities.
Benvenuto's evolving style also shows an awareness of developments outside Siena, in particular the greater emphasis on realism practised in Florence. He cleverly combined these different influences and motifs into a coherent and elegant style of his own. The present picture is an excellent example of his work from the late 1460s. Formerly in the Joseph Spiridon collection, where it was attributed to Fra Giovanni da Siena, due to the gilt inscription on the Madonna's dress, it was first recognised as a work by Benvenuto di Giovanni by Bernard Berenson (loc. cit.). This attribution was accepted by Hutton, Mason Perkins and Coor (op. cit.), but was disputed by van Marle and M.C. Bandera, both authors, however, were reliant on old photographs of the picture (loc. cit.). The attribution to Benvenuto has been most recently endorsed by Professor Miklós Boskovits in a private communication of 18th August 2006, judging from a transparency. He views it as a relatively youthful work from the 1470s.
This highly refined Madonna and Child also bears comparison with a number of other early panels by the artist, including that in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.1.54), which is normally dated to the late 1460s (see L. Kanter in K. Christiansen, L.B. Kanter and C.B. Strehlke eds., Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420-1500, New York, 1988, pp. 300-2). In both pictures the Madonna offers the Christ Child a pomegranate (a symbol of the Resurrection). In the present picture Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria appear in the background, adding depth to the composition without disrupting its delicate formal balance. Both pictures also display similar tooling and inscriptions on the haloes, with the exception of Christ's unusual eliptical halo. Indeed the similarities between the two panels makes a dating for the present picture to the late 1460s a distinct possibility.
Benvenuto's evolving style also shows an awareness of developments outside Siena, in particular the greater emphasis on realism practised in Florence. He cleverly combined these different influences and motifs into a coherent and elegant style of his own. The present picture is an excellent example of his work from the late 1460s. Formerly in the Joseph Spiridon collection, where it was attributed to Fra Giovanni da Siena, due to the gilt inscription on the Madonna's dress, it was first recognised as a work by Benvenuto di Giovanni by Bernard Berenson (loc. cit.). This attribution was accepted by Hutton, Mason Perkins and Coor (op. cit.), but was disputed by van Marle and M.C. Bandera, both authors, however, were reliant on old photographs of the picture (loc. cit.). The attribution to Benvenuto has been most recently endorsed by Professor Miklós Boskovits in a private communication of 18th August 2006, judging from a transparency. He views it as a relatively youthful work from the 1470s.
This highly refined Madonna and Child also bears comparison with a number of other early panels by the artist, including that in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.1.54), which is normally dated to the late 1460s (see L. Kanter in K. Christiansen, L.B. Kanter and C.B. Strehlke eds., Painting in Renaissance Siena 1420-1500, New York, 1988, pp. 300-2). In both pictures the Madonna offers the Christ Child a pomegranate (a symbol of the Resurrection). In the present picture Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria appear in the background, adding depth to the composition without disrupting its delicate formal balance. Both pictures also display similar tooling and inscriptions on the haloes, with the exception of Christ's unusual eliptical halo. Indeed the similarities between the two panels makes a dating for the present picture to the late 1460s a distinct possibility.