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Lot Essay
Long attributed to Benedetto da Maiano, Cleveland's relief is, rather, a contemporary cast and either from an original composition by Maiano -- possibly from his workshop -- or simply after Maiano.
As John Pope-Hennessy has suggested, this relief is, most likely, based on a lost marble composition that would undoubtedly be contemporaneous to the Virgin and Child on the unfinished 1491 Strozzi monument in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1964, vol. I, pp. 161-162, and vol. III, plates 158 and 160). There are two examples of this popular relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (nos. 5-1890 and 860-1891) and another formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin (no. 1581/Sch. 208) and multiple others that have been on the art market in recent years (Christie's, New York, 27 September, 2000, lot 209; Sotheby's, New York, 8 June, 2007, lot 436; Koller, Zurich, 20 March, 2007 and Semenzato Casa d'Aste, Venice, 12 July, 2002, lot 627).
The Cleveland relief differs from all the other versions as it lacks the figure of the young St. John the Baptist in the lower left corner which, as McCarthy notes, does indeed throw the composition slightly off-balance as the gazes of the Virgin and Child are both in this direction. And in the upper section of the Cleveland terracotta the cherubs that flank the Virgin, as well as the Virgin's halo, are missing. These differences could, of course, simply be artistic variations from the other Maiano reliefs. However, one possibility for these missing elements is that, when the Cleveland relief was restored these outer elements were too badly damaged to be included in the restoration and the composition was simplified by no longer including them. This is absolutely the case with the Virgin's halo as there was clearly more to the relief at the top of the Virgin's head.
Christie's would like to thank Amanda McCarthy, of Case Western Reserve University, for her research on the Cleveland da Maiano relief.
The present lot is accompanied by a thermoluminescence test from Oxford Authentication stating the terracotta was fired between 300 and 600 years ago.
As John Pope-Hennessy has suggested, this relief is, most likely, based on a lost marble composition that would undoubtedly be contemporaneous to the Virgin and Child on the unfinished 1491 Strozzi monument in Santa Maria Novella, Florence (J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1964, vol. I, pp. 161-162, and vol. III, plates 158 and 160). There are two examples of this popular relief in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (nos. 5-1890 and 860-1891) and another formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin (no. 1581/Sch. 208) and multiple others that have been on the art market in recent years (Christie's, New York, 27 September, 2000, lot 209; Sotheby's, New York, 8 June, 2007, lot 436; Koller, Zurich, 20 March, 2007 and Semenzato Casa d'Aste, Venice, 12 July, 2002, lot 627).
The Cleveland relief differs from all the other versions as it lacks the figure of the young St. John the Baptist in the lower left corner which, as McCarthy notes, does indeed throw the composition slightly off-balance as the gazes of the Virgin and Child are both in this direction. And in the upper section of the Cleveland terracotta the cherubs that flank the Virgin, as well as the Virgin's halo, are missing. These differences could, of course, simply be artistic variations from the other Maiano reliefs. However, one possibility for these missing elements is that, when the Cleveland relief was restored these outer elements were too badly damaged to be included in the restoration and the composition was simplified by no longer including them. This is absolutely the case with the Virgin's halo as there was clearly more to the relief at the top of the Virgin's head.
Christie's would like to thank Amanda McCarthy, of Case Western Reserve University, for her research on the Cleveland da Maiano relief.
The present lot is accompanied by a thermoluminescence test from Oxford Authentication stating the terracotta was fired between 300 and 600 years ago.