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Lot Essay
The attribution of this relief to Antonio di Rossellino has been recognized only recently, following Negri Arnoldi’s publication (Antonio Rossellino e Desiderio da Settignano. Sulla paternità di alcune celebri Madonne fiorentine del Quattrocento, in "Confronto", 2, 2003, pp. 58-64). Indeed the author attributes an almost identical terracotta relief, now in a private collection, to Rossellino because of the "extraordinary fineness of the modeling, that the faces and the draping of the central group extends to the figures of two angels presented full-length (…) as the famous marble relief by Rossellino in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.”
The dimensions of the terracotta are similar to our stucco, indicating that both reliefs may be a squeeze perhaps after a marble original.
This composition is rare. In addition to the present stucco and the terracotta in a private collection, there is another replica, also polychromed, with an unknown location, documented by an early twentieth-century photo from what is now the Fototeca del Kunsthistorisches Institut von Florenz (foto n. 174699). It is also attributed to Antonio di Rossellino and was recorded as being in a private collection in Florence.
The dimensions of the terracotta are similar to our stucco, indicating that both reliefs may be a squeeze perhaps after a marble original.
This composition is rare. In addition to the present stucco and the terracotta in a private collection, there is another replica, also polychromed, with an unknown location, documented by an early twentieth-century photo from what is now the Fototeca del Kunsthistorisches Institut von Florenz (foto n. 174699). It is also attributed to Antonio di Rossellino and was recorded as being in a private collection in Florence.