The Madonna and Child Enthroned

Details

Francesco Granacci (Villamagna 1469-1543 Florence)
The Madonna and Child Enthroned
oil on panel
64 3/8 x 34 ¼ in. (163.5 x 86.9 cm.), with painted additions of 1/4 in. on all sides

Provenance

Isabella Caroline, Lady Henry Somerset (1851-1921), Reigate Priory, Surrey, by 1911.
with Duveen, New York, 1923.
with Duveen, New York, 1963.
Norton Simon (1907-1993), Los Angeles.
with Newhouse Galleries, New York, where acquired by present owners in 1975.

Literature

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School, London, 1963, p. 100.
C. von Holst, Francesco Granacci, Munich, 1974, pp. 66, 136, no. 10, fig. 28.

Exhibited

London, Arundel Club, 1911, no. 3, as 'Albertinelli'.
New York, Duveen, Art of Tuscany: exhibition of painting and sculpture, 1963, no. 22, as Mariotto Albertinelli.
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, on loan, 1966.

Lot Essay

Francesco Granacci was a pupil in the Florentine studio of Domenico Ghirlandaio, where he studied alongside the young Michelangelo. The two became friends, yet a dispute with Michelangelo prevented Granacci from assisting in what would have been the greatest commission of his career, the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. At the time of its sale in 1963, the background of this painting had been extensively reworked to depict a mountainous landscape with a lake and trees beyond the throne. A more recent cleaning, however, has revealed the artist’s original composition, in which Saint Anne stands behind the ledge to the right of the Madonna and Child.

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