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A young, pale-skinned woman with reddish-blond hair sits with a nearly nude, chubby toddler standing in her lap in this vertical painting. She looks down at him, her body and face angled to our left. Thin lines creating a gold halo fan out from the back of her head. An ivory-white scarf wraps around her head and trails down the back of her neck where it is tucked into a dark, teal-blue cloak covering her shoulders and draping across her lap. Under the robe, she wears a loose, cherry-red gown with vertical pleats over her chest. The baby, also with pale skin, reddish blond hair, and a delicate gold halo, looks up at her face with light brown eyes. He stands on the woman’s right thigh, to our left. One of the woman's hands wraps around his body and supports his legs, while she props up his chest with her other. A length of pale gray fabric wraps over one shoulder and around his stomach. The two are situated in front of a column and pillar supporting a horizontal lintel overhead. The view beyond is of a blue sky over a golden field with dark green conical cypress trees in the distance.

Sandro Botticelli

Madonna and Child, c. 1470

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 7

Medium

tempera on panel

Dimensions

overall: 74.5 x 54.5 cm (29 5/16 x 21 7/16 in.)

framed: 113.7 x 94.9 x 8.6 cm (44 3/4 x 37 3/8 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1937.1.21

Artists / Makers

Sandro Botticelli (painter) Florentine, 1446 - 1510

Image Use

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Provenance

Prince Bartolomeo Corsini [1729-1792], Villa di Mezzomonte, near Florence, by 1763;[1] by inheritance to Prince Tommaso Corsini [1767-1856]; by inheritance to Prince Andrea Corsini [1804-1868]; by inheritance to Prince Tommaso Corsini [1835-1919], who in the early 1870s had it transferred to Palazzo Corsini in Via del Parione, Florence;[2] by inheritance to his daughter, Beatrice Corsini Pandolfini [1868-1955]; (Professor Luigi Grassi [1858-1937, Florence); sold August 1930 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[4] gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] The inventory of the Villa di Mezzomonte, dated 1763 (Archivio Corsini, stanza VI, arm. 4, no. 14), describes in the first room on the lawn side, "un tabernacolo intagliato e dorato in parte e parte tinto di verde entrovi la S.ma Vergine con Gesu Bambino. Dipinto su asse" ("a tabernacle in part inlaid and gilded and in part painted green, containing the Holy Virgin and the Child Jesus. Painted on board"). In the transcription of the inventory done by Tommaso Corsini, an annotation indicates that the painting is "oggi in Galleria" ("now in the Gallery"). According to Ulderico Medici, Catalogo della Galleria dei Principi Corsini in Firenze, Florence, 1880: 65, the painting was moved to Palazzo Corsini in Via del Parione from a Corsini family villa in 1870. Perhaps this is only an approximate date; in any case, in the "Prospetto della corrispondenza dei diversi inventari (secondo l'ordine dei quadri nel 1872)" ("Outline of the corresondence between the various inventories [following the order of the pictures in 1872]") (Archivio Corsini, stanza VI, arm. 4, no. 74), lists "no. 3 Lippi (?). Madonna a tabernacolo. 1864 Mezzomonte" ("Madonna in a tabernacle. 1864 [meaning that in this year the painting was still preserved there])." The painting is not yet listed in the 1727 inventory of that villa.

[2] Tommaso Corsini was a man of vast cultural interests (see Nidia Danelon Vasoli, "Corsini, Tommaso," Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 1983: 29:680-683). As soon as he acceded to his title in 1868, he began to reorganize the family's historic gallery, entrusting the task to the sculptor Ulderico Medici, who also prepared the catalogue of the works exhibited. Of this painting, Medici 1880: 56 notes: "nel 1870 Sua Eccellenza il Principe Don Tommaso lo fece restaurare e dispose che fosse collocato nella di lui Galleria" ("in 1870 His Excellency Prince Don Tommaso had it restored and placed in his gallery").

[3] Until 1935 (see Lumachi, Florence: A New Illustrated Guide, 2nd ed., 1935: 213) and in some other guides even later, the painting continued to be listed as no. 176 in Room IV of the Corsini Gallery. However, as is documented by the label on the back of the painting, its ownership had already passed by inheritance to Prince Tommaso's daughter Beatrice, who in 1889 married Count Roberto Pandolfini. (The label is only partly legible today and reads "Prop. B. Pandolfini / Prov. Casa Corsini / Cat. N... Nota N..." Per a letter of 20 October 1936 from Duveen Brothers' office in Paris to the one in New York, the obscured line originally read "Cat. N. 858. Nota N. Specale.") Apparently soon after Tommaso Corsini's death his heirs began to negotiate the sale of some paintings from the Gallery; in 1920 a Duveen Brothers agent was invited to examine them in the gallery (see Edward Fowles, Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 123), but the company did not purchase the Botticelli until 1930. It was by then in the hands of the dealer and restorer Luigi Grassi, who showed it to Bernard Berenson in February 1930; Berenson promptly recommended the purchase to Duveen Brothers (Box 233, Folder 3, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; copies in NGA curatorial files).

[4] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Corsini, Andrea, Prince
Corsini, Bartolomeo, Prince
Corsini, Tommaso, Prince
Corsini, Tommaso, Prince
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Grassi, Luigi, Professor
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Pandolfini, Beatrice Corsini

Bibliography

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1884: Burckhardt, Jacob. Die Cicerone. Ed. Wilhelm von Bode. 5th ed. Leipzig, 1884: 2, part 2:579.

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