Maria mit dem Kind

Maria, in halber Figur stehend, im Profil nach rechts, hält das Kind in den Armen, das sich, wie erschreckt, von der Mutterbrust abwendet.

English catalogue entry

Follower of Donatello

Virgin and Child

ca. 1430-50

Terracotta

60 x 43 cm

Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung, Inv. SKS 56.

Bode-Museum, storage.

Provenance

Florence (before 1883); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Altes Museum (1883-1904); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (1904-1939); Berlin, storage (1939-1945); Merkers, storage (1945); Wiesbaden, Central Collecting Point (1945-1956); West Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Museum Dahlem (1956-1997); Berlin, storage (1997-2006); Berlin, Skulpturensammlung/Bode-Museum (since 2006).

Acquisition

Bought in Florence in 1883.

Other Versions

• Berlin, Bode-Museum, Inv. SKS 1028. Lead plaquette, 11.3 x 9.3 cm. Lost since May 1945.

• Brescia, Santa Giulia, Museo della Città. With an Imago pietatis on the reverse side. Bronze.

• Cologne, Kunstgewerbemuseum. Silver, 11,2 x 10.2 cm.

• Cologne, Schnütgen Museum, Inv. G. 232. Gilt copper.

• Girona, Museo-Tesoro de la Catedral. Repoussé.

• London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. 5473-1859. Bronze, 10.5 x 8.6 cm.

• London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. 7474-1861. Bronze, 11.6 x 9.4 x 0.4 cm.

• London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A. 45-1926. Painted and gilt stucco, 36.5 x 20.2 x 5.3 cm.

• Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Inv. MJAP-OA.2085. Gilt bronze, 11.5 x 9.5 cm.

• Formerly Detroit, Ernest Kanzler collection. Gilt copper, 12.06 x 6.98 cm.

• Formerly Lyon, Jean-Baptiste Giraud collection. Repoussé.

Bibliography

Bode 1884

Wilhelm Bode, “Die italienischen Skulpturen der Renaissance in den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin. III”, Jahrbuch der Königlich preußischen Kunstsammlungen, V, 1884, p. 39: Donatello?

Bode 1887

Wilhelm Bode, Italienische Bildhauer der Renaissance. Studien zur Geschichte der italienischen Plastik und Malerei auf Grund der Bildwerke und Gemälde in den Königl. Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, W. Speemann, 1887, p. 50: after Donatello.

Bode and Tschudi 1888

Wilhelm Bode and Hugo von Tschudi, Königliche Museen zu Berlin. Beschreibung der Bildwerke der Christlichen Epoche, Berlin, W. Spemann, 1888, p. 17 cat. 43, p. III: after an original work by Donatello.

Bode 1894

Wilhelm Bode, Denkmäler der Renaissance-Sculptur Toscanas, Munich, F. Bruckmann, 1894, II, pl. 70: Donatello.

Bode 1892-1904

Wilhelm Bode, Denkmäler der Renaissance-Sculptur Toscanas, Munich, Brückmann, 1892-1905, pp. 22-23, pl. 67: after an original work by Donatello.

Schottmüller 1913

Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barocks in Marmor, Ton, Holz und Stuck, Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1913, pp. 16-17 cat. 32: composition by Donatello ca. 1430, repeated here and in smaller dimensions.

Bange 1922

E. F. Bange, Die Italienischen Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, Zweiter Teil: Reliefs und Plaketten, Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter, 1922, p. 39: workshop of Donatello; compared with the plaquette also in Berlin (Inv. SKS 1028; lost since 1945).

Schottmüller 1933

Frida Schottmüller, Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barock. Erster Band. Die Bildwerke in Stein, Holz, Ton und Wachs, Zweite Auflage, Berlin and Leipzig, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1933, pp. 10-11: workshop of Donatello; the same sculptor made another Virgin and Child in Berlin (Inv. SKS 63).

Valentiner 1938

W. R. Valentiner, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Italian Gothic and Early Renaissance Sculptures, exh. cat. (Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 7 January-20 February 1938), Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1938, n. p.: related to a version in the Kanzler Collection, Detroit, which was acquired from Luigi Grassi, Florence.

Pope-Hennessy 1964

John Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1964, I, p. 83: after Donatello, second half of the 15th century.

Rosenauer 1993

Artur Rosenauer, Donatello, Milan, Electa, 1993, p. 299: after a lost original by Donatello; lost in 1945.

Jolly 1998

Anna Jolly, Madonnas by Donatello and his Circle, Frankfurt am Main et al., Peter Lang, 1998, pp. 146-147 cat. 43.10, p. 294 pl. 80: mid 15th-century; the same sculptor made another Virgin and Child in Berlin (Inv. SKS 63).

Katalog der Originalabgüsse… 2000

Katalog der Originalabgüsse. Heft 6. Christliche Epochen. Spätantike. Byzanz. Italien. Freiplastik. Reliefs. Bronzestatuetten, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2000, cat. 2633: workshop of Donatello.

Caglioti 2010

Francesco Caglioti in Max Seidel et al. (eds.), Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello. Le arti a Siena nel primo Rinascimento, exh. cat. (Siena, Santa Maria della Scala, Opera della Metropolitana, Pinacoteca Nazionale, 26 March-11 July 2010), Milan, Federico Motta Editore, 2010, p. 382: after Donatello.

Comment

This Virgin and Child is an enlarged version of a composition mainly known through plaquettes, one of which (in lead) had already been acquired by Wilhelm Bode for the Berlin Museums through Stefano Bardini in 1880 (see Inv. SKS 1028) when he bought the present work in Florence three years later. This terracotta is not an exact copy of the small-scale models, as the draperies and ribbons in the Virgin’s headdress are newly interpreted, while the haloes are missing. Many cracks are visible on the surface of the relief, while some gilding and color remain (the frame visible in pre-WWII photographs was not original; it has been lost since 1945). The motif of the Virgin breastfeeding the Christ (Madonna lactans) cannot be found in the accepted oeuvre of Donatello; Bode 1884 nonetheless inferred that this composition derived from an invention by the artist. The plaquettes, in particular, were compared with the Feast of Herod made for the Baptistery Font in the Siena Cathedral.

Indeed, the work has Donatellesque aspects: from the dynamism of the composition, with the Child turning away from his mother as in the Piot Madonna in the Musée du Louvre (Inv. RF 3967); to the ambiguity between the three-dimensional and the planar (the hands and face of the Virgin are seen in perfect profile, which is not the case of the rest of her body, as in the Pietrapiana Madonna, see Inv. SKS 2431); or to details such as the mantle that the Virgin holds under her elbow (as in the Verona Madonna, see Inv. SKS M 24 and Inv. SKS M 264). Some weaknesses in anatomy and foreshortening preclude a direct attribution of the terracotta to the master (see especially the right hand of the Christ and the left hand of the Madonna). The fact that this work exists in a single version in terracotta of this size and in many plaquettes (some of which are of a much higher quality) indicates that the original creation by Donatello, presumed lost, was most certainly in this small-scale format. Inv. SKS 56 should then be considered a derivation from a composition by Donatello, possibly dating from the 1430s or 1440s (see Inv. SKS 1028 for further discussion).

Neville Rowley (18 February 2016)