MARIOTTO DI NARDO | The Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints Apollonia, Anthony Abbot, Gregory the Great, Jerome, Paul [?], and Benedict | 馬里奧托・迪・納多 | 《聖母聖嬰登位，聖亞波羅尼亞、聖安東尼、聖額我略一世、聖傑羅姆、聖保羅[?]與聖本篤在旁》

Mori collection, Paris, 1921;

With Bacri Frères, Paris (according to a label on the reverse);

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie’s, 10 December 1982, lot 86 (as circle of Mariotto di Nardo);

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie’s, 22 April 1988, lot 4 (as Mariotto di Nardo), for £52,800 (US$99,743); 

Private collection, New York;

Acquired from the above by the present owner.

B. Berenson, 'Quadri senza casa – Il trecento Fiorentino', Dedalo, XI, 1930–31, p. 1294, reproduced p. 1301 (as Mariotto di Nardo [?]);

B. Berenson, Homeless Paintings of the Renaissance, (English ed. Berenson 1930–31), London 1969, p. 120, reproduced fig. 198 (as Mariotto di Nardo [?]);

M. Boskovits, Pittura Fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento 1370–1400, Florence 1975, p. 399 (as dated to 1385–90).

Miklós Boskovits affirmed the attribution following Bernard Berenson’s tentative identification of this attractive devotional panel as the work of Mariotto di Nardo, a leading Gothic painter active in Florence during the final decades of the fourteenth century and the first quarter of the fifteenth century.¹

Mariotto’s work was in high demand; he was employed on public and private commissions at Florence Cathedral and at some of the city’s most prestigious churches, foremost among them Santa Maria Maggiore and Orsanmichele. This small altarpiece represents a holy conversation with six saints surrounding the throne on which the Madonna is seated with her son, the Christ Child. Apollonia, holding pincers and a tooth alluding to her martyrdom, stands opposite Anthony Abbot; behind them are two of the four Latin Fathers of the Church: on the left, Gregory the Great, with his attribute of a dove (symbol of the Holy Spirit), hovering by his ear to signify divine inspiration, and on the right, Jerome dressed in sumptuous red cardinal robes; behind them, the bearded saint with a book is probably Paul, one of Christ's apostles and author of the Epistles, and the other, wearing white monastic robes, is Benedict, founder of the order. Boskovits assigned the work a date of 1385–90, and thus placed it early in Mariotto’s career, conferring a similar date to his comparable Coronation altarpiece at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.²

¹ An undated label on the reverse of the panel states: 'Authenticated by/ B. Berenson Esq[?]/ as by/ Mariotto di Nardo'. 

² No. M.28; tempera and gold on panel, 80.7 x 52.1 cm.; J.W. Goodison and G.H. Robertson, Catalogue of Paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Volume II: Italian Schools, Cambridge 1967, pp. 99–100, plate 17; Boskovits 1975, p. 390.