Sold Without Reserve | BONIFAZIO DE' PITATI, CALLED BONIFAZIO VERONESE | MADONNA READING A BOOK AND HOLDING THE STANDING CHRIST CHILD, WITH A LANDSCAPE BEYOND

Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski (1754 - 1833), Rome;

Thence by descent in the family in Paris and Vienna (as by Titian);

With Galerie St. Lucas, Vienna, before 1927;

Stockholm art market, 1927;

Acquired in 1928 for a private collection, Stockholm, and by descent in the family;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 1 November 2001, lot 27;

With Hall and Knight, New York;

Where acquired April 3, 2002.

S. Poglayen-Neuwall, “Ein wiederaufgetauchtes Frühwerk Tizians?”, in Cicerone, vol. 19, no. 19 (October 1927): pp. 591-6, reproduced p. 593, fig. 2 (as by Titian);

D. Westphal, Bonifazio Veronese (Bonifazio dei Pitati), Munich 1931, pp. 31-33, footnote 81, p. 144, reproduced plate IV, fig. 5 (as by Bonifazio);

O. Sirén, Italienska Tavlor och Teckningar: Nationalmuseum och andra Svenska och Finska Samlingar, Stockholm 1933, p. 137, reproduced pl. 88 (as by Palma il Vecchio);

A. Busiri Vici, I Poniatowski e Roma, Florence 1971, pp. 326-7, engraving reproduced fig. 152 (as by Bonifazio).

This painting was first correctly ascribed to Bonifazio Veronese by Dorothea Westphal in 1937 (see Literature). Prior to that, the devotional painting was believed to be an early work by Titian, with an arrangement of figures similar to the so-called "Gypsy Madonna" in Vienna (fig. 1). Yet the present landscape and figure types are consistent with Bonifazio's works of the 1520s, including the Sacra Conversazione in the National Gallery, London, and The Holy Family in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, in which the Christ child appears especially close to this one. At the time of the 2001 sale, Dr. Philip Cottrell confirmed the attribution to Bonifazio.

Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski (1754 - 1833), earliest recorded owner of this painting, was the nephew of the King of Poland and a major art patron and collector in late-18th century Europe. Relocating to Rome after the third partition of Poland in 1795, Prince Poniatowski counted among his friends artists like Antonio Canova, Angelika Kauffmann, and Anton Raphael Mengs. This painting remained in his family longer than much of his encyclopedic collection, which was dispersed after his death.