Giorgio Vasari

Anonymous sale (`From a Private Collection'), New York, Christie's, 4 June 1986, lot 106;
Private collection, Brunn, Germany, by 1989.

L. Corti, Giorgio Vasari.  Catalogo completo dei dipinti, Florence 1989, p. 58, no. 38, reproduced (as by Vasari, datable to the 1540s).

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a poplar panel with one joint at centre right, which has been thinned and cradled fairly recently. The restoration is also recent. There is some old worm damage, and old cracks from the base in a few places but no sign of any recent movement, and the panel appears stable and secure. The texture is fine with light traces of finger printing in the ground. There is retouching down the joint, which crosses the forehead of the Madonna, the elbow of the Child and her arm and knee. These areas have quite wide stretches of retouching, with a little down the edge of the forehead of the Child. A horizontal line of retouching also follows the arm of the Madonna across to her waist, with various little vertical retouchings down the vertical cracks through her pink drapery, and one or two other little retouchings on her shoulder. The base edge has fairly wide retouching, with patches over the foot of the Child and across His other ankle and calf. St Joseph is rather well preserved, with a little here and there in his arm and more widespread strengthening in his russet drapery. Ultra violet light shows various other perfecting touches including some in the cloth around the Child and elsewhere; and the restoration has given the painting an immaculate surface. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Vasari painted a number of small-scale works such as this one intended for private devotion.  Many are derivatrions of much larger altarpieces, but no such prototype for the present composition is known.  As Frank Dabell has kindly observed (written communication, 11 March 2006), this work shows similarities with Vasari's Holy Family with Saint Francis, painted for Francesco Leoni in Venice in circa 1541-2, and now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  although the composition of the central couple is reversed, the type of the elegant, slender-fingered Virgin is very similar. Dr Dabell, who confirms the attribution to Vasari, thinks that the present picture dates from the 1540s.