Bernardo Daddi

Kammerherr Fritz von Goldammer (1866-1927), Frankfurt-am-Main;
His widow, Frau Else von Goldammer (1878-1950), Frankfurt and Berlin;
Thence by inheritance to the great-great-nephew of the above;
With Albrecht Neuhaus, Würzburg;
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owner in August 1986.

G. Vitzhum and W.F. Volbach, Die Malerei und Plastik des Mittelalters in Italien, 1924, p. 298 (as close following of Daddi);
R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, vol. VIII, New York 1958, p. 206 (as close following of Daddi) ;
W. Kermer, Studien zum Diptychon in der sakralen Malerei, Diss. Univeristy of Tübingen, 1967, p. 52, no. 48 (as close following of Daddi);
M. Boskovits and E. Neri Lusanna, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III vol. III, Florence 1989, p. 390 (as by Daddi);
M. Boskovits, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting, Section III, vol. IV, Bernardo Daddi, his shop and following, Florence 1991, pp. 20, 213-215, and 512), reproduced plate XXIIIa (as by Bernardo Daddi);
E.S. Skaug, Punch marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico..., Oslo 1994, vol. I, p. 100.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This little painting is on a thick poplar panel, with slots from previous wings near the top of the sides and a single short crack from a nail at the peak of the arch. The outer mouldings from the integral frame were lost with the wings, and the remaining outermost rim is rather whitened, from washing presumably, but the inner gold is unusually well preserved. The panel appears long to have been perfectly stable and secure. There is a fine craquelure overall, with a beautiful minute craquelure within the painting of the throne, including the lovely intact detail often in shell gold. The gold in the brocade of the Madonna's inner drapery is also finely preserved. Her blue robe has darkened, presumably from azurite discolouring, although it might possibly be lapis. Other blue areas are rather thin, with little strengthening touches. The vermilion drapery is strong, though with some madder glazing in the folds partly lost, while a deeper red in the drapery of the Christ Child, of St John the Baptist and of the donor in the foreground remains in good condition. The curl of the inner lining of the drapery across the knees of the Madonna seems to have been scraped or damaged at some time. There are occasional small marks in the veil over the head of the Madonna and by the heads of the upper angels, and overall the varnish is rather opaque, and darkened for instance in the flesh painting. However the much fine intact paint has survived undisturbed. 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."

This panel would originally have formed the left hand leaf of a diptych; the companion panel would most probably have been The Crucifixion. Such diptychs have rarely survived intact but one such by Daddi is today in the Fondazione Horne in Florence, wherein we find a very similar arrangement of four standing saints flanking the enthroned Madonna and Child.¹ Another such diptych, now separated, is divided between Nantes, Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts, and the Thyssen Collection in Madrid.²  As both Offner and Boskovits observe, this 'fine panel belongs to a period around 1333-1336'. In their view the general charcter of the panel recalls that of Daddi's signed panel in the Accademia in Florence, whose date (now lost) was variously read as between 1332 and 1334, while the type and pose of the Christ Child are similarly prevalent in paintings from the shop dated between 1333 and 1336. The handling of the figures especially recalls Daddi's panel of The Madonna and Child with four Saints today in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte in Naples, also generally dated to the middle of the third decade of the fourteenth century.  This dating is borne out by Skaug's more recent analysis of the punchmarks in use in Daddi's workshop in the period between 1334 and 1338. The panel is unusual, however, in its highly ornate and distinctive freehand incised border with interlaced sgraffito decoration.  A further curiosity is, as Boskovits observes, the iconographical motif of the Christ Child wearing a purple scarf around his shouders. The Naples frame is in addition surmounted by a roundel including the Angel of the Annunciation, but whether the frame of this panel shared this feature it is no longer possible to tell for certain.

For the collecting activities of Fritz von Goldammer (1866-1927) please see the note to lot 2 in this catalogue.

 

1. See Boskovits, Corpus, under Literature, 1991, pp. 49-54, reproduced plates I¹ and I ².
2. Idem, pp. 305-311, plates XL and XL ^1-2.