Workshop of Alessandro Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli

Frederick R. Leyland (1831–92), 49 Prince’s Gate, London, and Woolton Hall, near Liverpool, by 1876;
By whose Executors sold, London, Christie’s, 28 May 1892, lot 92, for 105 pounds to Jeffrey (as Sandro Botticelli);
Dr Adolf Schaeffer, Frankfurt am Main, May 1924;¹
Rudolf Bauer, Frankfurt am Main, by 1925;
With Duveen Brothers, New York, by 1930, in 1950 and in 1964;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Villa Miani, Christie’s, 15 October 1970, lot 54, for £15,333 (as Sandro Botticelli).

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, 1876, no. 197 (as Sandro Botticelli);
Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Ausstellung von Meisterwerken alter Malerei aus Privatbesitz, 1925, G. Swarzenski ed., p. 7, no. 21, reproduced plate XX (as a putative Botticelli pupil known as the Master of the Gothic Buildings);
Toronto, The Art Gallery of Toronto, Fifty paintings by old masters, 21 April – 21 May 1950, no. 2 (as Sandro Botticelli).

H. Ulmann, Sandro Botticelli, Munich 1893, pp. 123, 152, no. 49 (as workshop of Botticelli, with perhaps some intervention by Botticelli in the Virgin’s head);
A. Graves, A century of loan exhibitions, 1813–1912, London 1913, vol. I, p. 88 (as Botticelli);
R. Van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague 1931, vol. XII, p. 218–19 (as first Botticelli pupil working towards 1482 and the following years of the decade);
J. Mesnil, Botticelli, Paris 1938, p. 163 and p. 225 (as designed by Botticelli and listed under works executed by Botticelli or under his direction);
R. Salvini, Tutta la pittura del Botticelli, Milan 1958, vol. II, p. 78, reproduced pl. 155A (under attributed works, as quite fine and probably workshop after a design by Botticelli);
G. Mandel, L’opera completa del Botticelli, Milan 1978, p. 103, no. 117 (as workshop of Botticelli);
R. W. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, 2 vols., London 1978, vol. II, p. 136, no. C38 (as workshop of Botticelli);
N. Pons, Botticelli: Catalogo Completo, Milan 1989, p. 83, no. 108, reproduced (as a fine and delicate workshop piece, probably after a design by Botticelli).

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Sandro Botticelli workshop, Madonna and Child with St John. This painting is a tondo panel on poplar, which has been thinned and marouflaged with a backing panel and a rather grand cradle, which has undoubtedly solved any problem of movement in the original panel. It is now perfectly stable and secure. Originally there were probably two central joints perhaps with shorter side sections as well. However the varied old cracks and joints are now often visible to the naked eye as well as under ultra violet light, although the quite old varnish is fairly opaque to UV. This varnish may date from the Duveen period in the early twentieth century, as probably does the marouflaging and carpentry behind. The strongly defined drawing in the faces of the Child and of St John is distinctive, with rather fainter tempera brushwork in the flesh painting, over the traditional underlying terra verde green ground. There are various strengthening touches in the blue drapery, and slightly thinner areas elsewhere in places. But the overall condition is very fine beneath the rather dim old varnish. 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."

Sandro Botticelli painted some of his most celebrated images of the Madonna and Child in the circular format of the tondo. In terms of treatment, subject and setting, this particular composition, which exists in more than one variant, is characteristic of his production of the 1480s, yet no prototype by the artist is known. The central motif of the Madonna del latte is relatively uncommon in Botticelli’s work. The prime example is the altarpiece now at the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, originally painted for the Bardi Chapel of the Church of Santo Spirito in Florence, datable to 1485, but other smaller-scale works designed for domestic settings also exist.

This composition is known today in three versions of varying quality that differ in their detail: this painting with its view of an open landscape beyond the window; another larger tondo which includes in the background a secondary devotional image of St Francis receiving the stigmata (formerly in Dr Emil Hultmark’s collection, Stockholm, and recently sold at Sotheby’s, New York);² and a third, smaller in format than the present panel, formerly in the collection of the Ducal House of Saxe-Meiningen, Ziegenberg.³ A further example of unknown size, which differs from this tondo principally in the addition of a balustrade in the foreground, was recorded in a private collection in Rome.⁴

Salvini reported that Berenson, Langton Douglas and M. W. Brockwell (all three in private communications) deemed the Madonna and Child with the young St John to be an autograph work by Botticelli datable to around 1500.⁵ Annotated photographs in the Fototeca at Villa I Tatti, Florence, testify to Berenson's attribution of the tondo to Botticelli. But as early as 1893 Ulmann assigned it to Botticelli’s workshop, with perhaps some intervention by Botticelli in the Madonna’s head. In 1925 it was exhibited in Frankfurt, and Swarzenski, the author of the catalogue, attributed it to a putative Botticelli pupil known as the Master of the Gothic Buildings, a name first coined by Sirén in 1920 that has passed into disuse.⁶ Van Marle saw this picture as a product of the 1480s, attributable to the first Botticelli pupil, who best succeeded in grasping the master’s style. More recently both Ronald Lightbown and Nicoletta Pons have published this tondo as by the workshop of Botticelli, the latter praising it as fine and delicate. Lightbown dated it to the late 1480s or 1490s, while Pons favoured a date of around 1490–95.⁷

Although the Madonna and Child with the young St John was exhibited in Canada in 1950 and came to auction in 1970, it has remained little studied. When both Lightbown and Pons published the painting, they were unaware of its location since it had been recorded in New York with Duveen in the 1930s. There is an intriguing annotation on the reverse of a photograph in the Fototeca at I Tatti: 'Seen [...] at Duveen's 1964 / Bought by Norton Simon Foundation for Los Angeles Museum?', which suggests that the Foundation was considering it as an acquisition for its collection.

The underdrawing of this painting, studied using infrared reflectography, shows an even-handed assuredness with few changes. Some modifications were made to the fingers of the young St John and to the positioning of the Christ Child's left foot and leg, as well as to the fingertips of the Virgin's left hand. The facial features of the Christ Child and of St John in particular, have a clarity and precision that suggest the tondo was executed under Botticelli's direction.

The first recorded owner of the Madonna and Child with the young St John was Frederick R. Leyland, a British ship owner and art collector from Liverpool. Alongside his interest in Renaissance art, Leyland was also a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites and commissioned Whistler to decorate the dining room of his London house, which resulted in one of his greatest works, The Peacock Room, now at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. After his death, Leyland's tondo was sold with other works attributed to Botticelli, including the four panels illustrating Boccaccio’s tale of Nastagio degli Onesti, which were praised by Vasari in his life of the artist; three are now in the Prado, Madrid,⁸ and the fourth is in a private collection. 

1. According to an annotation on the reverse of a photograph in the Fototeca of the Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, Florence. 

2. D. 121 cm. Sold Stockholm, Björck Auktion, 6 December 1922, lot 4; then sold at Sotheby’s, New York, nearly a century later, 26 January 2012, lot 19, for $4,000,000.

3. Pons 1989, p. 83, under cat. no. 108; offered for sale London, Christie’s, 11 December 2002, lot 91.

4. According to Mesnil, who dated it to between 1490 and 1495; see Mandel 1978, p. 103, under no. 117. A tondo formerly in the Kunstzaal de Geir, Amsterdam, is listed as one other variant in the Sotheby’s, New York, sale catalogue of 26 January 2012, under lot 19.

5. Salvini 1958, p. 78.

6. O. Sirén, 'Early Italian Pictures at Cambridge', Burlington Magazine, no. 213, vol. 37, December 1920, pp. 290–99.

7. Boskovits dated the ex-Stockholm variant with St Francis to shortly before 1490.

8. Inv. nos P02838, P02839, P02840.