Attributed to the workshop of Matteo Civitali (1435–1501) | Italian, Lucca, circa 1460-1480 | Relief with the Virgin and Child

Please note that this lot will be sent to our Greenford Park warehouse following the sale.

Matteo Civitali is the most important sculptor from Lucca during second half of the 15th century. Vasari records him as a pupil of the Sienese Jacopo della Quercia, although this is unlikely, and more probable that he trained with Antonio Rossellino. His first documented work is the tomb of Pietro da Noceto (d. 1467), which also shows the influence of Mino da Fiesole. After 1470 Civitali received a series of important commissions in Lucca Cathedral from the Humanist and papal delegate, Domencio Bertini, including the Altar of the Sacrament. His works there constitute one of the most integral and coherent sculptural programmes in 15th-century Tuscany. His most important work outside Lucca is the extraordinary John the Baptist chapel in Genoa Cathedral with six highly expressive life-size marble figures.

The present terracotta is derived from an important early commission, around 1460, in the church of San Vincenzo Ferrer and Santa Caterina de’ Ricci in Prato. The gilded marble relief in Prato includes two cherubim in the background, and the Virgin and Christ Child have haloes. The composition was evidently very popular and is known in stucco and terracotta versions. There are two terracotta reliefs in the Louvre, Paris and a painted stucco in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The present terracotta dispenses with both background and haloes and, thereby, concentrates on the intimate humanity of a mother lovingly holding her child.

RELATED LITERATURE:
D. Cimorelli et al., Matteo Civitali e il suo tempo: Pittori, scultori e orafi a Lucca nel tardo Quattrocento, exh. cat. Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi, Milan, 2004, p. 306, no. 2.6

A Thermoluminescence Analysis Report conducted by Re.S.Artes, no. C143237C-2, dated June 2018, states that the date of last firing from the sample taken was between circa 1270 and 1470 AD.