Circle of Bernardino Luini

Private collection, Milan;

From where exported before 1796 (per export seal on verso);

Louis P. Durr (1821-1880), New York;

By whose estate executors given to the New-York Historical Society, 1882 (inv. no. 1882.158);

By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, 12 January 1995, lot 13;

Where acquired by the present collector.

L. Einstein, and F. Monod, "Le Musée de la Société Historique de New York," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 47, no. 1 (May 1905), p. 420, reproduced p. 419 (as manner of Luini);

Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of The New York Historical Society, New York 1915, p. 116, cat. no. D-158, reproduced (as Luini, The Three Marys);

H. Comstock, "Primitives from the Bryan Collection," in International Studio 84, no. 348 (May 1926), p. 88 (as school of Luini);

A.O. Della Chiesa, Bernardino Luini, Novara 1956, p. 123 (as a copy of Luini);

B. Fredericksen, and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge 1972, pp. 114, 610 (as school of Luini);

C. Quattrini, Bernardino Luini, Catalogo generale delle opere, Turin 2019, p. 293, under cat. no. 103 (as a copy after Luini). 

This beautiful, devotional work by an artist in the circle of Bernardino Luini shows the important role the leading sixteenth-century Lombard artist played on a wide range of Italian painters. Here, the delicate creation of contour through the blending of light and shade evident in the Madonna's gently expressive face and the evocative use of color to balance the composition embody the poetic lyricism characteristic of Luini's greatest works.

Though the flanking haloed figures are not accompanied by particular attributes, they may tentatively be identified as Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara, based on the embroidered gowns in the prime version of the composition, today in Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 58).