Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli, and Studio

Alfred de Rothschild CVO (1842–1918), at 1 Seamore Place, London;

By whom bequeathed to his daughter Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon (1876–1969);

Her sale et al., London, Christie’s, 22 May 1925, lot 58, where purchased by P.& D. Colnaghi for 330 guineas (listed in the catalogue as removed from 1 Seamore Place), to Colnaghi;

With P. & D. Colnaghi, London, by whom held in half-share with M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 26 May 1926 (recorded as no. 16183 in Knoedler stock book 7);

From whom bought by Count Contini, January 1927, for £550;

John E. Aldred (1864–1945) and his wife (d. 1948), Lattingtown, Long Island;

Their sale (‘Property of Mr and Mrs John E. Aldred’), New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 6 December 1940, lot 6 (as Sandro Botticelli and bottega), for $1300, to A. Cohen;

By descent to his son;

By whom sold (‘The Property of a Private Collector, New York’), New York, Sotheby’s, 17 January 1985, lot 37 (as studio of Botticelli);

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, ‘Arts of the Renaissance’, 25 January 2001, lot 55 (as Botticelli), for $850,000;

Where acquired by a private collector, Rio de Janeiro;

By whom sold by private treaty through Sotheby’s to an English private collection in 2012;

From whom acquired by private treaty through Sotheby’s the following year by the present owner.

Y. Yashiro, Sandro Botticelli, London and Boston 1925, vol. I, p. 247 (as school of Botticelli);

R. Van Marle, The Develoment of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague 1931, vol. 12, p. 227 (incorrectly described as having on the right a pillar decorated in grisaille);

R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, London 1978, vol. II, pp. 152–53, under no. C67, 2 and 3 (under ‘Workshop and school pictures’, as a variant of the Colonna picture; the provenances of nos 2 and 3 are listed incorrectly as relating to different pictures but both refer to the present lot);

M. Cinotti (ed.), Catalogo della pittura italiana dal ’300 al ’700, Milan 1985, p. 111, reproduced (as workshop of Botticelli);

K. Christiansen, ‘New York: Old Master Paintings (Piero Corsini)’, exhibition review, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 129, no. 1008, March 1987, p. 211 (as workshop of Botticelli; ‘too little is known about Botticelli’s workshop practice to allow a proper conclusion’);

N. Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings II: Venice 1540–1600, London 2008, pp. 474–75 n. 36 (as one of the very few Italian Renaissance paintings owned by Alfred de Rothschild);

L. Bellosi, ‘Il recupero di un autografo del Botticelli’, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 53, 2009, p. 152, reproduced p. 154, fig. 7 (as workshop of Botticelli).

New York, Piero Corsini, Important Old Master Paintings and Discoveries of the Past Year, 1–29 November 1986, no. 2 (as Botticelli, c. 1489–92).