Circle of Donatello (Florence circa 1386-1466), Italian, Florence, first-half 15th century

Wright S. Ludington;

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California;

Christie's New York, 2001, lot 242;

Where acquired.

Wright S. Ludington: Four Decades of Gifts to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue, Santa Barbara Museum 1982.

The sculptor of this group invokes the work of Donatello in both the composition and attitude of the figures.

The Madonna is shown here seated and with a reflective, downward gaze while balancing the Christ Child on her left thigh. The child stands in contrapposto, astride his mother's leg as he looks to the side.

A terracotta group of the seated Madonna and Child ascribed to Donatello and given the date circa 1414 by Caglioti¹ is in the Detroit Institute of Arts (acc. no. 40.19) and bears close affinity to the present group, particularly in the animated pose, physiognomy of the child and the complex and deeply recessed folds in her drapery. Another group, of similar dimensions to both the Detroit and present sculptures, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. 7573-1861), also given to Donatello, circa 1414, is very similar in the meditative presence of the Madonna and dynamic posture of the child.²

¹F. Caglioti (ed.), Donatello. The Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2022, no. 2.3

² Ibid, no. 2.2

RELATED LITERATURE

P. Motture (ed.), Donatello. Sculpting the Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, London 2023, no. 1.3;

A. P. Darr, Italian Sculpture in the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. I, Belgium 2002, cat. no. 50