Lot 180: Bernardino Fungai , Siena bapt 1460 - 1516 The Madonna and Child reading in a landscape tempera on panel

tempera on panel

measurements note 71.5 by 52.7 cm.; 28 1/8 by 20 3/4 in.

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 30 January 1998, lot 27, where acquired by the present owner.

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR
This painting would appear to be a mature work by the Sienese artist Bernardino Fungai. The position of the Madonna's lowered head and her drapery (as well as details such as the pin on her mantle) all relate, albeit in reverse, to the same figure in Fungai's only known signed and dated work, a large Coronation of the Virgin with Saints and Angels of 1512 in the Pinacoteca, Siena.υ1 The artist may have used the same design for this part of the composition in each picture and the present easel painting may therefore also date from around 1512.
1. Reproduced in La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: i dipinti dal XV al XVIII secolo, Siena 1978, p. 64, cat. no. 431.