Lot 70: Lorenzo di Bicci (Florence circa 1350-circa 1427) The Madonna and Child enthroned

The Madonna and Child enthroned
gold ground panel, arched top
122.8 x 73.8cm (48 3/8 x 29 1/16in).

PROVENANCE:
Weissenbruch Collection, The Hague
Sale, Christie's London, 6 December 2007, lot 32

LITERATURE:
R.Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting: A Legacy of Attribution, The Fourteenth Century, Supplement, ed. H.B.J. Maginnis, New York, 1981, p.41, fig.82

We are grateful to Professor Miklós Boskovits for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs. The composition is particularly comparable to Lorenzo di Bicci's Madonna and Child with Four Saints (see Miklós Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del rinascimento, 1370-1400, Florence, 1975, pp. 107-9, pls. 58, 111-3, figs. 129-46). The monumental frontal pose of the Madonna with the upright Christ raising his hand in benediction, set against a red and gilt hanging and a plain gilded background are shared by these two compositions. The particular facial type used here is also found in the central panel of a triptych in Empoli (see R. Freemantle, Florentine Gothic Painters from Giotto to Masaccio. A Guide to Painting in or near Florence 1300-1400, London, 1975, p. 411, fig. 837).

It is Boskovits who has in recent years cast considerable light on Lorenzo di Bicci, adding to his oeuvre, albeit that still few of the artist's most significant works have been identified. Despite the small number of surviving documented works and the scarcity of biographical records, Lorenzo di Bicci nonetheless ranks as one of the most important painters in Florence during the second half of the fourteenth century. His first significant commissions included work on the decoration of the Loggia della Signoria in Florence in 1386 and, in the following year, of the Duomo, where he collaborated with Spinello Aretino and Agnolo Gaddi. In their compositional simplicity and lively use of colour his panel paintings followed the style of the group of late fourteenth century painters who were influenced by Andrea Orcagna, such as Jacopo di Cione and Niccolò di Pietro Gerini. To this he added his own particular luminosity of colour and an accuracy of execution that was rooted in careful preparatory drawing. As the first important artist in a family of artists that ran a workshop that passed from father to son for three generations the persistence and influence of his style was ensured for more than a century.