Lot 51: Segna di Bonaventura Active in Siena 1298 - 1327 , Head of a female saint tempera on panel, gold ground, arched top, a fragment

tempera on panel, gold ground, arched top, a fragment

measurements note 31.1 by 23.8 cm.; 12 1/4 by 9 3/8 in.

M. Boskovits, "Review of J. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School and J. White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop", in The Art Bulletin, September 1982, vol. LXIV, no. 3, under the Appendix, p. 502 (as "Segnesque, close to the Coronation fragment, No. 16, in the Budapest Museum").

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie's, 16 July 1971, lot 67, for 9,500 gns. to Leyland (as Sienese School, circa 1300, 'Head of the Virgin');
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 19 May 1995, lot 59, where acquired by the present collector.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
When this painting last appeared on the art market over ten years ago it was suggested that it may once have belonged to the same altarpiece as four other bust-length panels of Saints Paul, Augustine, John the Evangelist, and Francis: the first three were formerly in a private collection, Milan,υ1 whilst the fourth is in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass..υ2 The slightly larger measurements of the Fogg fragment and the fact that the tooling here is slightly different would seem to suggest that the present painting does not in fact belong to the same complex as the four paintings mentioned above. The attribution to Segna di Bonaventura has been independently endorsed by Everett Fahy and Prof. Miklos Boskovits; the first upon first hand inspection and the latter from photographs. 1. For which see R. van Marle, "Quadri ducceschi ignorati", in La Diana, vol. 6, 1931, pp. 57-59, as Ugolino; although these were ascribed to Segna by Berenson and published by W. Angelelli and A. De Marchi as 'Segna?'.
2. Inv. 1952.88; see E. Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge 1990, p. 129, reproduced on p. 281, fig. 481, as attributed to Segna di Bonaventura.