Lot 149: TADDEO DI BARTOLO

MADONNA AND CHILD

29 3/4 by 21 in.; 75.6 by 53.3 cm.

gold ground, tempera on panel, arched top

Detroit, Institute of Arts, Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century, 1933, reproduced cat. no. 47;
New York, World's Fair, Masterpieces of Art, 1939, no. 393, reproduced pl. 6 (as by Andrea Vanni).

W.R. Valentiner, in Pantheon, August 1933, p. 238, reproduced p. 239 (as by Andrea Vanni).

Edwin D. Levinson, Cedarhurst, Long Island, 1930s;
With Wildenstein, New York, by 1953;
Anna Moffo, by 1970;
Dino Fabri;
By whom anonymously sold ("The Property of a Gentleman"), London, Sotheby's, November 1, 1978, lot 2.

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for confirming this to be a work by Taddeo di Bartolo, based on firsthand inspection. We are also grateful to Gail Solberg who also supports the attribution to Taddeo di Bartolo, based on an image. However, she notes the close stylistic affinity with works by Andrea Vanni (to whom this picture had been ascribed by W. R. Valentiner, see Literature) and has speculated that the work might have been drawn or laid out by Vanni and painted by Taddeo. The composition with the Christ child on the left is unusual, but not unknown in Taddeo's work, and other examples can be found in the Museo d'Arte Scara Madonna, Volterra and in the Pinacoteca Civica, Savona.