The Gould Madonna, Madonna and Child with Saint Peter, Saint Francis and six saints adorned by two patrons; Christ blessing the Virgin in the pinnacle inscribed 'AVIA MARIA GRATIA PLENA' (on the lower frieze of the frame) tempera and gold on panel, in an arched, engaged tabernacle frame 30 1/4 x 13 in. (76.8 x 33 cm.)
Paris, Petit Palais, Exposition de l'Art Italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo, May - July 1935, no. 178. London, Wildenstein & Co., The Art of Painting in Florence and Siena, 1250-1500 - A Loan Exhibition, 24 February - 10 April 1965, no. 11.
Literature
R. Offner, Studies in Florentine painting, the fourteenth century, New York, 1927, p. 64, no. 4. B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932, p. 215. P. Valéry, et. al., Exposition de l'art italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1935, pp. 79- 80, no. 178. B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 185. B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance- Florentine School, London, 1963, I, p. 69. The Art of Painting in Florence and Siena from 1250-1500, exhibition catalogue, with introduction by Denys Sutton, London, 1965, pp. 8-9, no. 11, fig. 10. A. Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi, Critical Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonné, Columbia and London, 1982, p. 208, no. 39.
Provenance
Frank Jay Gould, Maisons Lafitte, by 1932. Mrs. Frank Jay Gould, Cannes, by 1965; sale, Sotheby's, New York, 25 April 1985, lot 89. with Piero Corsini, New York; from where purchased by the late owner in 1988.
Notes
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF EDWIN L. WEISL, JR.
Since appearing at the sale of the estate of Florence Gould in 1985, successful conservation has removed the numerous unnecessary areas of overpaint and revealed this to be a highly refined and well preserved autograph panel by Giotto's most celebrated pupil, Taddeo Gaddi. It retains its original base with inscription and trefoil pinnacle in which is the comparatively uncommon depiction of Christ blessing the Virgin. The Madonna and Child sit on a throne placed on a complicated architectural setting. The throne rests on a pedestal with columns rising out of the arms to support a pinnacle, all made of the sort of multicolored marble with which the great Florentine churches of the fourteenth century were decorated. Around the Madonna and Child, eight male saints describe an elegant arc which both parallels and accents the arches of the frame and of the throne. The heads of the saints are vividly drawn and each one is individually characterized. At the base of the throne the patrons, presumably a married couple, kneel in prayer. The frame and pedestal are entirely original except for the two upright pilasters below the pointed gable, which are later additions. Dr. Stefan Weppelmann has proposed that this portable altarpiece originally included two shutters which would have closed within the deeply stepped top and pedestal and been attached to the inside edge of the engaged frame.
The Gould Madonna can be dated to relatively early in Gaddi's career, to the mid-1330s when he was still associated with his teacher, Giotto. Gaddi's earliest works, such as the Bromley Davenport Polyptych (sold, Christie's, London, 24 May 1991, lot 33, for $3,438,100) and the frescoes in the Baroncelli Chapel (S. Croce, Florence), show the young artist's close dependence upon the master, most especially in the heavily drawn outlines of the figures and the narrative clarity of each episode. However, already in the Baroncelli frescoes Gaddi is showing an independent interest in foreshortened space and a lively architectural imagination which may have been what prompted Vasari to promote the myth that Taddeo was a practicing architect. Like Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi was closely associated with the Franciscan order. S. Croce was the most important Franciscan church in Florence and it was here that he painted not only the fresco cycle in the Baroncelli Chapel, but also a series of twenty-six quatrefoil panels and two quadrants for a cabinet in the sacristy. After Giotto's death in 1337, Gaddi painted frescoes for S. Miniato al Monte, Florence, but throughout the 1340s and 1350s is no longer associated with any great commissions until he was asked to paint the remarkable Tree of Life fresco in the refectory of S. Croce.
If Gaddi's reputation has rested in large part on the fresco cycles he painted for his Franciscan patrons, an important part of his output was the series of paintings intended as objects of private devotion. In this panel, as in other small paintings, the presence of St. Francis suggests the possibility of a patron with links to the order. The Gould Madonna can be dated to shortly after the completion of the Baroncelli frescoes and linked to two beautiful small paintings, one the magnificent triptych in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (fig.1) which is of a similar height (62 cm high) and, like this panel, shows the Madonna and Child enthroned on an elaborate architectural construction, with patrons at the bottom. The saints, however, are arranged more abstractly in an outer border separated by a gilded molding. The Berlin triptych is signed and dated 1334. The other panel that provides a parallel is an exquisite Madonna and Child enthroned with saints (Kunstmuseum, Bern). The small dimensions (45 cm. high), the design of the throne, its placing in space, and the framing of the central group with almost a mandorla of attendant saints and angels, are all elements that find echoes in the Gould picture. To add to our confidence in this dating one may also cite the similarity between the heads of the saints in this panel and figures in some of the quatrefoils Gaddi painted for the sacristy of S. Croce: the head of the saint on the third tier on the left resembles St. Andrew in the Pentecost (fig. 2) while the head of the saint on the bottom right resembles that of the prophet on the Christ's left in the Transfiguration.
Although Gaddi is regarded primarily as the artist closest to the center of Giotto's circle, Ladis (op. cit. above) draws interesting parallels between the work of Gaddi and Bernardo Daddi, especially with regard to their production of panels for private patrons. Ladis cites the similarity between the posture of the Child who reaches up to chuck his mother's chin in the Gould Madonna and that in Daddi's Bigallo Triptych of 1333 (fig. 3). Likewise, the device of the framed enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints arranged within an outer frame, common both to the triptych by Gaddi in Berlin and the Bigallo Triptych, suggest a very close dependence on Daddi if not an actual cooperation between the two artists. However, despite these similarities, the placement of this panel within Gaddi's orbit has never been questioned. Bernard Berenson first brought the Gould Madonna to the attention of Richard Offner, who published it, in 1927, as a work by Taddeo. On the basis of a poor photograph taken prior to cleaning Ladis included it among those paintings listed as 'largely by the shop of Taddeo Gaddi'; however seeing a transparency of it post-cleaning Ladis now regards it as an entirely autograph painting. Larry Kanter, Keith Christiansen (both of whom have examined it in person), and Angelo Tartuferi have all endorsed its entirely autograph quality. It is to be published as such in the updated volume of the Corpus of Florentine Painting on Taddeo Gaddi being prepared by Miklòs Boskovits, who describes it as 'an important and rare piece' and dates it slightly earlier than Ladis, to circa 1330 (written communication, 31 January 2006).
The loan of this painting has been requested for an exhibition devoted to the portable private alterpiece to be held in Frankfurt in 2007.
