Lot 32: The Madonna and Child Enthroned

Lorenzo di Bicci (Florence c. 1350-1427?)
The Madonna and Child Enthroned
on gold ground panel, arched top
48 x 29 1/8 in. (122 x 74 cm.)

Weissenbruch Collection, The Hague.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
We are grateful to Professor Miklós Boskovits for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.

Lorenzo di Bicci was the head of a dynasty of artists who lived and worked in Florence, running a successful workshop that flourished for over a century, first under his direction, then later under that of his son, Bicci di Lorenzo (1373-1452), and grandson, Neri di Bicci (1418-1492). Despite the fact that very little biographical information is known of Lorenzo's life, it is clear from his commissions, particularly those for the Duomo in the 1380s and 1390s where he was employed decorating sculpture and executing frescoes, that he was one of Florence's most important artists of the late fourteenth century.

Lorenzo's statuesque compositions, underpinned by strong draughtmanship and a confident use of lively colour, derive from the work of Andrea Orcagna (1315/20-1368), who influenced the later generation of Florentine painters, which also included Jacopo di Cione and Niccolò di Pietro Gerini. He was enrolled in the Florentine painters' guild in 1370, and his earliest recorded works date from the 1380s. In addition to painting and gilding sculptures for the Loggia della Signoria and the Duomo he executed a number of panel paintings for various churches and guilds in Florence.

The longevity of the thriving family workshop meant that essential elements of Lorenzo's style were retained well into the fifteenth century, with the later artists eschewing the more dramatic developments of the Quattrocento , in favour of a more archaic style that was obviously highly popular with patrons. Given this consistency of style within the workshop it is not surprising that differentiating between the various hands has proved difficult. Vasari confused matters by attributing most of Lorenzo's oeuvre to his son, Bicci di Lorenzo. Attempts to distinguish Lorenzo's work from that of the workshop began in the 1930s with H.D. Gronau's seminal article, 'Lorenzo di Bicci: Ein Rekonstruktionversuch', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistoriscen Institutes in Florenz , iv/2-3, 1933, pp. 103-18, and has continued with the researches of Miklós Boskovits (see Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del rinascimento, 1370-1400 , Florence, 1975, pp. 107-9, pls., 58, 111-3 and figs. 129-46).

This typically monumental Madonna and Child , set against a red and gilt-decorated hanging and a plain gilded background, is similar in composition to the Madonna and Child with Four Saints (see Boskovits, op. cit. , fig. 132), particularly in regard to the frontal pose of the Madonna and the upright Christ, lifting His right hand in Benediction. The distinctive rounded facial type seen in the present picture can also be found in the central panel of a triptych in Empoli, Museo della Collegiata (R. Freemantle, Florentine Gothic Painters from Giotto to Masaccio. A Guide to Painting in and near Florence 1300-1400 , London, 1975, p. 411, fig. 837).