Lot 105: The Madonna and Child enthroned, with a donor

Boccaccio Boccaccino (Ferrara 1466-1525 Cremona)
The Madonna and Child enthroned, with a donor
indisctinctly inscribed and possibly signed 'Dona[...] ... maria ... la ... Td[r?]en verro B[oc?]az... ...us ...sir M....' (lower left, on a cartellino)
oil on panel, shaped top
54 1/8 x 21¾ in. (137.4 x 55.3 cm.)
in a frame purchased from Stefano Bardini (213/16, A 240)

V. Lancetti, Biografia Cremonese, Cremona, 1820, p. 372.
F. Sacchi, Notizie pittoriche cremonesi, Cremona, 1872, p. 17.
G. Gronau, 'Unveröffentlichte Bilder des Boccaccio Boccaccino', Belvedere, 1929, p. 253.
A. Kronfeld, Führer durch die Fürstlich Liechtensteinsche Gemäldegalerie in Wien, Vienna, 1931, p. 175, no. 877.
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932, p. 88, as Boccaccio Boccaccino.
B. Berenson, Pitture Italiane del Rinascimento, Milan, 1936, p. 76.
A. Puerari, Boccaccino Milan, 1957, pp. 107-9 and 228-9, fig. 74.
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London, 1968, I, p. 53, III, pl. 1660.
M. Tanzi, Boccaccio Boccaccino, Soncino, 1991, p. 18, fig. 7 (in stripped state).

The church of S. Francesco, Cremona.
with Carrer, Venice, until 1882, when purchased for 1,400 Lire (although according to Bernhauer the painting was purchased in Spain) by
Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein, Duke of Troppau and Jägerndorf (1840-1929), and by descent; in the Liechtenstein City Palace, Vienna from October 1896 until August 1903, when moved to Seebenstein, Neunkirchen, Lower Austria, until April 1906, when returned to Vienna (Vienna inv. no. 645/4), until February 1941, when moved to Gaming, Styria, until February 1945, when moved to Lauffen bei Ischl, until April 1945, when moved to Schloss Vaduz, Liechtenstein, until the present.

Boccaccio Boccaccino was the most gifted painter active in Cremona in the early sixteenth century. Born in Ferrara, he received a major commission at Genoa in 1493, but he also worked in his native town, responding to both Ferrarese and Lombard trends. Early in the new century he was in Venice but by 1506 he was effectively based at Cremona. This panel is evidently the central panel of an altarpiece dated 1511 recorded in the Church of San Francesco at Cremona by Lancetti in 1820: the lateral panels, representing Saint John and Saint Francis, had already been removed from the church and have not subsequently been traced.

As Puerari noted, the Child, and to a lesser extent the Madonna, correspond with those of the half-length Madonna and Child formerly in the Wedells Collection, Hamburg (Puerari, fig. 68) of which a variant is in the Museo Civico, Vicenza. The type recalls that of Giovanni Bellini's Barberini Madonna, now in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow. It is not surprising that for a major Cremonese commission Boccaccino returned to a Venetian convention, although by the time this was executed, he had also come under the influence of Giorgione and the softer manner of Bellini's own late work.

A copy after head of the donor was painted on panel by Seraphin Maurer in 1898, for the Liechtenstein Collection (inv. no. 874).