BENEDETTO DA MAIANO, follower of
Maiano, 1442-Florence, 1497
Madonna with the Child
painted stucco, cm 71 diameter
A prototype for the stucco in question is a renowned marble made by Florentine sculptor Benedetto da Maiano, between 1491 and 1495, for Filippo Strozzi’s chapel in Santa Maria Novella, where it decorated the rich banker’s acrosolium tomb.
Another version of this iconography, in which the Virgin affectionally holds the Child on her womb, resting her head on that of his blessing child, is the one in marble already part of the Kress collection, previously exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, but now conserved at the Chazen Museum of Art, in Madison, Wisconsin, with the attribution to the workshop of Benedetto da Maiano (inv. 61.4.12).
Like the American tondo, this polychrome stucco replica too traces with precision the fortunate invention of the maestro, in a lighter material that is easier to reproduce.
Publications:
“La natività di Gesù; dipinti e sculture, sec. XIII-XIX”, exhibition catalogue, Museo Diocesano of Gaeta, 2014, p. 31.
