Attributed to Carlo Crivelli Venice (?) circa 1430 - 1495 Ascoli Piceno

Purchased in Italy by Henry Wallis, circa 1859;
Vernon Watney, Cornbury Park and Berkeley Square;
Thence by inheritance, until sold, London, Christie's, 10 April 1987, lot 56 (as Attributed to Carlo Crivelli), where acquired by the present owner (for £100,000).

Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, Italian Art from the 13th century to the 17th century, 18 August - 2 October 1955, no. 38 (as Carlo Crivelli 'probably an early work');
Manchester, City Art Galleries, Art Treasures Centenary Exhibition, 30 October - 31 December 1957, no. 11 (as Carlo Crivelli).

V.J. W(atney), A Catalogue of the Pictures and Miniatures at Cornbury and 11 Berkeley Square, January 1915, p. 15, no. 49 (as Carlo Crivelli);
E.K. Waterhouse, "The Italian Exhibition at Birmingham", in The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVII, no. 630, September 1955, p. 295 ('Mr. Watney's small Madonna, quite unmentioned in the literature, may well be one of the incunables of Carlo Crivelli).

Although unknown to Pietro Zampetti at the time he was writing his monograph on Carlo Crivelli (1986), the painting is comparable to a number of works by the artist, in which the Madonna and Child are set behind a parapet, fruit is hung above them (in a manner reminiscent of Andrea Mantegna), and a landscape is visible on either side of a draped cloth: compare, Crivelli's signed paintings in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, London, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica (reproduced in colour in P. Zampetti, Carlo Crivelli, Florence 1986, plates 42, 56, and 57 respectively). All are dated to the 1470s (or slightly later) and a similar date, or perhaps slightly earlier, might be proposed for the present work.