Bonifazio de' Pitati, called Bonifazio Veronese

The Virgin reading a book and holding the standing Christ Child, with a landscape beyond

Lot Closed

December 8, 03:00 PM GMT

Estimate

80,000 - 120,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a Gentleman

Bonifazio de' Pitati, called Bonifazio Veronese

Verona 1487 - 1553 Venice

The Virgin reading a book and holding the standing Christ Child, with a landscape beyond

oil on panel

unframed: 74 x 49.2 cm.; 29⅛ x 19⅜ in.

framed: 86 x 70.5 cm.; 33⅞ x 27¾ in.

Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski (1754–1833), Rome;

Thence by family descent in Paris and Vienna (as Titian);

With Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, before 1927;

Stockholm art market, 1927;

Acquired in 1928 for a private collection, Stockholm;

Thence by family descent;

By whom sold ('Property from a Private Collection'), London, Sotheby's, 1 November 2001, lot 27;

With Hall and Knight, New York;

Where acquired on 3 April 2002;

Private collection, United States;

Whence sold ('Property from a Distinguised Private Collection'), New York, Sotheby’s, 22 May 2019, lot 15 for $212,500;

Where acquired by the present owner.

S. Poglayen-Neuwall, 'Ein wiederaufgetauchtes Frühwerk Tizians?', in Cicerone, vol. 19, no. 19, October 1927, pp. 591–96, reproduced p. 593, fig. 2 (as Titian);
D. Westphal, Bonifazio Veronese (Bonifazio dei Pitati), Munich 1931, pp. 31–33, n. 81, p. 144, reproduced pl. IV, fig. 5 (as Bonifazio);
O. Sirén, Italienska Tavlor och Teckningar: Nationalmuseum och andra Svenska och Finska Samlingar, Stockholm 1933, p. 137, reproduced pl. 88 (as Palma il Vecchio);
A. Busiri Vici, I Poniatowski e Roma, Florence 1971, pp. 326–27, engraving reproduced fig. 152 (as Bonifazio).

This painting was first correctly ascribed to Bonifazio Veronese by Dorothea Westphal in 1937 (see under Literature). Prior to that, this devotional painting was believed to be an early work by Titian, with an arrangement of figures similar to the so-called 'Gypsy Madonna' in Vienna.

Yet the present landscape and figure types are consistent with Bonifazio's works of the 1520s, including the The Holy Family with a Shepherd in the National Gallery, London, and The Holy Family in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, in which the Christ Child appears especially close to this one. At the time of the 2001 sale, Dr Philip Cottrell endorsed the attribution to Bonifazio.

Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski (1754–1833), earliest recorded owner of this painting, was the nephew of the King of Poland and a major art patron and collector in late 18^th-century Europe. Relocating to Rome after the third partition of Poland in 1795, Prince Poniatowski counted among his friends artists such as Antonio Canova, Angelica Kauffmann, and Anton Raphael Mengs. This painting remained in his family longer than much of his encyclopedic collection, which was dispersed after his death.