Attributed to Jacopo Avanzi Active in Padua and Bologna 1363 - 1416

Frederick Mason Perkins (1874-1955), Villa di Sassoforte, Lastra a Signa, near Florence, until 1944;
Stolen by German troops from the EGELI depository in Florence in 1944;
Jannello collection, Rome (according to Benati, under Literature);
Acquired in 1956-7 in Canada by the godfather of the present owner;
Thence by inheritance. 

G. Palumbo, Collezione Federico Mason Perkins, Assisi 1973, p. 90, no. 71 (as by Jacopo Avanzi; an attribution first proposed by Carlo Volpe and Miklos Boskovits);
F. Todini, "Una Madonna dell'Umiltà di Nicolò di Pietro", in Arte all'incanto, Milan 1986, pp. 13-14 (as an early work by Nicolò di Pietro);
A. de Marchi, in Antichi Maestri pittori. Quindici anni di studi e ricerche, Turin, Galleria G. Gallino, 1987, cited under catalogue entry no. 9 (as attributed to Zanino di Pietro and datable to around 1410);
D. Benati, Jacopo Avanzi nel rinnovamento della pittura padana del secondo '300, Bologna 1992, p. 128, footnote 102 (as not by Jacopo Avanzi but by a Venetian painter active during the last decade of the 14th Century);
L. Morozzi & R. Paris ed., Treasures untraced. An inventory of Italian Art treasures lost during the second World War, Rome 1995, pp. 41-42, no. 35 (as attributed to Andrea di Bartolo).

Originally attributed by its former owner Frederick Mason Perkins to the Sienese painter Andrea di Bartolo (1389-1428), this painting has enjoyed an inconsistent appraisal form critics and scholars since. In 1973 Carlo Volpe and Miklos Boskovits advanced an attribution to the Paduan painter Jacopo Avanzi. Professor Boskovits continues to support this identification, and believes this to be a late work by the artist under Venetian influence.¹ Benati, however, cast doubt upon this idea, preferring instead to see it as the work of a Venetian painter active in the last decade of the 14th century.²

Frederick Francis Mason Perkins, known simply as 'Federico' in Italy, was a noted collector and scholar of early Italian Renaissance art. A protégé of Bernard Berenson, and a friend of John Pope-Hennessy, Charles Fairfax Murray and Robert Langton Douglas, his most important work was his biography of Giotto, published in 1902. The remainder of his collection was willed to the Sacro Convento of Sanfrancesco in Assisi at his death.

The Italian Ministry of Culture has confirmed, both as successor in title to Frederick Mason Perkins and his widow Irene Vavsour Elder and as competent export authority, that this work may be sold with clear title.

1. Private correspondence, May 2006.
2. See Benati, under Literature.