- 51
Segna di Bonaventura Active in Siena 1298 - 1327
Description
- Segna di Bonaventura
- Head of a female saint
- tempera on panel, gold ground, arched top, a fragment
Provenance
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie's, 16 July 1971, lot 67, for 9,500 gns. to Leyland (as Sienese School, circa 1300, 'Head of the Virgin');
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 19 May 1995, lot 59, where acquired by the present collector.
Literature
Condition
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
When this painting last appeared on the art market over ten years ago it was suggested that it may once have belonged to the same altarpiece as four other bust-length panels of Saints Paul, Augustine, John the Evangelist, and Francis: the first three were formerly in a private collection, Milan,1 whilst the fourth is in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass..2 The slightly larger measurements of the Fogg fragment and the fact that the tooling here is slightly different would seem to suggest that the present painting does not in fact belong to the same complex as the four paintings mentioned above.
The attribution to Segna di Bonaventura has been independently endorsed by Everett Fahy and Prof. Miklos Boskovits; the first upon first hand inspection and the latter from photographs.
1. For which see R. van Marle, "Quadri ducceschi ignorati", in La Diana, vol. 6, 1931, pp. 57-59, as Ugolino; although these were ascribed to Segna by Berenson and published by W. Angelelli and A. De Marchi as 'Segna?'.
2. Inv. 1952.88; see E. Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge 1990, p. 129, reproduced on p. 281, fig. 481, as attributed to Segna di Bonaventura.