Lot 51
  • 51

Segna di Bonaventura Active in Siena 1298 - 1327

bidding is closed

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

M. Boskovits, "Review of J. Stubblebine, Duccio di Buoninsegna and his School and J. White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop", in The Art Bulletin, September 1982, vol. LXIV, no. 3, under the Appendix, p. 502 (as "Segnesque, close to the Coronation fragment, No. 16, in the Budapest Museum").

Condition

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a section of poplar panel from an altarpiece. It was thinned and cradled quite long ago, and has some past worm damage although it seems to have always been quite strong and stable, with no sign of flaking and a beautiful even craquelure. There is a possible trace of another object or halo in the lower left corner, with a little retouching but otherwise the edges are surprisingly clean cut with intact paint up to the very edge. The restoration is fairly recent, and careful. There are a few minor retouchings mainly around the outline of the head, with rather more in the thinner gilding where the underlayer of red bole has been strengthened. The edges of the veil have slight strengthening around the silhouette of the head and shoulders, and there is one small scratch touched out on the nose with one or two other minimal touches in the face. However essentially the entire head and drapery is beautifully intact and unworn, and only the gold leaf is rather thin. The original has richer depths in the face and the drapery, than the quite orange photograph in the catalogue, with the classical underlying green of the face slightly apparent although not through wear, and a fine patina. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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.