Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano

With V. Frascione, Florence;
With Gilberto Algranti, Milan, 1971;
Anonymous sale, Milan, Finarte, 16 October 1971, lot 33;
Anonymous sale, Rome, Christie's, 4 June 2001, lot 308, where acquired by the present owner.

Milan, Palazzo Serbelloni, Gilberto Algranti,  Antologia di dipinti di cinque secoli, 5 – 30 May, 1971.

Advertisment, Pantheon, vol. XXIX, July/August 1971, p. 346

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This panel, presumably of poplar, has an old dark stained back and cradle. One or two cracks behind seem to have appeared since the staining, and some movement is apparent in front, with tiny flakes lost recently along various vertical cracks. In general the Madonna herself has been less affected by movement in the wood than the gold ground, with just one old crack running up from the base into her blue robe. This blue under robe is in unusually good intact condition. It is very dark and could possibly be azurite, although the overall technique is not characteristically Tuscan. The fine brocading of the Madonna's cloak is also beautifully preserved on the right, although less so on the left side. The gold ground has quite widespread losses from past flaking, with fairly old repairs at upper right and patchily down the left side. These have reproduced the craquelure and matched the gilding. The fine quattrocento scalloped tooling around the arched crest of the panel is well intact. One old crack runs down through the wrist of the Child. The flesh painting throughout has a minute premature craquelure, which appears to have become brittle and has been widely retouched, with the head of the Madonna and body of the Child having some intact areas but much rather reddened retouching, and her hand being almost entirely retouched. However the gentle slightly gothic character of the painting still retains an overall unity. 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."

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for endorsing the attribution to Domenico da Montepulciano following inspection of the original. The first record of this little known painter comes in the form of his signed and dated (1418) polyptych in the baptistry of the Duomo in Osimo, a town in the eastern central regions of the Marches. The only other dated work, a polyptych in the Pinacoteca di Recanati, is from 1422. The artist takes his name from the small town of Montepulciano in the municipality of Ancona, rather than its namesake to the north of Siena.