North Italian, late 15th/early 16th century

with a metal plaque inscribed: MATTEO CIVITALI LUCCA 1436-1501 on the base

The gesture of the hand and humble countenance of this young female saint suggest that she represents the Virgin of the Annunciation. Her dress and facial type are analogous to those by Florentine sculptors of the later 15th century.  However, the distinct manner in which she wears her hair, loosely gathered low on her back with spiraling tresses falling about her shoulders are reminiscent of Northern Italian representations of women at that time. This treatment, for example, is echoed in a marble head of a female figure from the Miracle of the Newborn Child in the chapel of the Arca of St. Anthony, S. Antonio, Padua (1500-1504) by the Lombard sculptor, Antonio Lombardo (Luchs, op. cit., p. 291, fig. 170). This feature is also similar the modelling of the hair on a fine terracotta bust of Isabella d'Este in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth (inv. no. AP 2004.01), by Gian Christoforo Romano who worked for the courts of Ferrara and Mantua. 

RELATED LITERATURE
A. Luchs, Tullio Lombardo and ideal portrait sculpture in Renaissance Venice, 1490-1530, Cambridge, 1995

Sold with a thermoluminescence analysis report dated 27 November 2014 from Oxford Authentication stating that the sample  taken was last fired between 300 and 600 years ago, ie. between 1414 and 1714 a.d.