Details & Cataloguing
Old Master Drawings including the Collection of Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann
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New York
New York
Workshop of Bartolomeo Vivarini
NURSING MADONNA
Point of the brush and gray wash on paper washed light gray
197 by 123 mm; 7 3/4 by 4 7/8 in
Read Condition Report
Read Condition Report
197 by 123 mm; 7 3/4 by 4 7/8 in
Catalogue Note
This fascinating depiction of a Virgo Lactans is a rare survival from the workshop of the Vivarini family, datable to around the 1480s, when the bottega was still in the hands of Bartolomeo (active 1440-after 1500) and his nephew Alvise (1442/53-1503/5), the son of Antonio (active 1441-1476/84). The poor survival rate of drawings of this period from the Veneto, when compared with those originating from central Italy, and particularly Florence, makes the attribution of drawings from the region very challenging, and it is often necessary to look primarily at the style of the painted works for informative comparisons.
The physical type of the Madonna in the present sheet accords well with some of Bartolomeo Vivarini’s depictions of the subject, such as the painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., or the Madonna and Child Enthroned (1478), part of a triptych in the church of San Giovanni in Bragora.1 The typology of the Madonna's face, the linearity in the execution of the contours, and the attention given to the draped mantle studied with deep folds, are very similar to the powerful observation that are distinctive of the Vivarinis and their workshop, which had been first established by the two brothers Antonio and Bartolomeo in Murano. Moreover, the modelling of the form through the application of the grey wash, with shading, often heightened with white, is also characteristic of the few sheets that have been attributed to Alvise Vivarini.2 The technique and the style of the present drawing are also close to a sheet attributed to Antonio Vivarini in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Standing youth with a sword and a palm branch.3
The physical type of the Madonna in the present sheet accords well with some of Bartolomeo Vivarini’s depictions of the subject, such as the painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., or the Madonna and Child Enthroned (1478), part of a triptych in the church of San Giovanni in Bragora.1 The typology of the Madonna's face, the linearity in the execution of the contours, and the attention given to the draped mantle studied with deep folds, are very similar to the powerful observation that are distinctive of the Vivarinis and their workshop, which had been first established by the two brothers Antonio and Bartolomeo in Murano. Moreover, the modelling of the form through the application of the grey wash, with shading, often heightened with white, is also characteristic of the few sheets that have been attributed to Alvise Vivarini.2 The technique and the style of the present drawing are also close to a sheet attributed to Antonio Vivarini in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Standing youth with a sword and a palm branch.3
1. R. Pallucchini, I Vivarini, (Antonio, Bartolomeo, Alvise), Venice 1965, reproduced figs. 174, 184
2. For example Head of an elderly man, London, British Museum, inv. no. 1876,1209.619; see H. Chapman and M. Faietti, Fra Angelico to Leonardo. Italian Renaissance Drawings, exh. cat., London 2010, no. 75, reproduced p. 256
3. Point of the brush and brown wash, heightened with white, on brown-washed paper; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 08.227.26
Suggested Lots
Old Master Drawings including the Collection of Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann
|
New York
New York
