洛倫佐·吉貝爾蒂工作室（1378 - 1455年） 意大利，佛羅倫薩，十五世紀中

Benvenuto di Cino family, Florence

Repaired horizontal break to upper portion of shoulders. Some cracks to be stabilized on her proper right side behind veil. Overall standard surface abrasions, chips to paint and small losses throughout with some restorations. Some consolidation and repainting to blue-green head cover and to her hair on the proper left side. Some polychromy has been refreshed, however considerable amount of original paint remains.
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The present sculpture is related to a group of painted terracotta and stucco reliefs variously attributed to the workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti, one of the greatest sculptors of the Renaissance.  Other stucco examples of this composition exist, including one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and one in the Bargello, Florence. Ghiberti’s influence on 15^th century Florentine art was substantial. His workshop, which included artists such as Donatello and Paolo Uccello, produced images of the Madonna and Child to satisfy an increasing demand for domestic devotional objects.

Two fine examples of this composition given to the workshop of Ghiberti were included in the 2013/2014 exhibition The Springtime of the Renaissance. The first, from the Musei Civici Fiorentini-Museo Stefano Bardini in Florence (inv. MCF-MB 1922-722), depicts the Virgin and Child mounted on a plinth emblazoned with two angels upholding a wreath. Gentilini  (2011, op.cit.) proposed that the variants with the base incorporating the patron's coats of arms (like the present piece) are datable to around 1420, prior to the completion of  Ghiberti’s renown bronze doors for the Baptistry in Florence. Antonella Nesi, in the exhibition catalogue, supports the association of this composition with the Ghiberti workshop and proposes a dating at the end of 1430s early 1440s, when Ghiberti's propensity for more classical and formal compositions was realized. The second example from the Venerabile Arciconfraternita della Misericordia, Florence (inv. 10260) has a greater connection to the present work in the striped pattern of the cloth around the Virgin’s neck and the treatment of her damask dress.

The base of the present work is emblazoned with the arms of the Benvenuti di Cino family who were wealthy merchants and belonged to one of the cloth guilds in Florence.

RELATED LITERATURE
F. Schottmüller, Italienischen und Spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barocks in Marmor, Ton, Holz und Stuck, Berlin, 1913, p.13, fig. 22
R. Ciabani, Le Famiglie di Firenze, vol. I, Florence, 1992, p. 741
F. Gualandi (cur) with G. Gentilini , Antiqua res : secoli XIII-XVI, 2011, pp. 18-23, no. 5
B. Paolozzi Strozzi and M. Bormand, eds., The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 23 March - 18 August 2013; Paris, Musée du Louvre, 26 September 2013 - 6 January 2014, pp. 426-429, nos. VIII.2-3