Il January 30, 2013 Christie's presents an entirely exceptional auction featuring a selection of paintings, works on paper and other works, by the greatest masters of the time, who were active throughout Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and France. ?
Among the attractions of the Renaissance sale there is a splendid Madonna of Sandro Botticelli “Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist” estimated: 5,000,000-7,000,000 USD, which after an exhibition tour (Hong Kong, London and Moscow) returns to New York to be auctioned.
This is a work that was created for a private client for devotional use and depicts the Madonna and Child with the young Saint John the Baptist, a popular subject of Florence, since he was also the patron saint of the city. The tender feeling between mother and son is here combined with an allusion to the resurrection in the tomb which appears carved in classical relief, just behind the figures. The diaphanous veil that falls over the Madonna's head signifies her purity, as it represents the headdress worn by unmarried Florentine women.
The painting is commercially available with a very important provenance, having been acquired in the early 1930s by Lord Duveen by John D. Rockefeller and remaining in the Rockefeller family for approximately 50 years. Only recently it passed into a private collection in New York, however carrying the name "the Rockefeller Madonna" with it and which it will probably keep forever.
Over the years, the painting has been the subject of continuous studies by leading experts in the field of Italian Renaissance painting. In 1979 Ronald Lightbown included the painting in the monograph although he was not entirely convinced of the exact attribution, as he had only seen it in photographs. Only in 1989, after seeing him personally, did any doubts about him disappear, thus publishing him in Botticelli's monographs, as a work by the Master and reporting this eulogy:
“The landscape is rendered like a bird's eye view from the loggia, it is bathed in a gentle sunset light which is very characteristic of this moment in Botticelli's art of heightened sensitivity to the emotional and dramatic suggestion of light and darkness”.
“Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist” has been exhibited several times in major museums and exhibitions, including the Botticelli and Filippino, Passion and Grace Exhibition in the XNUMXth Century Florentine Painting, held in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
The world tour that premiered the Christie Rockefeller Center it can be considered the painting's first major New York exhibition and its first viewing in Hong Kong and Russia.
Nicholas Hall, International Co-President of Old Masters and 19th Century Art, comments: “The Rockefeller Madonna is a rare and important example of Botticelli's mature style, which now holds its rightful place, and is the fruit of continued study, including Lightbown, Larry Kanter of Yale, and Everett Fahy of New York, Metropolitan Museum”
The Rockefeller Madonna and other Renaissance works will be returning ed exhibited from 26 to 29 January 2013 in New York at Christie's.
