Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
Lot 36
Antonio Alberti da Ferrara(Ferrara? circa 1395-circa 1449)The Madonna and Child in an integral frame
Amended
7 December 2011, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £61,250 inc. premium
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Antonio Alberti da Ferrara (Ferrara? circa 1395-circa 1449)
The Madonna and Child
tempera on gold ground panel
62 x 45cm (24 7/16 x 17 11/16in).
in an integral frame
tempera on gold ground panel
62 x 45cm (24 7/16 x 17 11/16in).
in an integral frame
Footnotes
PROVENANCE:
With Galleria Celestini, Milan, from whence acquired by the present owner in 1960
Roberto Longhi has confirmed the attribution to Antonio Alberti in a certificate, dated 9 December 1957, where he compares the present work with a version of the same subject which was previously on the market in Berlin (see R. Longhi, Officina Ferrarese (Florence, 1956), no. 22, ill.) He suggested a date for the Berlin version of circa 1426 or shortly after. For the present example he suggested a date of around 1430. These paintings thus belong to the artist's early phase of production when he was working in Ferrara and the surrounding region and before his more prolonged working period in Urbino (there are records of his payments there in 1435, 1337 and 1338). Other works which Longhi has assigned to this period include the triptych of the Virgin and Child between Saints Bartholomew and Benedict (Città di Castello, Pinacoteca Comunale), the fresco of scenes from the Life of Saint Anthony (Città di Castello, San Domenico) and the scenes from the Life of Saint John the Evangelist (Ferrara, Pinacoteca Nazionale).
Saleroom notices
We are grateful to dott. Chiara Guerzi for kindly pointing out that the present painting has been in recent years attributed to the Ferrarese Master G. Z. The revised attribution has been endorsed by Professor Andrea De Marchi and has been extensively discussed in Chiara Guerzi's doctoral dissertation Pittori e cantieri della Ferrara tardogotica, da Alberto (1388-1393) a Nicolò III d'Este (1393-1441), (Ferrara, a. a. 2007/2008). Other works are ascribed to the corpus of the master and can be stylistically compared with the present picture. Amongst them: The Madonna and Child, Saint Nicola(?) and the donor Pietro dei Lardi, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. 65. 181. 5.); an altarpiece with the Madonna and Child in the Church of San Francesco, Carpi; a fresco in the Church of Santa Maria della Sagra in the same town; a fresco of the Resurrection in the Oratorio dell'Annunziata, Ferrara, and a The Holy Trinity in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Ferrara. The latter bears the date 141[?] and the initials G.Z., from which the artist's name is derived. The artist, active in early fifteenth-century Ferrara, is considered one of the forerunners of the Ferrarese School and has been tentatively identified as Michele Dai Carri.
