(Florence, active c. 1390–1415)
Madonna dell’Umiltà,
tempera on panel, gold ground, rounded top, 70.5 x 48.6 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Acquavella Gallery, New York, c. 1949 (as Master of the Bambino Vispo); M. Roy Fisher Fine Arts, New York, before 1995;
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York;
Galleria Silvano Lodi Jr., Milan, 2001;
sale Christie’s London, 25 April 2008, lot 37

Literature:
C. Baldini, Il Maestro di Sant’Ivo, Ritratto di un pittore fiorentino a cavallo tra XIV e XV secolo, Rome 2004, p. 92, no. 37;
R. Hiller von Gaertringen, Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300–1550,
Toskana und Umbrien, Mainz am Rhein 2004, p. 157, ill. 105, p. 156;
C. Baldini, Il Maestro di Sant’Ivo: profilo di un pittore fiorentino a cavallo tra XIV e XV secolo, in: Arte Cristiana, XLIII, 2005, 829, p. 275, no. 38

The present panel painting is attributed to the so-called Maestro di Sant’Ivo, a painter who worked in Florence between 1390 and 1415, and whose name was identified by the Hungarian art historian Miklós Boskovits, with reference to an altarpiece, from the Palazzo di Parte Guelfa in Florence, of the Trial of St. Ivo. Contemporary scholarship owes the most extensive examination of his works to Costanza Baldini (see C. Baldini, Il Maestro di Sant’Ivo: profilo di un pittore fiorentino a cavallo tra XIV e XV secolo, in: Arte Cristiana, XLIII, 2005, 829, pp. 261–276). The artist may have been a pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, whose workshop was one of the most productive in 14th century Florence. His paintings also have an affinity with the works of Mariotto di Nardo and Lorenzo di Niccolò.

The Maestro of Sant’Ivo specialised in smaller devotional pictures intended for private patrons, and painted at least four further paintings depicting the Madonna dell’Umiltà. In contrast to the Maestà (Madonna Enthroned), the so-called Madonna dell’Umiltà (Madonna of humility) depicts the Madonna sitting on the ground or on a cushion, and attained particular popularity from around 1340. In central Italy, above all, this type was often combined with the figure of Maria lactans, due to the special emphasis placed here on the idea of the Virgin Mary as a mother. Whereas in other examples of the Madonna of humility, which can likely be traced back to Simone Martini’s realisation from the early 1340s, the eye contact between the Christ child and his mother appears to be interrupted by the joining in of the beholder, Maestro di Sant’Ivo did not wish to relinquish this contact. Owing to correspondences in both style and hallmark motifs, the present painting bears a resemblance to a panel in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main (see R. Hiller von Gaertringen, Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300–1550, Toskana und Umbrien, Mainz am Rhein 2004, p. 155, ill. 104).