TUREA private
collection in motion
Beyond Time / 04

Lorenzo di Bicci

Before
me.

The painting is one encounter. Its previous collectors are another.

Work
Madonna and Child
Date
c. 1375
Complete artwork
Complete work
The encounter

Other eyes before mine.

Andrea’s perspective

What drew me to the two paintings by Lorenzo di Bicci was the distance they had travelled in time, and the people who had chosen them before me. The late-Gothic world of these panels feels extraordinarily rare to encounter in this way. The gold, the quiet gestures and the sense of another world made that distance tangible.

But age alone was not the reason. Provenance mattered. I was drawn to the thought that a painting I wanted to live with had already held the attention of collectors whose judgement I admire. It is not a substitute for looking. It adds another dimension to the experience: I am seeing the painting, and I am also aware of the eyes that came before mine.

Look closer / The painting

A very human exchange.

The supplied study describes a Virgin of Humility, seated on a cushion on the ground, holding the Child as he turns to meet her gaze. It singles out that exchange of looks for its emotional intimacy within a group of related devotional works by Lorenzo. The small gesture between mother and child gives it its closeness.

The exchange of looks between mother and child
Mother and Child / Detail
The previous collections

Massimo.
Alana.

The documented provenance includes Prince Fabrizio Massimo in Rome and, following the Christie’s Rome sale of 18 June 2002, the Alana Collection of Alvaro and Ana Saieh in New York.

  1. RomePrince Fabrizio Massimo
  2. 18 June 2002 / lot 696Christie’s, Rome
  3. New YorkAlvaro and Ana Saieh / Alana Collection

The study was published in the 2009 Alana catalogue. The work’s critical history also includes Raimond van Marle, Brigitte Klesse, Miklós Boskovits and Richard Offner. Boskovits regarded it as an autograph work by Lorenzo and dated it to 1375–1380.

Gold and colour in the decorated textiles
Gold and colour / Detail
Look closer / Material presence

Gold, colour, closeness.

The decorated textiles, worked in gold and colour, belong to the painting’s richness. The small gesture between mother and child gives it its closeness.

The documented work

Artwork
& sources.

Identity
Artist
Lorenzo di Bicci
Title
Madonna and Child (Virgin of Humility)
Date
c. 1375 in the heading; 1375–1380 in the attribution history discussed by the study
Medium
Tempera on panel, gold ground
Dimensions
83 × 49.8 cm
Frame
Modern frame with gilded stucco decoration, according to the study
Provenance

Prince Fabrizio Massimo, Rome

Christie’s, Rome, 18 June 2002, lot 696

Alvaro and Ana Saieh (Alana Collection), New York

Literature

R. van Marle, The Development of Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague, 1927, VIII, p. 50, fig. 34.

B. Klesse, Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts, Bern, 1967, p. 363.

M. Boskovits, Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, Florence, 1975, p. 336.

R. Offner, A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. A Legacy of Attributions, New York, 1981, p. 42, fig. 85.

M. Boskovits, The Alana Collection. Italian Paintings from the 13th to 15th Century, Florence, 2009, pp. 87–90, no. 16.

Fondazione Federico Zeri, photographic record no. 4720.

Sources & attribution notes

Technical data, provenance and critical history follow the four-page Salamon study supplied by the collector (ldb_alana.pdf). No exhibition history is inferred from the bibliography. The reasons for acquisition are the collector’s own.