DESCRIPTION
The carved wood group was presented in the sales catalogue of the Palazzo Davanzati museum collection owned by Bengujat, in 1934, as a work of the 15th-century Tuscan school. Photographs of the time show that the sculpture was housed in one of the wall niches, with a trilobated end, as located in various rooms of the palazzo; it was probably part of the Volpi collection purchased with the Palazzo by the Bengujat brothers in 1924.
The 15th century dating attributed in the 1934 sales catalogue has been brought forward by critics to the second half of the 14th century by virtue of the comparison of the work with a wooden Madonna and Child in the Bardini Museum in Florence. Both works were recognised as the product of a workshop close to that of Giovanni Fetti, known for the Dragondelli monument in the church of San Domenico in Arezzo and the Porta dei Canonici in Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence from 1377 onwards.
LITERATURE
M. G. Vaccari, in Le stanze dei tesori. Collezionisti e antiquari a Firenze tra Ottocento e Novecento, exhibition catalogue (Florence, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, 3 october 2011 – 15 april 2012), edited by L. Mannini, Edizioni Polistampa, Florence 2011, pp. 143-144;
A. Garzelli, Una postilla sulla Madonna Davanzati, in «Arte medievale», II Serie, XII- XIII, 1998-1999, pp. 239-241;
S. Chiodo, in Dalla Bibbia di Corradino a Jacopo della Quercia. Sculture e miniature italiane del Medioevo e del Rinascimento, exhibition catalogue (Milan, Galleria Nella Longari, 15 May – 20 June 1997), edited by A. Bacchi, Galleria Nella Longari, Milan 1997, pp. 68-69, n. 22;
A. Garzelli, Una Madonna (scomparsa) dell’ambito di Gano da Siena, in Arte d’Occidente. Temi e metodi. Studi in onore di Angiola Maria Romanini, edited by A. Cadei, 3 voll., Edizioni Sintesi Informazione, Rome 1999, III, pp. 543-551;
E. Neri Lusanna, in Il Museo Bardini a Firenze, edited by E Neri Lusanna, L. Faedo, 2 voll., Electa, Milan 1986, II, p. 233, n. 136;
Collezione del Museo di Palazzo Davanzati in Firenze di proprietà del Sig. Leopold Bengujat, auction catalogue (Florence, Galleria Luigi Bellini, 25-30 june 1934), Galleria Luigi Bellini – Palazzo Davanzati, Florence 1934, n. 445, plate 54.