Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (20.1979)

Maria Skubiszewska

A TONDO BY BOTTICELLI

R. Lightbown, in his recently published monograph on Botticelli, discussed, in the cata-
logue section concerning "Workshop and School pictures", the tondo of the Virgin and
Child with the Young Baptist and an Angel (painting on wood, diameter 86,5 cm) no w in
a private collection in Chicago (ill. 2)1. The author presents a bibliography connected with
this painting and reminds the reader that the work is acceptcd as work of the school of Botti-
celli by most scholars with the exception of G. Fiocco who believed it to be an "autograph
work"2.

According to Lightbown the popularity of the composition is attested by the numbe,
of replicas. He names three: 1. In the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw (painting on wood-
diameter 111 cm; ill. 1), 2. In the Akron Art Institute, Akron, Ohio, in the collection of
Miss D. McKean (painting on wood, diameter 87 cm; ill. 3), 3. Location unknown but the phor
tograph of which is in the Berenson Archive. A check in the Berenson Archive at Harvard
University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Settignano (Florence) proves that the
photograph shows the painting in Warsaw (the other one is that in Chicago).3 Clearly the
third above mentioned replica does not exist.

Lightbown emphasized the importance of the Chicago tondo4, which suggests. as I be-
lieve, that he thought it to be the best example. It is important to note that the Warsaw
tondo was known to him only from the Cracow exhibition catalogue of 196F. It was not

1. R. Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978, II, Completc Catalogue, p. 132—133, n. 31.

2. G. Fiocco, "A Newly Discovered Tondo by Botticelli", T/te Burlington Magazine, LVII, 1930 (nr 331), p. 153—154.
R. Salvini (Tutta la pittura dcl Botticelli, Milano, 1958, II, p. 73) sces the Chicago tondo as a "high class workshop
painting carried out perhaps to a drawing by the Master". G. Mandel (A. Chastel, G. Mandel, Tout Voeuvrc peint de
Botticelli, Paris, 1968, p. 99, n. 90) stated "il parait en effet d'une bonne facture, bicn qu'il faille cxclure l'intcrven-
tion du peintre en ce qui concerne la preparation".

3. I am grateful to Miss Irena Laskowska, MA. for having checked this on the spot and for having sent me xerox
copies of the photographs and their reverses. On the reverse side of botli is written — Edwards, Cincinnati, Ingel-
heim collection. It is worth mentioning that the tondo which is prcsently in Chicago formely belongcd to Edwards
in Cincinnati.

4. In Lightbowns' book — nndoubtedly by mistakc — close to the text concerning the Chicago tondo is reproduced the
Akron tondo.

5. La peinlure italienne des XIVe et XVe siecles, Exposition des Musees et des collections polonaises avec concours de la
Galerie Nationale de Prague et du Musee de 1'Art a Bucarest, Musee National de Cracovie, Galerie Czartoryski, Cra-
covie, 1961, n. 53. In the review of the eatalogue C. Ragghianti ("Pittura italiana a Cracovia", Critica d^Arte, X
(n. 59—60), 1963, p. 56) mentions our painting stressing its good workshop level. This tondo (inventory number
187156) was acouired after the second World War when it carae to tlie Museum in 1945. It was published in two
muscum catalogues: Catalogue of Paintings, Foreign Schools, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, 1969, n. 135
(from the workshop of Botticelli) as well as recently in a catalogue of Erench, Netherlandish and Italian painting
to 1600 in the collection of the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw (J. Białostocki, M. Skubiszewska, Malarsttco francu~
skie, niderlandzkie, włoskie do 1600, katalog zbiorów, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warszawa, 1979, n. 27,) as
a painting by Botticelli.

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