Provenance:

Private Collection, Italy.
With Robert Simon Fine Art, 2023; where acquired by the present owner.

This jewel-like Madonna and Child Enthroned is an exceptional example of Plautilla’s private devotional paintings. It bears an obvious stylistic bond with her Madonna and Child in the Museum Catherijneconvent in Utrecht (Fig. 1). They share a similar linear description of forms and features and a gentle, if somewhat uniform, characterization of the principal figures. A further technical bond can be noted in the color deficiency of the Virgin’s robe and the sky in both paintings—neither properly blue today. The degradation of the blues is frequently observed in Plautilla’s small-scale works and was undoubtedly the consequence of the limited resources of a nun to secure quality pigments such as expensive ultramarine.

In the broadest of senses, the composition of this painting can be seen as a reduction of a Florentine altarpiece type current in the first half of the 16th century. Close in scale and format to our painting is an Antonio del Ceraiolo panel of a related subject, with a seated Madonna and Child flanked by two kneeling female saints with two male saints standing behind them (Fig. 2). Plautilla’s depiction of Saint Catherine of Alexandria in the left foreground, with her mantle gathered and hanging over her proper right arm, must have been a favorite compositional solution for the artist, as it frequently appears in her oeuvre (see also Cat. 4). This figural pose can be traced to one of the drawings formerly in Plautilla’s possession—a study by Fra Paolino now in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Fig. 3).[1]

Technical Images

[1] For this drawing (inv. no. I 563 N 94), see: https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/59345.