This beautiful relief with the Madonna and Child has been convincingly attributed by Laurence Kanter and Alessandro Bagnoli to the important Sienese 15th-century sculptor, architect, architectural theorist, engineer and painter Francesco di Giorgio (Bagnoli, in Bellosi, op. cit., pp. 410, 412). Francesco di Giorgio was the foremost artist active in Siena during the second half of the 15th century and has been described as ‘the Leonardo da Vinci of Siena’ (Brown, op. cit.).
The present cartapesta relief is a rare survivor and heralds from the celebrated collects ion of the German Jewish banker Jakob Goldschmidt. It shows the Virgin seated, holding the Infant Christ in her right arm, and flanked by charming representations of spiritelli (winged cherubim). The Virgin's head is set within a halo and the whole is crowned by a beautifully preserved garland suspended by seraphim. The frame with elaborate arched mounding held up by baluster columns is exceptional and can be attributed to the Sienese woodcarver Ventura di Ser Giuliano, called Turapilli, who is documented between 1470 and 1521.
The attribution of the Goldschmidt relief
In 1926 Wilhelm von Bode attributed the Goldschmidt relief to the hand of Michelangelo's teacher, Bertoldo di Giovanni, the early Renaissance master who was recently the subject of a major exhibition at the Frick collects ion in New York (Bode, op. cit., pp. 63, 66; and cf Ng, Noelle and Salomon op. cit.). Bode further identified a stucco version (without frame) in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum Berlin, now the Bode Museum Berlin (inv. no. no. I.1561; Schottmuller, op. cit., p. 65, no. 148). Bode speculated that the Goldschmidt relief and the stucco might relate to a lost bronze original by Bertoldo. The present composition has echoes in Bertoldo's only known depiction of the Madonna and Child, his Virgin and Child with Angels in the musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. OA 9153). The arrangement with the Virgin holding the Christ Child in her arms and flanked by spiritelli is reminiscent of the Louvre relief. However, these elements more broadly form part of the Donatellesque tradition of representing the Virgin and Child.
The Goldschmidt relief was published by Laurence Kanter in 1990 as being a work by Francesco di Giorgio (op. cit.). The attribution was maintained by Alessandro Bagnoli in the 1993 Siena exhibition dedicated to Francesco di Giorgio (Bellosi, op. cit., pp. 410, 412). Interestingly, the stucco version of the model in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum Berlin (inv. no. no. I.1561) had been attributed to Francesco di Giorgio by Allen Stuart Weller in 1943, though the attribution had been disputed by Ralph Toledano in 1987 (op. cit., p. 154, no. A25).
Kantar and Bagnoli’s attribution is supported by a visual comparison with two of the artist’s greatest sculptural works, the bronze reliefs of the Desposizione (Deposition, Santa Maria del Carmine, Venice) and the Flagellazione (Flagellation, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia; inv. no. 746). The Madonna in the Goldschmidt relief finds a correspondance in the seated figure (probably St John) in the lower right corner of the Desposizione relief. The strong influence of Donatello in the folds of the drapery and the intimate manner in which the Virgin leans towards the dying Christ in the Desposizione accords with the Goldschmidt sculpture. A further comparison can be found in the bronze relief with St Jerome by Francesco di Giorgio in the National Gallery of Art Washington (Kress collects
ion, inv. no. 1957.14.12).
The Goldschmidt relief is a test.mes nt to the influence of Donatello, who had worked for a t.mes in Siena, on Francesco di Giorgio’s sculptural oeuvre. Note, in particular, the left spiritello which stands in profile, recalling the farthest right figure in Donatello's bronze Chellini Madonna in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1450, inv. no. A.1-1976).
The frame of the Goldschmidt relief finds a strong comparison in that from another of Francesco di Giorgio’s relief sculptures, a terracotta Madonna and Child from the Pieve di San Leonardo, Montefollonico, Torrita di Siena. This frame has been associated by Bagnoli to the Sienese woodcarver Ventura di Ser Giuliano, called Turapilli, who received important commissions in Siena, including for the architectural elements of the altarpiece of the Bichi chapel in Sant’Agostino Siena (1488; alongside Francesco di Giorgio and Luca Signorelli). The decorative motifs on the Montefollonico frame (and the Goldschmidt relief) are similar to those made of cartapesta and wood from the ceiling and pilasters of the oratorio di San Bernardino on which Turapilli worked between 1496 and 1512.
Francesco de Giorgio was born in 1439 and was trained by Vecchietta and Sano di Pietro. He was active in Siena, but also in Urbino, where he worked as architect, military engineer and sculptor for Duke Federigo da Montefeltro. He later worked in Milan, where he may have met Leonardo, and in Naples. Francesco de Giorgio was active as a painter but is arguably most highly regarded for his sculptural works which, as has already been outlined, show a strong debt to Donatello. This is most apparent in his lifesize wood St John the Baptist in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, in Siena, but also in the aforementioned reliefs of the Flagellation and Deposition.
The Cartapesta technique
The cartapesta technique typically combines softened paper or cloth with water (and possibly glue), which is then pressed into moulds. The medium gave sculptors the ability to create impressive relief sculptures in multiples. The chief advantages of this technique lay in the lightness of the material (in contrast to heavier marble, bronze or terracotta), its surprising durability, and the opportunities it provided for polychromy. Whilst the intrinsic value of the material was less than bronze or marble, it was valued due to these qualities and used by leading sculptors, as is evidenced by the cartapesta Madonna and Child by Jacopo Sansovino, formerly at Castle Howard, which was sold in these rooms on 8 July 2015, lot 17, for £1,025,000; Several further versions of the Sansovino model exist, including in the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The collects ion of Jakob Goldschmidt (1882-1955)
The present cartapesta, together with the next lot (the Southern German silver salts), comes from one of the greatest art collects ions of the 20th Century; the collects ion of Jakob Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt rose to become one of the most prominent and respected German bankers and businessmen of his t.mes . His many professional distinctions included an honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg, in recognition of his “services for reconstruction of the German economy,” an appointment as economic advisor and trusted friend to the chancellors of the Weimar Republic, and invitation to the boards of over 250 companies. Jakob Goldschmidt’s lifestyle and collects ing tracked his business success. His first passion was for Old Master Paintings and Works of Art, but beginning in the mid-1920s, with guidance from the great dealers Franz Zatzenstein-Matthiesen, Justin Thannhauser and Paul Cassirer, he began acquiring Impressionist paintings. By the end of the 1920’s, Goldschmidt owned an Impressionist art collects ion rivaling that of any of his clients, including works by Cézanne, Monet, Gauguin, Manet, and van Gogh. Goldschmidt had magnificent art-filled homes; his mansion on Matthäikirchstrasse, near Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin, was filled with Renaissance artworks and his lakeside villa in Neubabelsberg housed his Impressionist and Modern Art collects ion.
In the years 1920-1922 Goldschmidt co-founded the Darmstädter und Nationalbank (Danatbank). In the aftermath of the bank’s collapse in the world recession in 1931 and the Government directed merger with the faltering Dresdner Bank in March 1932, Goldschmidt was excluded from management of the bank but was still obliged to pledge his personal assets, including his homes and his art collects ion, as additional collateral for the bank’s operations. In 1932 he was able to extricate his Matthäikirchstrasse collects ion from the bank but only by obtaining a loan from the August Thyssen-Hütte trade union – which also insisted on a pledge over Jakob Goldschmidt’s art since his financial assets had collapsed in value during the depression. The election of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in March 1933 was the last straw for Goldschmidt who had already been subjected to vicious anti-Semitic attacks from the Nazis. In April 1933, Goldschmidt left Germany under cover of darkness, taking whatever he and his sixteen-year-old son Erwin could fit into the trunk of their car. Goldschmidt first moved to Switzerland, and then to London and New York, where he took up residence at the Savoy Plaza Hotel and resumed what he could of his business affairs. Goldschmidt was able to have some of the art sent out of Germany, including much of the famous porcelain collects ion, but the majority was trapped there including the magnificent collects ion of Renaissance art in the Matthäikirchstrasse mansion. In July 1933, Goldschmidt was ‘encouraged’ to sell the mansion to the Italian Fascist regime to serve as their German embassy and the art displaced was moved to Goldschmidt’s private office in Berlin. The Renaissance collects ion remained there until June 1936 when it was consigned to auction with Hugo Helbings in Frankfurt – as the property of a Berlin collects or. 300 lots, comprising nineteen Old Master Paintings (including works by Jan Steen, Lukas Cranach the Elder, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Paolo Veronese), silver, porcelain, furniture and bronzes went under the hammer, and raised RM 388,945 (despite 30% of the lots failing to sell). The proceeds of the sale did not reach Jakob Goldschmidt. The remainder of the art that Goldschmidt had been obliged to leave in Germany, including the Impressionist collects ion in Neubabelsberg, was seized by the Nazis and sold at an auction in Berlin in 1941.
The art that Goldschmidt had succeeded in bringing to New York was sold at Replica Shoes ’s in London during the evening of October 15, 1958. The auction was one of the greatest art events of the 20th Century; it was to be a night of “firsts”: The first evening auction to be held in London since the 18th Century, the first where attendees were asked to wear evening dress, the first with a full colour auction catalogue, and the first to be covered on television, with celebrities on all sides. The more than 1,400 attendees included William Somerset Maughan, Kirk Douglas, Antony Quinn (fresh from playing van Gogh in the movie Lust for Life) and the impeccable Lady Churchill, complete with dark glasses to shield her from the TV lights.
The present cartapesta and the following lot were both purchased from Goldschmidt’s 1936 sale by Dr. Irmgard Freiin von Lemmers-Danforth (1892-1984). Dr Lemmers-Danforth was a successful pediatrician and a noted art collects or. In 1963 she donated around 500 works of art to Wetzlar as a public collects ion – including the current lots. The pieces remained on display in the Palais Papius until earlier this year when the City of Wetzlar agreed based on the Washington Principles that Jakob Goldschmidt’s sale in 1936 was the direct result of Nazi persecution and returned them to his heirs.
RELATED LITERATURE
A. S. Weller, Francesco di Giorgio: 1430-1501, Chicago, 1943; R. Toledano, Francesco di Giorgio Martini: Pittore e scultore, Milan, 1987; D.A. Brown, Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century, cat. National Gallery of Art Washington DC, 2003; ; A. Ng, A.J. Noelle and X.F. Salomon, Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence, exh. cat. The Frick collects
ion, New York, 2019