Integral tondo molding

Unknown

mid-15th century · Single piece of poplar. Carved, gilt; brown-red bole, blue in dentil. · Robert Lehman Collection

This "Madonna and Child" by Sano di Pietro (1405-1481) retains its original frame carved in one with the panel. The molding is proportionally rather deep for the scale of the painting. The alternating blue and gilt blocks of the dentil that encircle the Virgin and Child like a halo of stars are due to the intervention of the restorer/faker Icilio Federico Joni, who described this panel and its companion in his biography of 1936. An identical roundel framed the "Stigmatization of Saint Francis" by Sano di Pietro, also owned by Giulio Grisaldi del Taia and then F. Mason Perkins in the early twentieth century. The companion roundel has since disappeared.

Artist

Unknown

Date

mid-15th century

Medium

Single piece of poplar. Carved, gilt; brown-red bole, blue in dentil.

Culture

Sienese

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975