Madonna and Child (Duccio)

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For other uses, see Madonna and Child.

Madonna and Child (also known as the Stoclet Madonna or Stroganoff Madonna) is a panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. Painted in tempera and gold on wood panel around the year 1300, it depicts Mary, the mother of Jesus holding the infant Jesus. It is approximately 8 in wide by 11 in tall.

In November 2004 the painting was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (Met) for more than 45 million dollars, the most expensive purchase ever by the museum. It was the first Duccio acquired by the Met, which bought the painting from members of the Stoclet family in order to close a gap in its permanent collection of Renaissance painting. Works by Duccio, who is considered the pre-eminent painter of Siena in the early Renaissance, are extremely rare, with only a dozen or so known to survive; before the Met's purchase this was the last piece still in private hands. The painting is one of the few Duccio's known to be created as an individual work of art, and not part of an ensemble.

The painting is sometimes called the Stoclet Madonna, after the family name of Adolphe Stoclet, its second recorded owner, who was a Belgian industrialist in the early 20th century. The Met refers to the painting as the Stroganoff Madonna after its first recorded owner, Count Grigorii Stroganoff, a serious collector of early Italian paintings who died in Rome in 1910. Stoclet acquired the painting following Stroganoff's death. After Stoclet and his wife died in 1949, the painting was willed to their son, Jacques. His four daughters inherited the painting from his widow in 2001. Through a sale arranged by Christie's, the daughters transferred ownership to the Met.

[edit] Controversy

James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University in New York, believes that Duccio’s Madonna and Child, which the Met dates to 1300, is the work of a 19th century artist on stylistic grounds. He points to what he considers to be the low quality of the painting and elements of content that had not yet appeared in artwork of that period. Professor Beck said: "We are asked to believe that the modest little picture represents a leap into the future of Western painting by establishing a plane in front of Mary and the Child. This feature, a characteristic of Renaissance not Medieval pictures, occurs only a hundred years after the presumptive date of the picture ...". In September 2006 Beck will be publishing his conclusions in a book, The Crisis of Connoisseurship. Perhaps significantly, Beck admits that he has not extensively studied the picture. Keith Christiansen, the Met's curator, disagrees with Beck's contention. Christiansen has noted that the museum has extensively studied the painting, and has scientifically examined the panel construction, underdrawing, and pigment, and found them consistent with the attribution of the painting to Duccio and a date of 1300. Christiansen said: "What everyone else sees as a sign of quality and innovation, Beck sees as weakness. There is no reason to doubt the period and authenticity of the picture."[1]