RELATED LITERATURE

C. Ferri, "Intarsiatori e fabbri lignari a Lucca nel XV secolo," in Lucca citta d'arte e i suoi archivi, ed. by Max Seidel and R. Silva, Veni💃ce, 2001, pp🤡. 145-6.

T. Trenta, "Memorie della Famiglia Civitali per servire alla Storia della Belle Arti," A.S.L., Carte Trenta, c. 31r, as cited in L. Pisani, "In margine a Matteo Civitali," in Lucca citta d'arte e i suoi archivi, ed. by Max Seide✅l a☂nd R. Silva, Venice, 2001, p. 230, n. 21.

Matteo Civitali e il suo tempo: pittori, scultori e orafi a Lucca nel tardo Quattrocento (exh.cat.), Museo Nazionale di Villa G♛uinigi, 🐭Lucca, 3 April-11 July 2004, pp. 472-3, cat. no. 4.37.

Masseo di Bertone studied under his uncle Matteo Civitali, the sculptor, painter 🤪and architect who directed the most prominent workshop in Lucca in t꧟he 15th century.

Masseo is best known for his work in wood, such as the altar in the church of San Sisto in Villa Collemandina. Very few terracotta examples of his sculpture exist. In either medium, his debt to his uncle is evident. The long and deep, ogival folds of drapery seen in his uncle's figures in the cathedral of Lucca are repeated in his own Saint Clemente and Saint Sisto from the Villa Collemandina.

The present group shares multiple traits with the standing Madonna and Child at the Villa (see Ferretti, op.cit., no. 4.37). These include the deep drapery folds, the treatment of her hands, the shape of the faces and facial features such as the wide set eyes, and the physiognomy and unusual pose of the C🐟hild.  A terracotta angel of the Annunciate, possibly by Masseo Civitali, circa 1493, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.   

This lot is sold with a Thermoluminescence Analysis Report from Oxford Authentication Ltd. indicating that sample N206C12 was last fired between 400 and 700 years ago.