In the collection of the present owner's family for at least thirty years.

B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School, vol. I, London 1957, p. 151, reproduced plate 385, location unknown (as by Niccolò Rondinelli);
J. Turner ed., The Dictionary of Art, London 1996, vol. XXVII, p. 123.

The catalogue illustration is faithful in tone and colour to the original painting. The panel support is cradled to the reverse and stable. The paint surface is clean. Some small paint losses have occurred lower left on the arm and stomach of the Infant and on the blue drapery. Some surface scratches are visible on the legs of the child. The blue of the Virgin's cloak has in the past been retouched. All the above is visible in the catalogue illustration. Other scattered discoloured retouchings are visible in the sky. Inspection under UV reveals further scattered retouchings along the losses and scratches and some strengthenings. The tenderness and detail of many passages has survived well, particularly in many of the fine outlines. The painting is offered in a carved gilt wood frame with some minor knocks but structurally sound.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The composition is based on a lost original by Giovanni Bellini probably of around 1492. The design was evidently extremely popular and numerous other studio versions are known. Heinemann, for example, lists as many as fifteen of these, most with variations in the landscape background.¹   Several of these, including the present panel, have been associated in the past with Niccolò Rondinelli (fl. circa 1490-1510), a painter from Ravenna, who is documented in Bellini's studio in the 1490s, and at least two of them, in the Palazzo Corsini and Galleria Doria-Pamphilij in Rome, bear his signature.² Two further versions, a smaller panel now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, without the curtain and the finch and with a very different panoramic landscape background, and another in the Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo (without the finch and differing in the landscape) were considered by Heinemann to be early and late works respectively by Rondinelli.³ The Amsterdam panel in particular is evidently of very high quality, and Berenson considered🌠 both this and the present panel to be works from  Rondinelli's early period. Al💦though it is clear that Rondinelli was an important assistant in the Bellini workshop, and to judge from his later independent works, modelled his mature style closely on that of his master, the lack of uniformity in the quality of all these variants does not easily permit the assignation of any one of them to his hand with any degree of certainty.

 

1. F. Heinemann, Giovanni Bellini e i belliniani, Venice 1959, pp. 14-15, cat. no. 47.
2. Heinemann, op. cit., cat. nos. 47i and 47k.
3. Ibid., p. 14, nos 47a and 47l, reproduced p. 277, fig. 295, and Heinemann, op. cit., vol. III, Supplemento e Ampliamenti, New York 1991, p. 6, no. 47a.