Richard Offner (1889-1965), Florence;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, January 26, 2006, lot 40.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This panel has been recently restored and if a couple of chips in the frame are retouched, the picture could be hung as is. The reverse of the panel has two horizontal battens, one in the top half and the other in the bottom half. Further reinforcements have also been applied to reinforce some of the vertical cracks in the panels. There are very nicely restored losses in the gold itself. One is a vertical crack in the center of the right side and another is a vertical crack beneath the Madonna. There are some other restorations in the left side in the gold area. The gilding, although restored, seems to have a good deal of its original leaf remaining. The figures in the picture itself are in extremely good condition and there is hardly any restoration to the figures in the picture that we are aware of. It is possible that a slightly opaque varnish may be disguising some of the restorations but to the naked eye it certainly looks very well preserved throughout and it is hard to imagine that any restorations of significance exist in most areas of the picture.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

We are grateful to Everett Fahꦫy who, based on firsthand inspection, confirm♈s this painting to be by Pietro Buono.

From 1492 to 1512 Pietro Buono is recorded as working in and around Naples with his brother Alessandro. Amongst the works given to him is a Coronation of the Virgin in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

The inclusion of the insignia of Monte Oliveto Maggiore (three mounds with a cross and olive branches) would suggest that this was an Olivetan commission. The Olivetan Order was founded in 1313 by three Sienese noblemen - Bernardo Tolomei, Patrizio Patrizi and Ambrogio Piccolomini - who retired to Monte Oliveto, about thirty kilometers outside Siena. The monastery was built there six years later and their following increased in number in the ensuing decades, particularly after the plague of 1348. The Order expanded dramatically in the Quattrocento - those belonging to it🅘 exceeded 900 and lived in fifty-three different monasteries - and in the following century a fu🃏rther thirty monasteries were built.

The present painting was formerly in the collection of Richard Offner (see Provenance), the famed American art historian and author of the fourteen-volume Corpus of Florentine Painting.  Although born in Vienna in 1889, Offner spent the majority of his life stud🌠ying and working in the United States.