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Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 44: 

FORMER INV. NOS.: 444 (M. 1796–97); 1 (F. 1798); 301 (M. 1804);
KM 633

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support originally consisted of four wooden
boards, vertically joined. The painting has been transferred
to a single piece of coarse, densely woven, plain-weave linen fabric,
 which is mounted on a non-original stretcher. The
gesso ground is white. The paint layer is abraded, 
and impastos have been flattened due to the transfer.
Some colours, such as flesh tints, have changed, 
turning a greenish white. 
There are many old retouches and overpaintings. 
Some of them are discoloured and roughly executed, 
while others are only visible in UV fluorescence. 
IR reflectography reveals clearly readable underdrawing 
and some changes in the composition: the position of 
the Virgin’s left hand and the dress and bag of one of 
the men have been altered. Documented restorations:
1868: Restored by Chaquis Rentoil, C.G. Plageman; 
1981: Regeneration of varnish. Overpaintings and retouches
adjusted.

PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. III, 1866, p. 86; NM
Cat. 1867, p. 15 (as anonymous); Sander 1872–76, III, p. 120, no. 301
(as Masaccio); Göthe 1910, p. 208; Sirén 1933, pp. 74–75; NM Cat.
1941, p. 13; Sirén 1944; NM Cat. 1958, p. 50 (as Guidoccio Cozzarelli);
Berenson 1968, p. 101; Christiansen 1988, p. 285; NM Cat. 1990, p.
95 (as Guidoccio Cozzarelli); Prytz and Eriksson 2010, p. 79; Franz
2012, p. 168.

The Adoration of the Magi is depicted in the
foreground of this large painting. In the background,
the journey of the three Magi to Bethlehem
is shown in six different scenes that form a
continuous narrative: the Magi departing from a
city; their entry into Jerusalem; the Magi before
King Herod; their departure from Jerusalem; the
guiding star of Bethlehem; and finally the main
scene, the Adoration of the Magi.

In the upper corners, the cities of Bethlehem
and Jerusalem are depicted with city walls, towers,
domes and palace architecture of the late 15th
century, all painted in accurate linear perspective.
The company travel through what seems to be
a Tuscan landscape and, in the foreground, find
the Holy Family in the stables. To the right, the
accompanying horsemen stand with their horses
and camels; to the left, the three kings kneel in
front of the Holy Child.

The Magi are painted in richly decorated
golden robes and costly brocade before the Holy
Family, who are looking down at them. The golden
robes recur in the various background scenes,
but the many retouches, the transfer from wood
to canvas in 1866 and the subsequent restoration
have led to inconsistencies in the representations
of the three Magi, as well as some later additions
of trees and bushes in the middle landscape. The
retouching of the trees was mentioned by Martelli
in a letter to Fredenheim in 1799.¹ The transfer
from wood to canvas and the restoration that
followed has caused some damage to the painting,
resulting in a light green flesh colour standing out
in some of the figures, especially in the face and
hands of Joseph. UV light and IR radiation confirm
areas of damage and retouches and reveal the
original panel structure and some underdrawing.
The underdrawing shows frequently recurring
fine shadows, with some lines indicating a different
bag and more elaborate sleeves on one of
the horsemen. IR radiation also reveals certain
changes to the hands of Mary and the Child, as
if the artist felt a need to adjust the position of
the hands during the original preparation of the
painting.

In the Martelli inventories and in Martelli’s
letter to Fredenheim, this altarpiece is attributed
to Masaccio: “T. Guidi, vulgo Masaccio da S.
Giovanni”.² In the KM inventories from 1862, the
painting has a plausible attribution to Domenico
Ghirlandaio,³ but when Cavalcaselle saw the
panel in 1865 he noted the resemblances with the
works of Matteo da Giovanni and considered
it a work by one of his pupils.⁴ In 1933 Osvald
Sirén finally attributed it to Guidoccio Cozzarelli.
⁵ That attribution has never been questioned
and was maintained in the 1988 catalogue of the
exhibition “Painting in Renaissance Siena” at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.⁶

The composition goes back to Gentile da Fabriano’s
great altarpiece, now in the Galleria degli
Uffizi, and to other paintings by him and his
Sienese counterpart Bartolo di Fredi, although
Cozzarelli’s composition is reversed in relation to
Bartolo’s Adoration of the Magi, dated c. 1395–
1410, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.
Another plausible inspiration is the Adoration of
the Magi by Benvenuto di Giovanni from around
1470, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
The central scene also has similarities
to an Adoration of the Magi that forms part of a
predella by Cozzarelli himself in the Museo d’arte
sacra della Val d’Arbia in Buonconvento.⁷ Furthermore,
the central scene with the Madonna and
Child has much in common with other Madonnas
painted by Cozzarelli, for example the paintings
in Buonconvento and Varese and the detached
fresco formerly in the tabernacle in the Piazza del
Campo, Siena.

The classical architecture and the rendition of
space represent a perspectival legacy from Cozzarelli’s
master Matteo di Giovanni and from Piero
della Francesca, both of them from Borgo Sansepolcro
in Umbria. The rendering of the architecture
and many architectural elements and details
are very similar to those found in the Annunciation
and the Journey to Bethlehem, in Lowe Art Museum,
Coral Gables, Miami, a fragment which
originally formed the upper right-hand corner of a
large altarpiece. That painting is dated to the mid
1480s.⁸ As the Adoration of the Magi has most in
common with that work and with the two altarpieces
in Sinalunga, it can thus also be dated to
the 1480s or early 1490s. It is tempting to suggest
that the Coral Gables Annunciation could have
formed an upper part of, or part of a cimasa to, the
present Adoration of the Magi.

The original provenance of the altarpiece is
difficult to reconstruct, but as most of Cozzarelli’s
paintings were executed for churches in the surroundings
of Siena, it no doubt comes from this
region and may originally have adorned a small
church or private chapel in a town or village in
southern Tuscany.
je

1 “[…]gli alberi sono trascurati; ma vi ha sospetto che siano
antichamente ricoperti a coloro ad olio.” Letter from Nicola
Martelli to Carl Fredrik Fredenheim, received 3 July 1799,
NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, see Appendix 1. See
also Prytz and Eriksson 2010, p. 79.
2 “Nascità di G.C. ossia adorazione de tre Re Magi (T.Guidi,
vulgo Masaccio da S.t Giovanni) Codesta gran tavolo
prova, che questo Toscano autore è il vero primo ristauratore
della Pittura in Italia; poiche gli altri, che gli preceder
ono, quantunque prossimi, gli sono situati ben lontani.”
Letter from Martelli to Fredenheim, received 3 July 1799,
NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1.
3 “Masaccio. På träd. Anses även vara av Dom. Ghirlandajo
1451 †1495. Illa medfaren, sprucken och skef. Infästad i en
stärklåda med 2 dussin skrufvar i Januari 1862. Mycket
berömd av Martelli”, NM Archives, Kongl. Museum,
Inventarium över målerisamlingen, 1861.
4 Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1866, p. 86. See also Franz 2012,
p. 168.
5 Sirén 1933, pp. 74–75.
6 Christiansen, Kanter and Strehlke 1988, p. 285.
7 Guiducci 1998, p. 56, fig. 21c.
8 See Christiansen 1988, fig. 52.
[End]

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