Beskrivning: Se beskrivning i den engelska versionen.

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 119:

TECHNICAL NOTES: The support consists of a single hardwood
board, probably poplar. On the verso there are some later inserts
of wood. The old cradle, which had caused damage to the panel,
was removed and the present wood inserts were fitted during
the conservation in 1981. The panel has a slight convex warp and
a vertical crack, 12 cm long, running from the bottom, 8 cm from
the left. Wormholes and exposed worm tunnels are visible on the
verso. The gesso ground is white and covers the whole support.
The paint layer has many retouches throughout. The varnish is
yellowed. Documented restorations: 1927: Crack mended. Provided
with cradle. Old retouches removed; 1967: Adjustment of the
cradle. Cracks glued. Cleaning. Retouching; 1981: Removal of the
cradle. Cracks glued and panel reinforced. Removal of old varnish
and overpaintings. Filling and retouching. Varnish.

PROVENANCE: Gift of Axel Bielke, 1869.

EXHIBITED: Mariabilder, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1988.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: NM Cat. 1910, p. 370; NM Cat 1941, p. 91; NM Cat.
1990, p. 11 (as Basaiti, manner of).

In this small wood panel the Virgin is represented
holding the Christ Child, standing at
what seems to be an open window or a parapet
in the foreground. In the background there is
a green cloth of honour with a detailed border
in gold. There is also an open window with a
water landscape and a typical 15th-century rocca
and mountains in aerial perspective, recalling a
real landscape with the lagoon and the Venetian
terraferma.

Osvald Sirén attributed the painting to the
school of Alvise Vivarini, noting that the dry
and cold expression of the picture could not be
ascribed to Alvise himself.¹ The work was subsequently
attributed to Vittore Carpaccio by
Giuseppe Fiocco, and later to Marco Palmezzano
by William Suida.² Ben Nicholson’s attribution to
Marco Basaiti or his circle has been preserved in
the 1990 Nationalmuseum catalogue of European
paintings, and there is no reason to question it.³

The present panel is a fine example of a theme
established by Bellini and reused by Basaiti. There
is a similar version in the National Gallery in
London and another version in the Museo Correr
in Venice, Madonna and Child with a Donor, dated
1501 or the following year. In the Nationalmuseum
version, the Madonna and Child are depicted in a
rather cold, marble-like style, with sharp-edged
and clearly defined forms in bright colours, quite
in line with the rest of Basaiti’s oeuvre. The folds,
and especially the metallic character of the lining,
of the Virgin’s mantle also have much in common
with works by Bellini from the 1490s and 1500s,
and a fair date must be around the year 1500 or
the first decade of the 16th century.
je

1 Sirén 1933, p. 91.
2 NM Archives, Dokumentationsarkivet, Marco Basaiti.
3 NM Cat. 1990, p. 11. [End]

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Marco Basaiti | Madonnan med barnet | Nationalmuseum

Madonna and Child | Nationalmuseum

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2011