This work is anything but monumental and was clearly intended as an object for private devotion. The statuette is made out of several pieces of wood that have been joined together. The main body, made from a solid piece with a deep split running through it, clearly visible at the back, is connected to the block with the head of the Virgin and another corresponding to the left side of the chair. The Madonna, seated on a throne, must once have worn a crown, probably made from metal. This is demonstrated by the groove around her head, which acts as a kind of step for supporting the regal attribute. Her gaze is directed towards a thriving Christ Child sitting on her left knee. It is very difficult to read the figure of the child, which is missing much of its original colouring and has been poorly re-chiselled. The group is also characterised by its highly fragmentary nature, with scrapes and missing parts, including Mary’s right hand, which must have been made from another piece of wood secured to the central body by a pin that can still be seen today. Much of the original paintwork is also missing, revealing the fabric of the incamottatura (linen cloth glued to the wood) - as can be seen on the back of the carving, in correspondence to the Virgin’s neck and the throne - and the plaster ground. A few surviving traces of paintwork can still be seen in the oval face of the Madonna and in her clothes: a simple red tunic and a long blue cloak, which covers her head and falls in large folds over her body.

Once part of the collection of Count Tomaso Franco of Vicenza before coming into the possession (in the 1990s) of Sascha Mehringer, an antiques dealer in Munich, and Ezio Benappi, an antiques dealer in Turin,¹ in 1999 the small sculpture belonged to the antiques dealer Flavio Pozzallo, who exhibited it - as an Umbrian/ Sienese piece from the mid-14th century - at the Lingotto antiques biennial in Turin.² It arrived in the Cerruti Collection the following year, purchased from Pozzallo during the Antiquari piemontesi in mostra exhibition, where it was presented with a reference to an “Umbrian/Sienese French-style sculptor” from the 14th century.³ With the exception of these mentions, the work has never been the object of any in-depth critical examination. Effectively speaking, the style of the group indicates that its maker must have been relatively familiar with French Gothic sculpture. This is suggested by the hint of movement in the Virgin who, together with her child, is involved in an interchange of gestures and emotions permeated with a vitality that is still considerable today, albeit weakened by its present state of preservation. The cutting line of the drapery in correspondence to the Madonna’s legs, with the sharp, clear-cut profile of the fabric, also leads in the same direction, notably echoing solutions from the other side of the Alps. However, the general character of the sculpture rules out the possibility of French origins and the elements we have emphasised should therefore be interpreted as the reworking of those specific suggestions by an artist working on this side of the Alps, in all likelihood in Central Italy in around the middle of the 14th century. Despite these suggestions, it is still not particularly easy to identify detailed comparisons that would help us to better define the cultural origin of the Cerruti sculpture. Nevertheless, while it seems impossible to follow the Sienese trail that has sometimes been proposed, its reading in relation to the Abruzzo context should be evaluated as a working hypothesis. This interpretation can be supported through comparisons with the standing Madonna and Child formerly in Pacentro (L’Aquila) and now in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and with the sculpture of the same subject, enthroned, in the church of San Marco in L’Aquila.⁴ Similarities can be observed in the oblique rhythm and the abundance of the folds, and in the structure of the faces, with the small eyes of the two figures separated by long nasal bridges, in keeping with a style that gives them an air of melancholy and somewhat haughty damsels. Despite these works evidently being by a different hand and dating to a slightly later period, the two carvings we have mentioned seem useful for guiding the interpretation of the Cerruti Virgin towards Gothic Abruzzo, which was heavily influenced by northern European art. 

[Federica Siddi]

1 Our thanks to Sascha Mehringer and Ezio Benappi for this information. 

2 Turin 1999a, p. 89. 

3 The documentation is in the Cerruti Collection Archives. 

4 Fachechi 2011, pp. 80-81, cat. 8.