DELLA ROBBIA GIOVANNI (1469 - 1529) Lot n° 179

DELLA ROBBIA GIOVANNI (1469 - 1529). And workshop. Madonna with Child and the young St John the Baptist, with lunette and winged angels in glazed polychrome terracotta. The Italian Soprintendenza considers this lot to be a work of national importance and requires it to remain in Italy; it cannot therefore be exported from Italy. Literature: J. Cavallucci, E. Molinier, ""Les Della Robbia. Leur vie et leur oeuvre"", Parigi 1884, p. 246; C. Beni, ""Guida illustrata del Casentino"", Firenze 1889, p. 198; M. Cruttwell, ""Luca & Andrea della Robbia and their successors"", Londra 1902, p. 353; C. Beni, ""Guida illustrata del Casentino"", Firenze 1908; L. Burlamacchi, ""Luca della Robbia"", Londra 1908, p. 116; Elenco degli Edifici Monumentali, XXXVI, Provincia di Arezzo, Roma 1916, pp. 89, 90; A. Marquand, ""Giovanni della Robbia"", Princeton 1920, p. 181; C. Beni, ""Guida del Casentino"", Firenze 1958, p. 199; F. Niccolini, ""Nuova guida del Casentino"", Arezzo 1968, p. 193; C. Beni, ""Guida del Casentino"", Firenze 1983, p. 222; A. Batistoni, ""Pivieri dell’Alto Casentino, Comunità Montana del Casentino"", Stia 1992, p. 130; L. Bencistà, Arte a Pratovecchio, «Corrispondenza», XXI, 1, 39, San Giovanni Valdarno 2001, pp. IV-V; A. Bellandi, ""Per un Atlante delle emergenze storico-culturali nel territorio del Parco"", Borsa di studio indetta dal parco nazionale delle foreste casentinesi, Monte Falterona e Campigna: Indaginesulle emergenze storico-culturali meritevoli di tutela e attenzione nel territorio del Parco, Anno: 2000/2001 Responsabilità scientifica: Istituto per i Beni artistici, culturali e naturali della RegioneEmilia Romagna, p. 23 (https://www.parcoforestecasentinesi.it/sites/default/files/images/cartella_ricerca/Borsa%20di%20studio%20Bellandi.pdf); Vivere Pratovecchio, Semestrale dell’Amministrazione Comunale di Pratovecchio, Anno I, Numero I, 2002, p. 28; G. Landi, ""Pratovecchio. Terra d’illustri memorie"", Pratovecchio Stia, Arti Grafiche Cianferoni 2014, p. 208; G. Landi, ""Bruciano le stagioni. Storia di una famiglia"", s. d. (2019?), s. p. (p. 5, 42?). The high relief object of this report has a particularly troubled history even if, at the same time, common to many other similar artefacts still present in Casentino but no longer in their original location, or migrated from this valley to other shores. With over fifty works, the Casentino is presented as the valley where the concentration of glazed sculptures is more extensive than in other areas of Tuscany. The altars made by Andrea della Robbia and by the Verna Convent furnishing workshop and the polychrome terracottas of Santa Maria delle Grazie near Stia modeled by Benedetto Buglioni at the end of the fifteenth century, represent the two most relevant episodes. To these works, which decorate religious buildings, we must add other reliefs, tabernacles and liturgical furnishings widely spread in the Casentino area. [...] since 1884, in the town of Pratovecchio the artistic literature indicates the presence of artefacts by della Robbia: a Madonna and Child by Andrea della Robbia, today in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Stia, but coming from a chapel along the road between Stia and Pratovecchio which was demolished with the construction of the railway in 1888, the tabernacle of Borgo di Mezzo, today attributed to Marco della Robbia, son of Giovanni, with the Madonna and Child and Saints Sebastian and Saint John the Baptist, still on site, a Eucharistic tabernacle attributed to Giovanni della Robbia in the nearby parish church of Santa Maria a Casalino and the Madonna with Child and San Giovannino, object of our intervention, coming from a tabernacle placed on the facade of Casa Brocchi then transferred to the counter-façade for a long time of the Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. The work depicts the Madonna seated on a slightly molded bench supporting the little Jesus on her right leg. Jesus, who lost his right arm, still evident in the older photos, when the building was transferred from the facade of Palazzo Brocchi to the propositura. he holds a small yellow apple in his left hand. The Madonna wears a large, regal blue cloak lined with green, closed on the chest by a precious clasp composed of a ruby set and surrounded by a string of pearls, over a purple tunic - the red, absent in Della Robbia's palette, is replaced by manganese - surrounded by a sash and edged at the wrists in yellow gold. To the left of the Virgin, San Giovannino, with his hands joined and dressed in a rustic camel skin tunic, alluding to his life as a hermit, looks towards the Child Jesus. His figure also reveals a sophisticated 'old-fashioned' taste made even more explicit in the Roman style of the shoes that the child wears. On either side of the Madonna's head, in the arch furrowed by a sky streaked with thin blue and yellow clouds, two cherubs unfurl, each with three pairs of large blue and purple wings, and above the white Dove of the Holy Spirit from w