This panel and another in the Lehman Collection portraying the Crucifixion (1975.1.2) formed a diptych (two panels hinged together so they could open and close) and would have been used for private devotion. The radiant beauty of the Virgin’s court, enhanced by the ornamental detail, contrasts with the tragic drama of the Crucifixion, thus offering the worshipper two very different images on which to meditate. These panels reveal Segna di Buonaventura’s appropriation of the language and motifs of his master, Duccio. The greatest Sienese painter of the fourteenth century, Duccio’s emotionally expressive figures, complex spatial structures, and subtle use of color had a formative influence on generations of artists. The Madonna and Child enthroned is sometimes thought to reflect Duccio's lost altarpiece of 1302 for the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, while parts of the "Crucifixion" echo the center panel of a portable triptych in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts that was designed by Duccio and painted by the master with workshop assistance. While neither panel of the diptych is in any way a copy, both attest to the enormous popularity of Duccio's work.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Madonna and Child with Nine Angels
Artist:Segna di Buonaventura (Italian, active Siena by 1298–died 1326/31)
Date:ca. 1315
Medium:Tempera on panel
Dimensions:Left wing, overall, with engaged frame, 15 1/8 x 10 5/8 in. (38.4 x 27 cm); right wing, overall, with engaged frame, 15 x 10 5/8 in. (38.1 x 27 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number:1975.1.1
Cardinal Franchi, Rome; Commandante Rossi, Rome; Pol. Popiel, Warsaw (not Lvov as stated by R. Lehman, pl. 15), by whom presented to the cathedral in Warsaw; Count Horodetzki, Paris; F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York. Acquired by Philip Lehman in 1923.
Giacomo De Nicola. "Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School in the Mostra di Duccio at Siena." The Burlington Magazine 22 (1912), p. 147.
Robert Lehman. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928, Pl. 14.
Lionello Venturi. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931, Pl. 19.
Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 295.
Raimond van Marle. Le scuole della pittura italiana. Vol. 2, La scuola senese del XIV secolo. The Hague, 1934, p. 106.
"Exh. cat." Masterpieces of Art. Exh. cat.1939, no 1.
George Henry McCall. Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800: Masterpieces of Art. Ed. William R. Valentiner. Exh. cat., World's Fair. New York, 1939, p. 42, no. 86.
Esther Rezek Mendelsohn New York University. The Maestro di Monte Oliveto. 1950.
Cesare Brandi. Duccio. Florence, 1951, p. 152.
Paintings and Bronzes from the Collection of Mr. Robert Lehman. Exh. cat., Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Colorado Springs, 1951, Pl. 1.
Theodore Allen Heinrich. "The Lehman Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 8 (1954), p. 217.
Gertrude Coor-Achenbach. "A New Attribution to the Monte Oliveto Master and some Observations concerning the Chronology of his Works." Burlington Magazine 97 (July 1955), pp. 203-207.
Charles Sterling, ed. Exposition de la collection Lehman de New York. Exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie. Paris, 1957, no. 16.
The Lehman Collection. Exh. cat.Cincinnati, 1959, no. 2.
Luisa Vertova. "A New Work by the Monteoliveto Master." Burlington Magazine 112 (October 1970), pp. 688-691.
Kenneth Clark. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970.
James H. Stubblebine. "Duccio's 'Maestà' of 1302 for the Chapel of the Nove." Art Quarterly 35, no. 3 (1972), pp. 239-268.
George Szabó. The Robert Lehman Collection: A Guide. New York, 1975, p. 12, Pl. 2.
James H. Stubblebine. Duccio di Buoninsegna and His School. Princeton, 1979, p. 96, fig. 216.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. Vol. 1, New York, 1980, p. 49.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. Vol. 2, New York, 1980, p. 47.
Bruce Cole. Sienese Painting From its Origins to the Fifteenth Century. 1980, pp. 61-63.
Keith Christiansen. "Fourteenth-Century Italian Altarpieces." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 40 (Summer 1982), pp. 3-13.
George Szabo. Masterpieces of Italian Drawing in the Robert Lehman Collection. New York, 1983, p. 6.
John Pope-Hennessy assisted by Laurence B. Kanter inThe Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings. New York, 1987, pp. 2-4, no. 1.
Virginia Jackson. Art Museums of the World: Norway-Zaire. Vol. 2, Westport, CT, 1987, p. 1274.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 40.
Benjamin Martinez. Visual Forces: An Introduction to Design. Englewood Cliffs, 1995, p. 42.
Ada Labriola inThe Alana Collection. Ed. Miklós Boskovits. Vol. 1, Italian Paintings from the 13th to 15th Century. Florence, 2009, pp. 104-109.
"Segna di Buonaventura: Diptych with Crucifixion and Madonna and Child Enthroned (1975.1.1)." Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York, 2009.
Emma Kronman. "The Master of Monte Oliveto (active about 1305-35)." Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York, 2009.
Segna di Buonaventura (Italian, active Siena by 1298–died 1326/31)
1320s
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The Robert Lehman Collection is one of the most distinguished privately assembled art collections in the United States. Robert Lehman's bequest to The Met is a remarkable example of twentieth-century American collecting.
