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1888: Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs (c. 1440-50)

Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs, ca. 1440-50 (© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung)

The (un)forgotten Apparition

by Sophia Peix

Today’s Bode Museum in Berlin houses several reliefs by Donatello and his followers. One of the most prominent is the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs, which Wilhelm Bode purchased in 1888 from the art dealer Stefano Bardini. During World War II, the high relief was heavily damaged in the flak tower Friedrichshain, losing its unique colouring and frame. The fragments of the relief left Berlin and were transported to the Soviet Union. The work was stored and returned to East Berlin in 1958, together with many other art objects. The relief tells the story of the aftermath of the war, the confiscation by the Red Army and the transportation to the East.


WORK RECORD

Virgin and Child with four Cherubs (Madonna mit vier Cherubim), by Donatello, ca. 1440-50, terracotta, with small remains of paint, 99,6 x 69,5 x 20 cm, Cat. 54.

Purchased from Stefano Bardini, 1888 Florence.

Now in: Berlin, Bode Museum

Comes from: Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence

Passed through: Florence, Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi (until c. 1888); Florence, Stefano Bardini (1888); Berlin, (Altes) Museum (1888/91-1904); Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum/sculpture collection (1904-1939); Berlin, KFM, storage; Berlin, flak tower Friedrichshain (1942-1945); Leningrad, secret storage (1945/46- 1958); East Berlin, Bode-Museum (1958-1990); Berlin, Bode-Museum/sculpture collection (1990-present)

Conservation history: 1957 Leningrad, unknown restorer (relief was reassembled and restored); 1977 Berlin, Wilfried Bauer (cleaning and securing frame remnants); 2018 Berlin, Gerhard Kunze (uncovering of the relief, restoration and complementary measures)


COMMENTARY

One of the most common subjects in Italian Renaissance art is the depiction of the Madonna and Child. Donatello, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi and Luca della Robbia were, at their time, the major artists who were responsible for the design of the Madonna compositions in the spirit of the Florentine Renaissance and later served as a pattern until the Baroque period. The sculptor Donatello was known for creating his Virgins with Child in various designs. In Donatello works, the Madonna was often represented life-size and the intimate relationship of mother and child was at the centre of his art.[1]

The high relief Virgin and Child with four Cherubs, made in terracotta around 1440 to 1450, shows the two figures in almost life-size and measures 99.6 x 69.5 x 20 cm.[2] Both figures are shown from the front, the Virgin has taken the Child under her left arm like a bundle and is pressing the Infant against her body. The Virgin’s hands are folded in prayer and she looks down devoutly, while the Child is shown in a tight nappy, wrapped up to his armpits. A historical colour photograph shows the robe of the Madonna displayed in a magnificent gold. It is decorated with a pattern of pomegranates, which in Christian iconography recall the Passion and at the same time was a very popular textile ornament during that period.[3] On top of the dress, she wears a dark blue cloak with a star on the right shoulder. Above the dress and cloak, two golden stoles with round floral patterns cross each other, according to art historian Andreas Huth, with pseudo Arabic letters.[4]

Donatello’s representation of the infant Jesus in swaddling clothes remained almost constant after the creation of the relief. In Donatello’s works, the Infant is often portrayed in a very childish manner: the director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, Wilhelm Bode, defined this representation as a “helpless Child”.[5]

The Infant seeks the connection with the mother, as demonstrated by his gestures: the Infant reaches for the hand of the Virgin, while he blesses the viewer with his right hand. The gazes of the Virgin and the Infant focus on the praying hands of the Madonna. The shape of the head and the wavy hair of the Madonna reminded Wilhelm Bode of the Madonna in the Annunciation in the Cavalcanti relief of Florentine Basilica of Santa Croce (c. 1435) or the bronze statue of the Madonna on the high altar of the Basilica del Santo in Padua (c. 1448).[6]

In the background of the relief, four cherubs are distributed around the two figures, each with its own independent gaze. Three cherubs look down to the Virgin, one to the Infant. The cherubs wear peacock feather wings, which are hardly visible on the present relief. This detail only becomes visible in the colour photograph of the high relief. Around the head of the Virgin and the Infant there is a nimbus. In the colour photograph, clouds can be seen in the background.

In the fire of the flak tower in Friedrichshain in 1945, the coloured surface of the relief was badly damaged.[7] Fortunately, in 2008 the former curator of the Bode Museum Michael Knuth discovered a colour photograph of the relief in a book from 1923 published by Wilhelm Bode (Fig.1).[8] Until then, only black and white images of the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs had been known. The discovery led to a new appreciation of the Madonna. Today, the remains of the original polychrome coating can only be seen on the right forearm of the Madonna.[9] Due to their precious materials, the colours were more valuable than the terracotta relief itself.[10]

Fig.1: Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs in colours, condition before 1945 (Source: Berlin 2015, p. 114)

The attribution of the relief to Donatello is complicated by the damage caused by the fire. The hypothesis that Donatello created the relief was vehemently defended after the war by the English art historian John Pope-Hennessy, who even claimed that Donatello painted the relief himself because he was also a painter.[11] The analysis of the clay modelling today has led scholars to identify the characteristic features of Donatello and accept its attribution to the master.[12]

Over the past years, the colour scheme of the work has repeatedly been compared to another Virgin and Child (so-called Vettori Madonna) by Donatello, which is now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. In addition to the similarity in colouring, the resemblance in representations between the two works is remarkable. This can be connected to the origin of the two reliefs, which have been dated to the same years, namely to the Paduan stay of the artist (1443-1453).[13] Scientific analysis have recently revealed that the Louvre relief was made with North Italian clay: similar analysis on the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs might help elucidate the relation between these two works and Donatello’s stay in Padua.[14]

Before it was damaged, the relief Virgin and Child with four Cherubs was one of the most beautiful Madonna reliefs of the early Renaissance in the collection of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, although this can hardly appreciated today due to its poor state of preservation.

Before the Purchase: An uncertain provenance

The first mention of the relief’s provenance was made by the not always reliable British politician and art scholar David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres. In his book on Donatello, which he published in 1903, Lord Balcarres maintained that the relief came from the church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence and had been in the church’s possession until it was purchased for Berlin.[15] Over the years, Lord Balcarres’ statement was repeatedly shared by other art historians in the literature, although the author does not provide any source to corroborate his hypothesis.

The church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi was the burial place of Saint Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi, a Carmelite nun and patron saint of the Pazzi family. It is possible that the relief was moved during the church’s reconstruction from the 1480s and later became part of the Baroque decoration of the choir, whose history was documented by art historian Cornelius de Fabriczy in 1906. However, de Fabriczy could not find any explicit mention of the relief in the documents.[16] It remains an open question how and if the large relief of the Madonna was ever in the possession of the church.

Curator Neville Rowley suggested that the massive presence of gold in the work would indicate that the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs was created for an important patron.[17] One theory, which Rowley criticized, goes back to Giovanni Rucellai, who may have donated the relief for the church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi. Rucellai was the donor of numerous works of art for ecclesiastical institutions in the 15th century. His connection with the relief has been established through the depiction of the coat of arms of the Rucellai family on the frame of the relief that has been destroyed during the Second World War.[18] In 1999, the art historian Francesca Picininni considered the frame with the relief as the original frame.[19] However, Frida Schottmüller, art historian of the former Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, had already inspected the frame in 1913 and classified it as not originally pertinent to the sculpture, dating it to 1475.[20]

The Bardini Archive in Florence preserves part of an album by Stefano Bardini, documenting his sales, which includes an old photograph of the relief with a different frame: it shows an early 16th century Venetian frame which was replaced by a mid-century Florentine tabernacle after it was purchased by Bode.[21] The old frame could possibly indicate a Venetian provenance of the relief. This assumption, however, should be considered with caution, for art dealers frequently applied new historical frames to artworks before their sale. To this day, it is unclear which frame originally surrounded the work before its purchase.

Berlin welcomes a new Donatello (1888/1891-1939)

According to the sources, the relief was purchased in 1888 by the former Royal Museum under the direction of Wilhelm Bode from the Italian art dealer Stefano Bardini for 43,000 Italian Lire for the sculpture collection.[22] Curator Rachel E. Boyd stated in the exhibition catalogue Donatello. Sculpting the Renaissance in 2023 that the relief was in Florence until c.1888 and was purchased by the then Royal Museum in 1891.[23] Also, curator Neville Rowley notes in the 2022 exhibition catalogue that the work was purchased by Bode in 1888.[24] According to the inventory book of the State Museums, the relief was acquired in Florence in 1888, but, unfortunately, the acquisition files of the relief were lost, so that the exact course of the purchase cannot be reconstructed.

Compared to its acquisition date around 1890, the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs was a high-priced object. For instance, the Pazzi Madonna by Donatello was sold in 1886 by Bardini to Bode for only 20,000 Italian Lire.[25] The high value of the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs can most likely be explained by its attribution, its excellent state of conservation, and the special quality of the polychromy. All these factors were relevant during the negotiations between Bode and Bardini. In 1906, Cornelius de Fabriczy pointed out that Stefano Bardini sold the high relief to Bode together with a bust of Saint Elizabeth by Antonio Rossellino.[26] How the two reliefsfell into the hands of Bardini and where they came from, however, is still unclear.

The art dealer Stefano Bardini and Wilhelm Bode had maintained close contact since the 1870s, from which a friendship and mutual appreciation developed. Stefano Bardini, leading art dealer of Italian Renaissance, thus was the most important art dealer for the Berlin museums. In 1888, Wilhelm Bode was director of the sculpture collection of the Altes Museum, which made him an important supporter of the Berlin museums and an important figure in the art scene. His exceptional expertise and connoisseurship as well as his political ability to cultivate networks allowed Bode to realize his conception for a new museum on the museum island, the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. Our relief, therefore, was transferred to the new museum at its opening in 1904. Acquisitions of works such as the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs were integral to Bode’s plans for the new museum, for he saw in the Florentine Renaissance the origins of Italian Renaissance, which later spread to Rome and Venice.

The Second World War and the destruction of the relief (1939-1958)

Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, immediately after September 1, 1939, the Berlin museums were closed for visitors, and the art objects were packed and stored.[27]

Because of the increasing air attacks on Berlin it was no longer safe to store the artworks in cellars. Due to the urgency and the securing of the works, the choice quickly fell on military buildings such as the flak towers at the Zoologischer Garten and in Friedrichshain. The flak towers were one of the primary locations where the Berlin State Museums and other institutions brought the majority of their collections to protect them from Allied air raids starting from 1941.[28] The storage room covered several hundred square meters and was one of Berlin’s main warehouses for art treasures.[29] The high relief Virgin and Child with four Cherubs, like many other objects, was stored in the Friedrichshain flak tower in the early 1942. On May 2, 1945, the Friedrichshain Flak Tower was taken by Soviet troops.[30]

While the flak tower was in the hands of the Soviet troops, two fires broke out on May 6 and between May 14 and May 18, 1945, causing heavy damage or complete destruction of many objects, including the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs.[31] Due to the extreme heat of the fires in the flak tower, the relief burst apart (Fig.2). It broke in many pieces and only a few traces of its original polychromy are still preserved today.[32] The cause of these fires, whether they were caused by the Soviets or by the Nazis, has never been clarified and remains an unsolved mystery to this day.

Fig. 2: Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs, condition after
 the 1945 fire in the flak tower Friedrichshain. (© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung)

The clearing out of the flak tower began in the late autumn of 1945 and lasted until June 1946. The first crates from the Berlin flak tower were brought to Leningrad, although most of the works were destroyed. Between 1945 and 1946, our Virgin and Child with four Cherubs was confiscated by the Soviets and taken to a secret storage facility in Leningrad in the Soviet Union.[33]

After the war, on January 7, 1957, the Soviet Union consulted with the ‘sister’ Republic (GDR) on the issue of war losses of the German museums and the question of returning works of art. In a joint declaration, the government delegations of the German Democratic Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decided “to consider all questions connected with the mutual restitution of cultural property (works of art, archival imagery, etc.), with a view to bringing to a conclusion the settlement, begun on the initiative of the Soviet Government, of such questions arising out of the war period.”[34]

The works of art were located in the Hermitage in Leningrad, in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and also partly in Kiev. The Soviet Union declared itself willing to settle these problems on the basis of the repatriation of objects of cultural value. On September 8, 1958, the official handover of the art objects to East Berlin took place in Moscow. The repatriation to the GDR was completed by January 1, 1959. Over 300 train wagons with looted art returned to the GDR, including Donatello’s Virgin and Child with four Cherubs. In total, about 1.5 million works of art were returned from Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. However, more than 1 million objects remain in special depots in the Soviet Union until today.[35] Before the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs returned to the GDR, the fragments were reassembled and restored in Leningrad in 1957.[36]

After the high relief arrived in East Berlin in 1958, it was shown in the exhibition Schätze der Weltkultur von der Sowjetunion gerettet by the Nationalgalerie and the Pergamon Museum in East Berlin under the catalogue number 48.[37] The relief returned to the Bode Museum with many other objects and, since then, the Virgin and Child with four Cherubs has been in the possession of the Berlin State Museums and is now on display in the Bode Museum, room 121.

The Virgin and Child with four Cherubs does not present a story of loss of an object due to the consequences of the Second World War, but rather a story of partial loss of the magnificent colouring and its defining characterization. To this day, there are missing pieces in the provenance that may never be fully resolved. 


[1] Bormand 2008, p. 15.

[2] Rowley 2016.

[3] Huth 2022.

[4] Huth 2022.

[5] Bode 1921, p. 107.

[6] Bode 1921, p. 107.

[7] Huth 2022.

[8] N. Rowley in Berlin 2022, p. 242.

[9] Huth 2022.

[10] Knuth 1982, pp. 9-13.        

[11] Pope-Hennessy 1980, p. 82:”It was modelled by Donatello, and since he was a painter, it was presumably pigmented by him too.”

[12] Jolly 1998, p. 114. The attribution to Donatello is confirmed in the recent Berlin exhibition (N. Rowley in Berlin 2022, p.242), whereas the catalogue of the London exhibition defines the relief as “probably by Donatello” (R. Boyd in London 2023, p.170).

[13] Pope-Hennessy 1980, p. 80.

[14] Bormand 2012; R. Boyd in London 2023, p. 170.

[15] Balcarres 1903, p. 185.

[16] Jolly 1998, p. 114.          

[17] N. Rowley in Berlin 2022, p. 242.

[18] Rowley 2016.

[19] Rowley 2016.

[20] Schottmüller 1913, p. 19.

[21] Rowley 2022, p. 57.

[22] Rowley 2016.

[23] R. Boyd in London 2023, p. 170, cat. 2.21.

[24] N. Rowley in Berlin 2022, p. 242.

[25] Huth 2022. 

[26] De Fabriczy 1906, p. 262.

[27] Berlin 2015, p. 12.

[28] Dehnel 2022, p. 122.

[29] Akinša; Koslov; Toussaint 1995, p. 28.

[30] Berlin 2015, p. 14.

[31] Dehnel 2022, p. 124.

[32] Pope-Hennessy 1980, p. 82.

[33] Rowley 2016.

[34]Akinša; Koslov; Toussaint 1995, pp. 47-48.

[35] Akinša; Koslov; Toussaint 1995, p. 51.

[36] Huth 2022.

[37] Berlin 1958, cat. D 48.


SOURCES

General Bibliography

Akinša, Konstjantyn; Kozlow, Grigorij; Toussaint, Clemens (eds.). Operation Beutekunst: Die Verlagerung deutscher Kulturgüter in die Sowjetunion nach 1945. Nürnberg: Verl. des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1995.

Bode, Wilhelm. Florentiner Bildhauer der Renaissance. 4th edition, Berlin: Cassirer, 1921.

Bormand, Marc. Donatello. La Vierge et l’Enfant. Deux reliefs en terre cuite. Paris: Musée du Louvre éditions, 2008.

Bormand, Marc. «Autour de quelques exemples de reliefs de Donatello sur la thème de la Vierge et l’Enfant». Techne, 36 (2012): 42-46.

Dehnel, Regine. What Happened in the Friedrichshain Flak Bunker in May 1945?. In: Rowley, Neville (ed.). Donatello and Berlin. Research, Memories and Rediscoveries. Pisa: Edizioni ETS (Predella. Monografia; n° 24 (2021), 2022: 121-138.Available online at: https://www.predella.it/index.php/current-issue/68-50-mono/682-50-mono-indice.html, accessed on 26.08.2023.

Fabriczy, Cornelius de. “Memorie sulla chiesa di S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi a Firenze e sulla Badia di S. Salvatore a Settimo”, L’Arte. Rivista di storia dell’arte medievale e moderna, IX (1906): 255-262. Available online at:  https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17335, accessed on 26.08.2023.

Huth, Andreas. Drunter und drüber. Ein Berliner Madonnenrelief Donatellos und seine Oberflächen, 2022. Available online at: https://dialogemb.hypotheses.org/1231, accessed on 26.08.2023.

Jolly, Anna. Madonnas by Donatello and his circle. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1998.

Knuth, Michael. Skulpturen der italienischen Frührenaissance. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1982.

Knuth, Michael. Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, in: Eichhorn, Maren; Grabowski, Jörn; Vanja, Konrad (eds.). Die Stunde Null – ÜberLeben 1945. Catalogue of the Exhibition (Berlin, 2005-2006). Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2005: 94-97.

Lord Balcarres (David Lindsay, Lord of Crawford and Balcarres). Donatello. London: Duckworth, 1903.

Pope-Hennessy, John. The Madonna reliefs of Donatello. In The Study and criticism of Italian sculpture. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980 [orig. ed. Apollo, Vol.103, no.169, 1976].

Rowley, Neville. Donatello Berlinese. Rom: Officina Libraria, 2022.

Rowley, Neville. Madonna mit vier Cherubim. In: Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2016. Available online at: https://id.smb.museum/object/866858/madonna-mit-vier-cherubim, accessed on 26.08.2023. 

Schottmüller, Frida. Die italienischen und spanischen Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barocks in Marmor, Ton, Holz und Stuck. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1913.

Exhibition Catalogues

Berlin 1958: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (ed.). Schätze der Weltkultur von der Sowjetunion gerettet. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1958.

Berlin 2005: Eichhorn, Maren; Grabowski, Jörn; Vanja, Konrad (eds.). Die Stunde Null – ÜberLeben 1945. Catalogue of the Exhibition (Berlin, 2005-2006). Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2005: 94-97.

Berlin 2015: Chapuis, Julien; Kemperdick, Stephan (eds.). Das verschwundene Museum: die Verluste der Berliner Gemälde und Skulpturensammlungen in den 70 Jahren nach Kriegsende. Catalogue of the Exhibition (Berlin, 2015). Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2015.

Berlin 2022: Rowley, Neville, with Caglioti, Francesco; Cavazzini, Laura; Galli, Aldo (eds.). Donatello. Der Erfinder der Renaissance. Catalogue of the Exhibition (Berlin, 2022-2023). Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2022.

London 2023: Motture, Peta (ed.). Donatello: sculpting the Renaissance. Catalogue of the Exhibition (London, 2023). London: V&A Publishing.

Cite as: Sophia Peix, 1888: Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs (c. 1440-50), in: The Lives of Pictures | Das Leben der Bilder, edited by Matilde Cartolari, https://livespics.hypotheses.org/3600, published on 04.10.2024.

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Matilde Cartolari (ed.) (October 4, 2024). 1888: Donatello, Virgin and Child with four Cherubs (c. 1440-50). The Lives of Pictures | . Retrieved November 6, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/12f9d


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