The Getty Museum acquired exceptional artwork by Bronzino ( 1503-1572). Bronzino's rare painting comes from the Alana Collection, one of the most precious and little-known private collections of Renaissance art in the world.
In the tradition of American collections, the Alana Collection is the fruit of a passion for art. An intensive selection process, adopted over several decades by Alvaro Saieh and Ana Guzmán; the combination of the couple's forenames make up the name of the Alana Collection. Over the years, their passion moved into a real fascination with Gothic art and the Italian Renaissance.
The painting is on exhibition in the northern pavilion of Italian paintings with the works of Fra Bartolomeo, Giulio Romano, Correggio, Parmesan, Sebastiano del Piombo, The Pontormo or Francesco Salviati. The painting was set with a typical Auricular style frame from Florence in the 17th century.
Maintained in the private sphere of successive private collections, this Madonna with Child is for the first time exposed publicly to the Getty.
The history of the provenance of the painting has been documented since the end of the 19th century. It is mentioned in 1898 in a Milan sale under attribution to Andrea del Sarto.
It was only in 1964, when she reappears at Christie's in London, that Bronzino's signature was noticed, inscribed on the stone in the lower-left corner.
The work is, in particular, mentioned in " L'opera completa del Bronzino" from 1973, the painting is only reproduced in 2016 by the art historian Carlo Falciani, specialist of the artist.
The National Gallery in London keeps a very close and also signed version of this composition. Their dimensions, like the arrangement of the characters and the rocky background, are similar.
The Getty's panel is much brighter, from the blue and mauve mantles and scarves of the Virgin to the bright whites of St. Elizabeth's veil and marmoreal complexions. The pink-tinted sky and the bright light of the Getty panel would suggest a scene at dawn while the setting in the darkness of the painting of the National Gallery would evoke a moonlight.
