Title

Virgin Bode (Vigin and Child with Saint John)

Juni, Juan de (Joigny, ca. 1507 - Valladolid, 1577)

Generic classification

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Date

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Dimensions

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Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

In 1912 the then director of the National Museums in Berlin, Wilhelm Bode (later renamed Wilhelm von Bode) acquired in Venice a small terracotta relief in which he thought he saw the work of Donatello.

Barely a year later the relief was on display at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, which since 1956 was renamed after its remembered director: Bode-Museum.

Faced with the specialization of museums and the total triumph of painting in contemporary times, Bode wanted to bring together all artistic manifestations in a single center, a spirit that is maintained today. However, the relief once believed to be by Donatello was removed from the permanent exhibition when in the middle of the last century it was thought to be by a follower of Jacopo Sansovino.

The leap of a hundred years is not exaggerated if we take into account the survival of the forms, very marked in this type of small works typical of a particular devotion. Thus, the Madonna Bode recalls the Madonna Pazzi, by Donatello, in the Bode-Museum since 1886, of which numerous copies are known, which perhaps led its discoverer to want to see the Florentine's hand in this relief.

Having determined that it is a 16th century work, recent research has attributed it to Juan de Juni (1507-1577), a Burgundian sculptor who settled in Spain around 1533 and worked in León, Salamanca and especially in Valladolid, where he established his workshop. If the attribution made by Manuel Arias and María López Fanjul is correct, taking into account formal identities and the fact that Juni frequently made works in terracotta, we would be looking at a relief made around 1560, which supposes that it was made in Valladolid.

The evolution of the relief until it was acquired by Wilhelm von Bode remains obscure. Perhaps the work can be related to the Fortuny family since the 19th century. Mariano Fortuny y Marsal died in Rome in 1874 and his wife, Cecilia de Madrazo, put up for auction in Paris a good part of her outstanding collection of her own work and antiques. Their son, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, also a renowned artist, eventually settled in Venice at the end of the 19th century. Whether this could have been one of the works that were not auctioned by Cecilia de Madrazo in Paris and passed on to her son, to be later sold to the Berlin Museums, is a hypothesis that will have to be proved.

Description

Relief in terracotta of small size, 27,5 x 20 cm, dimensions that include the wide frame. It represents a very repeated theme in devotional works such as the Virgin with the Child and St. John. It is well preserved and maintains part of the polychrome, made in gold and blue.

Locations

• Unknown date

  municipality

  Valladolid, Valladolid (Spain)

• Unknown date

  dealer/antiquarian

  Art market, Venice, Venecia (Italy) *

• 1912 - present

  museum

  Bode Museum (old Kaiser Friedrich Museum). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlín (Germany)