Madonna and Child

For several decades, this work, then attributed to the Florentine painter Matteo di Giovanni (circa 1430-1495), hung in the public rooms of Cranbrook House. George Gough Booth purchased the panel in Florence in 1929 from the antiques dealer A. Olivotti. It was identified as a copy by Giovanni of the central panel of the "Quaratesi Polyptych" by Gentile da Fabriano (circa 1370-1427).

In 1954, X-ray analysis revealed that the painting was almost certainly modern, not medieval. Material anomalies, such as the use of pine wood and cotton as a support for the painting, rather than the more period-typical linen and poplar, and the presence of a resinous pigment in lieu of egg tempera, indicated a post-medieval origin. Further examination of photographs of the work by experts at the National Gallery, London, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, in 1980 confirmed that this panel is likely of late nineteenth or early twentieth-century origin.

The original work, Gentile da Fabriano’s "Madonna and Child with Angels" (1425), once formed the central panel of an altarpiece in the church of San Niccoló Oltrarno, in Florence. It has belonged to the British Royal Collection since 1846. Because of striking differences in color between the original panel and this modern copy, it is likely that the Cranbrook panel was painted from a monochrome print or photograph of the original, some time after it entered the Royal Collection.

Forgeries of Renaissance paintings multiplied in the Italian market from the eighteenth century onward, as dealers sought to meet the growing demand for artistic souvenirs by visiting tourists and collectors. The re-appraisal of early Italian artists such as Giotto and Botticelli in the mid-nineteenth century greatly increased the market value of fifteenth-century paintings. This modern fake is an artifact of a turning point in the history of art appreciation in Europe and America. Its successful identification as a forgery in the twentieth century demonstrates the importance of both sophisticated connoisseurship and scientific analysis in art curation.

Mariam Hale
2023-2025 Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
January 2024