Stoclet+Madonna;+Duccio,+1300


 * The Mystery Will Never Be Solved**

http://www.metmuseum.org ||
 * Creator || Duccio di Buoninsegna, Italian, Sienese, active by 1278, died 1318 ||
 * Title || Madonna and Child ||
 * Date || ca. 1300 ||
 * Material || Tempera and gold on wood ||
 * Measurements || Overall, with engaged frame, 11 x 8 1/4 in. (27.9 x 21 cm); painted surface 9 3/8 x 6 1/2 in. (23.8 x 16.5 cm) ||
 * Credit Line || The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Rogers Fund, Walter and Leonore Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation Gift, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, Annette de la Renta Gift, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, Louis V. Bell, and Dodge Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, several members of The Cha (2004.442) ||
 * Image Copyright Notice || Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art ||
 * Repository || The Metropolitan Museum of Art
 * ARTstor Collection || Metropolitan Museum of Art - Images for Academic Publishing ||

**HISTORY:**

Duccio di Buoninsegna painted this Madonna and Child in 1300 for a man named Stoclet who lived in Brussels. The painting is now referenced as the //Stoclet Madonna //. It is painted on a wooden panel, as many paintings were at that time (Holmes, 1986).

In 2004, the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the Madonna for $45 million, which was the most expensive purchase ever made by a museum. In 2006, Professor James Beck, formerly of Columbia University, reported that this painting was actually a nineteenth century forgery. Beck claimed that the painting was of low quality and that it had elements that had not appeared in artwork as early as 1300. He stated in his book //From Duccio to Raphael: Connoisseurship in Crisis, // "We are asked to believe that the modest little picture represents a leap into the future of Western painting by establishing a plane in front of Mary and the Child. This feature, a characteristic of Renaissance not Medieval pictures, occurs only a hundred years after the presumptive date of the picture” (Hond, p.157).

This was disputed by the museum’s curator of European paintings, Keith Christiansen, who noted that the museum conducted a thorough evaluation of the painting and that the painting’s underdrawing and pigment composition were consistent with that of Duccio and dated to 1300. Christiansen stated, “What everyone else sees as a sign of quality and innovation, Beck sees as weakness. There is no reason to doubt the period and authenticity of the picture” (Tomkins, 2005).

**SOURCES:**

Holmes, G. (1986). //Florence, rome, and the origins of the renaissance//. Italy: Clarendon Press.

Hond, P. (2006). //College walk: a hanging at the met.// New York: Columbia Magazine.

Jannella, C. (1991). //Duccio di buoninsegna//. Rome: Scala.

Tomkins, C. (2005, July 18). The missing madonna: the story beghind the met's most expensive acquisition. //The New Yorker.//

White, J. (1993). //Art and architecture in italy 1250-1400//. New York: Yale University Press.