061/06
27 April 2006
Culture Minister Defers Export Of A Painting By Naddo Ceccarelli
Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on a painting by Naddo Ceccarelli, the Madonna and Child. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the painting in the United Kingdom.
The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the painting is of outstanding aesthetic importance. It is also of outstanding significance for the study of the development of painting and, for the quality and abilities of Ceccarelli as an artist.
The painting, which measures 75.3 x 52.6 cm, is tempera and gold ground on panel with an engaged frame with eight roundels. It is one of only two paintings that bear Ceccarelli’s signature and the only one that is dated, which gives a clear indication of Ceccarelli’s style at a specific moment. The painting has been of fundamental importance in the attribution of other paintings by Ceccarelli, all of which have a particularly close relationship to it.
The Madonna and Child is a rare example of a painting made in Sienna in the mid-fourteenth century as a private luxury object. It is dated 1347, just before the great plague and just after the death of Simone Martini. Aspects of Simone’s style are continued, but a distinguishing feature is Ceccarelli’s love of decoration. Like other works by Ceccarelli, this painting is notable for its sweetness of expression.
The decision on the export licence application for the painting will be deferred for a period ending on 26 June inclusive. This period may be extended until 26 September inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the painting at the recommended price of £1,302,012 (including VAT) is expressed.
Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the painting should contact the owner’s agent through:
The Secretary,
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest,
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council,
Victoria House,
Southampton Row,
London,
WC1B 4EA.
Notes to Editors
1. From April 2005, responsibility for administering the work of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) was passed by DCMS to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Media enquiries on the operation and casework arising from RCEWA and from the Acceptance in Lieu and Government Indemnity Schemes and the export licence system should go to Sharene Chatfield on 020 7273 1459, email sharene.chatfield@mla.gov.uk
2. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, run by MLA, which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria. Where the Committee finds that an object meets one or more of the criteria, it will normally recommend that the decision on the export licence application should be deferred for a specified period. An offer may then be made from within the United Kingdom at or above the fair market price.
3. Pictures of these items can be downloaded free of charge from the MLA site on Pixmedia. Please go to the MLA page situated within the Arts section of Pixmedia at http://www.pixmedia.co.uk/25/image/3117
4. The painting is in an engaged frame with eight roundels showing Christ the Redeemer above and, clockwise, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Louis of Toulouse, Saint Apollonia, an unidentified Dominican Saint, Saint Clare, Saint Paul and Saint James
5. No document describes Naddo Ceccarelli. Without the two paintings which bear his signature, this, and the Man of Sorrows in the Liechtenstein Collection, his existence would not be known. The Man of Sorrows, like the Madonna and Child retains its original engaged frame, decorated with roundels of saints in a similar way. Without the signatures there is no doubt that the paintings would have been attributed to the Sienese school in the orbit of both Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, not least because of the use of punches in common, but with the evidence of the artist’s name it has been possible to attribute a number of paintings directly to Ceccarelli.
6. Both the Man of Sorrows and the Madonna and Child share a softness of modelling, but the Madonna and Child has been more relevant to the grouping of a body of pictures around the artist’s name, most notably the polyptych in the Pinacoteca in Siena, the ex-Tyningham portable altar and the Madonna and Child paintings in Budapest, Dresden, Florence (Museo Horne), Siena, San Martino and the Ashmolean.
7. Two other artists called Ceccarelli are documented, but there is no sure evidence that they were related to Naddo. Franciscus Ceccarelli is documented in Perugia between 1366 and 1368 and Petrus Ceccarelli, who has been proposed as his brother, painted a triptych for the Carmelites in Avignon, which has led to the hypothesis that Naddo might also have spent time in Avignon.
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