Madonna and Child with Angels

Artist Antonio Rossellino, (Manner of) Italian

Date19th Century

Place of OriginItaly

MediumMarble

DimensionsOverall: 42 1/2 x 32 x 6 3/4 in. (108 x 81.3 x 17.1 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineThe Hyde Collection Trust, 1952

Object number1971.100

On View

On view

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Sculpture
European Paintings & Sculpture

DescriptionThis work is generally identified by scholars as a nineteenth-century imitation of Antonio Rossellino’s work from ca. 1455-60. It repeats a composition and mood commonly seen in his art and that of his contemporaries; clearly this configuration was highly popular in Florence. We see Mary enthroned with the Christ Child seated on a cushion on her lap, her eyes modestly downcast. Christ looks off to his left while blessing with his right hand and holding a piece of fruit in his left. Mary’s throne is elaborately decorated, and two full-length angels flank her head. A smaller third angel, carved using Donatello’s innovative technique of rilievo schiacciato (flattened relief), is so shallowly incised that it is barely visible peeking over Mary’s right shoulder.

John Pope-Hennessy, in a letter from 1963, accepts The Hyde’s sculpture as a later work and believes it was carved by Alceo Dossena, a well-known Italian sculptor and forger, but he is "not absolutely sure."

Text by Penny Howell Jolly, Professor Emerita of Art History, Skidmore College, February 2026Provenanceby mid-1890’s, London, England, Donaldson (dealer)
New York, NY, Charles Barney (purchased for Barney by Stanford White)
New York, NY, P.W. French and Co.,
1923, Glens Falls, NY, Mr. and Mrs. Louis F. Hyde
1952, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust