Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna Dreyfus
Bottega Tifernate wants to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of the greatest Art genius the world has ever had: Leonardo da Vinci. In 2016, we made the entire collection of his paintings in 1:1 format through the use of natural colors, retracing his working techniques. A very complex work but one that yielded exceptional results: all the works, can be admired at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Via della Conciliazione, 29 in Rome.
One of the works that impressed us the most is certainly the "Madonna Dreyfus," the smallest of them all (measuring 15.7×12.8 cm) but with an amount of details and nuances that make it exceptional. Madonna Dreyfus, 15.7×12.8 cm, panel, 1469-1480 National Gallery of Art, Washington.
The Madonna Dreyfus (Madonna of the Pomegranate) is an oil on panel painting (15.7×12.8 cm) attributed to Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo di Credi and preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The attribution to Leonardo is generally dated to about 1469, making it the earliest known autograph panel painting; that to Lorenzo di Credi to about 1475-1480, understanding it as a copy of a lost Leonardo original. The work is first documented in the collections of Gustave Dreyfus in Paris. After his death in 1914 it passed to his heirs, who in 1930 decided to put it up for sale. Purchased by Duveen Brothers dealers, in 1951 it was sold to Samuel H. Kress, who donated it to the Washington Museum in 1952.
It depicts the Madonna and Child within a room, against the background of a dark wall on which two windows open onto a bright, rather generic hilly landscape.
The complex compositional layout, with multiple contrasting light sources and a parapet in the foreground, on which Mary's mantle hangs and the Child stands, derive from Flemish art, then in vogue more than ever in Florence. Mary holds a pomegranate, a symbol of fertility but also a foreshadowing of the blood of the Passion because of the red color of the grains. The Child, nude, stands and with his little hand takes a few grains and holds them out toward his mother, who looks at him with an ambiguous expression, composed but without glee, foreshadowing her son's tragic fate.
There are remarkable similarities with the later Madonna del Garofano (c. 1473, Alte Pinakothek, Munich), starting with the compositional layout, to the almost transparent delicacy of the complexions and the restrained but realistic gestures between mother and son, with a similar mutual exchange. The son moves an uncertain little step and turns, significantly, his gaze upward. Similar then is the plump, arched arm of the Child, or the brooch with a stone surrounded by pearls holding the Virgin's mantle.
For its reproduction, we worked only with magnifying glasses and brushes with a bristle so as not to change any details.
This experience, allowed us to know in depth the work done by the great genius to make this little gem. Working on the details, the colors, the landscape of the background, the sweetness of the face of the Virgin but also of the little Jesus, made us fall in love!
And so we decided to repropose it in a limited edition of 299 copies in oil-on-board pictography, with manual retouching and 18 kt. pure gold leaf gilding on the halos. The frame takes an antique model and is made of solid wood, prepared in tempera, decorated entirely by hand and gilded in gold leaf. The size of the board is 12×9 cm, the outside frame 21×18 cm. It is fitted with an aged retractable hook and has a uniquely numbered plate on the back. It is accompanied by a Certificate of Provenance which, together with the numbering, makes it a collector's item. It is guaranteed for life unless the certificate itself is presented.