Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Museum Year 2009
The Year
Acquisitions
Art of Europe: July 2008–June 2009
Head of the Virgin
About 1480–90
Attributed to Andrea della Robbia
Overall: about 30.5 cm (12 in.)
White glazed terracotta
Classification: Sculpture
Culture: Italian
Accession number: 2008.1653
Location: Italy, 1400–1500 / Renaissance
Description: Fragment of a larger sculpture
Provenance/Ownership History: Before 1902, acquired in Florence by Miss Florence Gilbert, London [see note 1]; about 1923, probably acquired from Miss Gilbert by Frank Lusk Babbott (b. 1854 - d. 1933), Waterville, NY; by descent to his daughter, Mary Babbott Ladd (b. 1887 - d. 1964), New York; by descent to her son, John Ladd (b. 1923 - d. 1971), Cambridge, MA; 1971, by inheritance to his widow, Florence C. Ladd, Cambridge; 2008, gift of Mrs. Ladd to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 21, 2009) NOTES: [1] See Maud Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea della Robbia and Their Successors (London, 1902), pp. 176-177, ill. The sculpture was published as still being in Miss Gilbert's collection in 1922; see Allan Marquand, Andrea della Robbia and his Atelier (Princeton, 1922), vol. 1, pp. 50-52, cat. no. 36. [2] According to information provided by the donor, Babbott acquired the sculpture around 1923. In The Collection of Frank Lusk Babbott, 1854-1933 (New York, 1934), cat. no. 9, the sculpture is said to have come "from a private collection in London."
Gift of Mrs. Florence C. Ladd