The Virgin and Child with two kneeling angels

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Luca della Robbia
1400?-1482
Florence, ca. 1460.
Glazed terracotta.
Lunette, maximum dimensions: 54 x 40 1/4 inches (1372 x 1022 mm.)
AZ155
Notes: 

Formerly over the doorway of the small oratory of Santa Maria della Quercia at Legnaia, near Florence. The chapel was built in 1451 and founded by Leonardo Manelli.
The stone doorway below the lunette was purchased from Stefano Bardini in 1905 and installed soon after. The coat of arms belongs to the Savelli family of Rome, whose line ended in 1712.
In a letter from Piero Antinori to John H. Harjes, a partner of Morgan's in Paris, he notes that the della Robbia relief is with his friend Mr. Brooke in London and can be seen on request. He later offered to include the original stone surround with the relief, but it is unclear if the current stone surround is from Antinori or part of the doorway sold by Bardini. The relief was installed in the niche soon after Morgan purchased it in 1910.

Inscription: 
Inscribed in arch of lunette, SOLI DEO HONORET GLORIA.
Provenance: 
Commissioned by Leonardo Manelli and installed over the doorway in the Manelli Chapel, Oratory of Santa Maria della Querce, Florence; removed when chapel was destroyed by lightning; by descent through marriage to the Antinori family, Florence; Count Piero Antinori (born before 1886), Florence; Elia Volpi (1858-1938), Florence; from whom purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1910.
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