Head of the Virgin

Andrea della Robbia (Italian (Florentine), 1435–1525)

about 1480–90

Medium/TechniqueWhite glazed terracotta

DimensionsOverall: about 30.5 cm (12 in.)

Credit LineGift of Florence C. Ladd

Accession number2008.1653

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsSculpture

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceBefore 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."