Virgin and Child

Artist Francesco di Simone Ferrucci Italian, b. Fiesole 1437–d. Florence 1493

Datecirca 1490

MediumMarble

Dimensionsdiameter (object): 24 1/2 in. (62.2 cm)
diameter (mounted object): 25 in. (63.5 cm)
depth (mounted object): 5 in. (12.7 cm)

ClassificationsSculpture

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberGL.60.17.25

On View

On view

Label TextTondi—round, autonomous works of art—were produced in Tuscany from the late 1430s well into the sixteenth century. The most frequent subject of this quintessentially Renaissance form, a Florentine invention, is the Virgin and Child.

The provenance of this relief, by a Florentine sculptor, cannot be established. While it relates to tondi found in tomb monuments, it could equally have been made for individual devotional use. Depictions of tondi in contemporaneous works of art indicate they were often placed high on the walls of bedchambers, where they served as a focus for personal devotion and were believed to offer protection against harm.
[L. Humphrey, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated in Florence ca. 1480-1490. [Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1878–1955), 104 Via Nomentana, Villa Victoria, Rome, Italy]; purchased by Samuel H. Kress, October 4, 1929, SF5B; gift to National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (A-28), June 29, 1939; deaccessioned December 5, 1957; gift to the North Carolina Museum of Art, December 9, 1961.Published ReferencesW. R. Valentiner, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Italian Gothic and Early Renaissance Sculptures (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1938), cat. no. 60 (catalogue mention only).

Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculptures (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1941), 224.

“The Great Kress Giveaway,” Life (November 16, 1953), 148–160 at 159 (photograph of the “Italianate parlor” in Samuel H. Kress’s New York apartment shows the Ferrucci tondo over the mantle).

Fern Rusk Shapley with W. R. Valentiner, The Samuel H. Kress Collection (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), 60, illus. (b-w) 61.

Fern Rusk Shapley with W. R. Valentiner, The Samuel H. Kress Collection, 2nd ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1965), 60, illus. (b-w) 61.

John Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, vol. 1 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1964), 176 (in entry for cat. no. 149).

Dario A. Covi, "A Florentine Relief," NCMA Bulletin, vol. 7, no. 4 (May 1968): 12–23.

Ulrich Middeldorf, Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools XIV–XIX Century (London: Phaidon Press, 1976), 30–31, fig. 58.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 182.

Alessandro Parronchi, “Nuove proposte per Leonardo Scultore,” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 2 (1989), 40–67 at 45.

“A Gift to North Carolina: Italian Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection,” (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1994), handout no. 5.

Caroline Lanfranc de Panthou, “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci,” in Dessins italiens du Musée Condé à Chantilly, I. Autor de Pérugin, Filippino Lippi et Michel-Ange, ed. Dominique Cordellier (exhibition catalogue) (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1995), 67 (catalogue mention only).

Donald R. Schrader, “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, 1437–1493,” PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, 1994, 183–185, https://doi.org/10.18130/V3D50FX3P.

Sandro Bellesi, “Ferrucci, Francesco (detto Francesco di Simone),” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 47 (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1997), 227–231 at 228.

Roberta J. M. Olson, The Florentine Tondo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 152, 154, fig. 6.28, 155.

Linda Pisani, “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci: indagini sull’ attività di uno scultore fiorentino (1460–1490 ca.),” tesi di dottorato, Università degli studi di Pisa, 2000–2001, 187–189.

Paolo Parmiggiani, “Francesco di Simone Ferrucci tra Bologna e Roma: i sepolcri di Alessandro Tartagni e Vianesio Albergati seniore (con un'ipotesi per quello di Francesca Tornabuoni),” Prospettiva 113–114 (January–April 2004), 73–97 at 96–97n45.

Dario A. Covi and Antonia Boström, “Ferrucci family,” Oxford Art Online, updated September 16, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T028065.

Dario A. Covi, Andrea Del Verrocchio: Life and Work (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2005), 246.

Linda Pisani, Francesco di Simone Ferrucci: Itinerari di uno scultore fiorentino fra Toscana, Romagna e Montefeltro (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2007), cat. no. 37, 136–137, fig. 120.

Paolo Parmiggiani, “Tra Desiderio e Verrocchio: la Madonna col Bambino nell’opera di Francesco di Simone Ferrucci,” in Desiderio da Settignano (Venice: Marsilio, 2011), 151, illus. (b-w) 153, fig. 3; detail (b-w) 157, fig. 12.

Kress Collection Digital Archive, accessed July 24, 2026, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/3659.

Exhibition HistoryBirmingham, AL, Birmingham Museum of Art: displayed with the BMA's European collection, April 2001-August 2009.
Object Rights Statement

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) makes images of its collection available online to support research and scholarship and to inform and educate the public. Certain works of art, as well as the photographs of those works of art, may be protected by copyright, trademark, or related interests not owned by the NCMA. The responsibility for ascertaining whether any such rights exist and for obtaining all other necessary permissions remains with the applicant. To request images and/or permissions from the NCMA, please complete our online request form.