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The 'Chellini Madonna', the cast bronze roundel of which this is a cast in plaster, dates from about 1450 and was given by Donatello to the Florentine physician Giovanni Chellini Samminiati in exchange for medical treatment in 1456. It is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Chellini recorded that this small roundel was 'hollowed out' on the back 'so that melted glass could be cast onto it and it would make the same figures as those on its face. The original is indeed remarkable because the reverse is an exact negative replica of the front. Soane, interestingly, knew that this cast was 'after a work by Donatello', as recorded in a 1835 description. It is not known when the original bronze came to England but it was in the collection of the Marquis of Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse and subsequently passed to his nephew, the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.
Sir John Soane’s Museum
London
Title
Cast of the 'Chellini Madonna'
Date
early 19th C
Medium
plaster in a timber frame
Accession number
BR30
Acquisition method
presented to Sir John Soane by the painter Henry Howard, c.1832–1835
Work type
Relief