Church artwork sold for a song; now worth $8.8m

When the parishioners of San Giovanni Battista church near Padua needed a new organ a century ago, they sold a terracotta relief of the Madonna and Child to pay for it.

But however much the organ cost in 1902, the exchange looks poor - the relief was by Renaissance master Donatello and is now set to sell for up to US$6 million ($8.8 million).

The Borromeo Madonna, named after the Borromeo family who commissioned most of the major art in Padua's churches, is expected to attract serious bidding at Sotheby's in New York on January 26.

There is only one Donatello in a public art collection in the US. Nearly all the others remain in the churches for which they were made or in major museums in Europe.

The Madonna was so covered in dirt, stucco and paint that it was identified only as "circle of Donatello" and failed to sell at auction in 1990. Recent cleaning revealed its beauty and research established its origins.

To be fair to the church officials in Padua, they were sufficiently fond of the rare work that they had a copy made in plaster. It repeats the exact details of the sculpture and remains in situ to this day.

The original was executed for an earlier church in Lissaro di Mestrino, outside Padua, in about 1450, at a time when the patronage of the church belonged exclusively to the Borromeos, one of the oldest patrician families in Lombardy.

Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, called Donatello, was born in Florence in 1386 and trained in the studio of sculptor Lorenz Ghiberti from 1404-1407. After several early commissions, he left Florence for Padua, although he returned to Florence later in his life and died there in 1466.

He was hugely important in stimulating the development of realism in Italian painting.

This work is said to demonstrate many of the hallmarks of Donatello's style and the figures are similar to those in other, better known works.

The way the veil falls over the Madonna's head resembles a terracotta Madonna in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, while the Christ child is similar to the child in the Courajod Madonna in the Louvre, Paris.

- INDEPENDENT