Portrait Bust of a Princess of Aragon

310; 8 SCULPTURED NEAPOLITAN MARBLE BUST - BY FRANCESCO LAURANA - FLORENTINE: C. 1425-6.1500; Sculpture - Italy 15th Cent; Head-and-shoulders figure of severe and noble simplicity, wearing a plain square-cut gown, her long hair coiled in a rope around her head. The oval base is sculptured in front with a bas-relief of cupids and centaurs. On polychromed wood plinth; Height, 17 inches width, 17-1/2 inches; Note: A letter from Dr. Wilhelm Bode, dated Berlin, November 29, 1909, reads in part as follows: (translation): The bust of the woman represents as is generally believed nowadays, Princess Beatrice of Aragon, who married in 1476 King Matthias of Hungary Dr. Burger (Francesco Laurana, p. 129 ff.) however thinks that he recognizes in it her sister Eleonore, who married in 1473 Ercole da Ferraraa.... There is no doubt, however, that the bust represents one of the daughters of King Ferdinand of Naples and that his court artist, Francesco Laurana, is the master who executed it. There is also no doubt that the person represented by the bust is the same as the one represented by the very similar bust in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin. Both busts are rightfully counted as the masterpieces of Laurana's work and are among the most beautiful representations of thoughtful and chaste womanhood that have been preserved to us from the time of the Renaissance.; This magnificent work, together with its companion bust have been categorically described by Dr. Bode in the same letter as "two of the most important portrait sculptures of the * "Quattrocento." They are undoubtedly the most remarkable that have ever been offered at public sale in America; Burger (op. cit., p. 131) considers the present bust is an original work by Laurana of which the Berlin bust is merely a second repetition, and expresses himself concerning its greater vitality and later superior delicacy of its contours. The dancing putti and the centaurs ridden by nymphs appearing in bas-relief around the base of the bust are also to be found among the reliefs upon the left side of the Arco in Naples; Collection of Alessandro Castellani, Rome, 1883; Collection of Stefano Bardini, Florence; From Seligmann, Paris, 1909; Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Described and illustrated in W. Bode, Florentiner Bildhauer der 1902, p. 220, and fig. 95; Described in Fritz Burger, Francesco Laurana, 1907, p. 131; Cooper Union Museum Library Picture Collection