Elisabetta Sirani

Commissioned by Mattia Macchiavelli (d. 1661), Bologna, 1658;

Thence by inheritance to his nephew, Francesco Maria Macchiavelli, Bologna;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 15 December 2020, lot 181 (as Roman School, early 18th century);

Offered anonymously, Vienna, Dorotheum, 10 November 2021, lot 81 (as Elisabetta Sirani), where unsold;

Thereafter acquired by the present collectors.

R. Morselli, Collezioni e quadrerie nella Bologna del Seicento: Inventari 1640-1707, Los Angeles 1998, pp. 298-299, 302, inv. no. 69;

A. Modesti, Elisabetta Sirani 'Virtuosa': Women's Cultural Production in Early Modern Bologna, Turnhout 2014, pp. 112, 243-244 (identifying an alternative work as the Macchiavelli picture);

A. Modesti, Elisabetta Sirani, London 2022, pp. 27, 63, 100, reproduced fig. 7;

M. Pulini, Il Diario di Elisabetta Sirani, Una monografia in forma di album, Rimini 2025, p. 146, reproduced fig. 24.

This intimate Madonna Annunciate corresponds with a 1658 entry in Elisabetta Sirani’s working diary, the Nota delle Pitture fatto da me Elisabetta Sirani, in which she recorded “Una Nonciatina per il sig. Mattia Macchiavelli speciale nella piazza del Pavaglione.” The Madonna’s downcast gaze and gently inclined head convey a quiet assent, suggesting this is the precise moment she accepts the Angel Gabriel’s news. Mattia Machiavelli, an apothecary and art merchant closely associated with the Sirani family, commissioned the work in 1658. As a speziale, he would have supplied artists’ materials and may also have acted as an intermediary facilitating further commissions for the painter. A descendant of Niccolò Machiavelli, Mattia moved within Sirani’s immediate circle—his uncle Pietro was among her few male pupils—and the painting subsequently passed by inheritance to his nephew, Francesco Maria Macchiavelli.