Duped or duplicitous

Deriving from material in the state and city archives of Florence relating to the Florentine dealer Stefano Bardini as well as material in the Berlin Zentralarchiv, this paper presents a case-study that illustrates the ways in which Bardini & Co. wilfully contaminated the art-historical canon. The bas-relief of the so-called Madonna della Rosa, often attributed to Donatello, exists in at least five versions, but four have a provenance dating no earlier than the nineteenth or very early twentieth century. This composition was first published by Wilhelm von Bode in 1892 with an attribution to Donatello. Thereafter, the literature was amended to accommodate art-market tastes. Archival evidence indicates that Bardini & Co. used photographs and plaster casts to produce at least some of the versions. The various reliefs of the Madonna della Rosa are but one example of the dubious objects put into circulation by Bardini, and then written into the scholarly literature by Bode. These objects raise questions about their relationship and the real agency of Bode

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