Ludovico Mazzolino, 'Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple', about 1522-4

Perhaps in the collection of Lucrezia d’Este in 1592 and inherited by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini; in the inventory of his collection compiled in 1603 but later separated from the Aldobrandini collection. The number on the back of the panel is probably the inventory number of another Italian collection but this has not as yet been identified. It may be that of the Franzoni family in Florence or that of the Pio di Savoia. In 1889 the Marchesa Isabella, widow of the Marchese Domingo Franzoni, sold this painting together with a group of others to the leading Florentine art dealer Stefano Bardini (1836–1922). Her father was Don Ercole dei Principi Pio di Savoia, whose family had close links to Ferrara. By June 1891 the painting had attracted the agent of a major collector. On 6 June Bardini wrote to Prince Johannes von Liechtenstein (1840–1929) in Vienna concerning paintings he had for sale, explaining that ‘le petit tableau représentant le Jesus disputant avec les Docteurs’ was not anonymous but certainly by ‘Mazzolino da Ferrara’. He included it in a consignment of pictures sent to Vienna and on 20 June a note was sent recording its arrival in good condition and the ‘consigliere de Walcker’ (Humbert Walcher von Mottheim [1865–1926], architect and adviser to the Prince) enquired as to the price. On 8 July the painting was returned by the latter with some regret as too expensive – ‘son Altesse espère que vous ne serez pas faché’ (‘his Highness hopes that you will not be annoyed’). In March 1897 Bardini sold it to Thomas Agnew & Sons in London.

In May 1897 the National Gallery bought it from Agnew’s for £350. This may seem a surprising acquisition, given the strength of the Gallery’s pre-existing holdings by Mazzolino, but there was an intense interest in the Ferrarese school of painting in the years following the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition of 1894. The Director, Sir Edward Poynter, was shown the painting when visiting Agnew’s on 4 May in the company of two of the trustees, Sir Charles Tennant (1823–1906) and J.P. Heseltine (1843–1929), and asked for it to be sent to the National Gallery. He wrote to the Chairman, the Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), on that same day expressing his confidence that Lord Carlisle (1843–1911), another Trustee, ‘will like it and I think you will also’. It had just arrived from Italy and was ‘quite the best [painting by Mazzolino] I ever saw ... a gem ... in perfect condition’. Lansdowne wrote to Poynter on 6 May: ‘The little Mazzolino picture is interesting but we have three examples of the master, and it does not strike me that the superiority of this work is so distinct as to justify our spending £350 upon it. But I do not pretend to any authority as to such works.’ After completion of the purchase Lansdowne, presumably with the approval of Alfred de Rothschild (1842–1918), registered an official rebuke to Poynter for acting with excessive independence, infringing the Treasury Minute of 1894. The Agnew’s archive reveals that the firm had indeed recently bought the painting from Bardini but also that the sale was dated 5 May – the day previous to that on which Lansdowne expressed his misgivings. The acquisition thus represents one of the points of friction that eventually led to Poynter’s resignation. The price paid by Agnew’s to Bardini was £200 and that transaction had been completed on 25 March of the same year.