Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and the Lamb

Possibly Duke Francesco (II) Maria Sforza [1495-1535], Milan, Italy.{1} Count Istvan Ambrózy-Migazzy [1869-1933], Hungary.{2} (E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Budapest, Hungary, and Vienna, Austia, later New York, New York;{3} Dr. George Henry Alexander Clowes, Indianapolis, Indiana, by 1937; Clowes Fund Collection, Indianapolis, Indiana, since 1958, and on long-term loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1971; given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields in 2018. {1} A coat-of-arms on the verso of the panel has been linked by some scholars to the Sforza family because it features the “biscione,” a blue snake devouring a human. Others, like Mark Roskill, have questioned this, since the other elements of the coat-of-arms (a white eagle and 3 fleurs-de-lis) cannot be traced to a particular line of this lineage. {2} Ambrózy-Migazzy is a surname for which there are multiple spellings. Count Istvan, a naturalist and founder of the Mlyňany Arboretum, today in Slovakia, was likely only a minor collector of art, although paintings now at the New Orleans Museum Art, New Orleans, Louisiana (61.73) and the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio (36.21) are also from his collection; {3} Dr. G.H.A. Clowes purchased several paintings from Elkan and Abris Silberman which derived from central European collections.