The Provenance of the Visitation Panel by Francisco Niculoso

From the Royal Realm to a Public Representation

Abstract

A small tile panel created by the Italian ceramic painter Francisco Niculoso (active 1498-1529) from the private collection of Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1816-1885), king consort to Queen Maria II of Portugal (1819-1853), was in 1902 acquired by the Rijksmuseum. Although the ownership history of this Visitation panel is not fully documented, this essay provides a more comprehensive understanding of its historical narrative, by exploring the various contexts of acquisition and collecting. The panel’s journey from Lisbon to Amsterdam vividly illustrates the remarkable fluidity and permeability that defined the boundaries of art markets and museums around the turn of the twentieth century.