St. James Cathedral's mystery Madonna is coming home today.

But the big question surrounding the Renaissance work remains unanswered: How did this 15th-century altar painting by Florentine artist Neri di Bicci end up in St. James' basement? Did a parishioner buy it? Was it an anonymous gift?

Art historians, church administrators and amateur sleuths have all taken their shots at solving the puzzle, but none has succeeded.

This much is clear: The "Virgin and Child with Six Saints" is not listed on any stolen-art registry, senior church administrators and art scholars say.

After the work was discovered in a crate in the cathedral basement in 1950, it hung for decades in the chapel. In 1991, it came to the attention of a University of Washington student who finally recognized its worth.

Two years ago, it was removed for restoration and display at Seattle Art Museum, and today, it's coming home.

Church officials will mark the Madonna's return with a 1 p.m. ceremony at Seattle's Town Hall at Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street, followed by a parade to St. James Cathedral at Ninth Avenue and Marion Street.

The painting will make the short trip in a van, leading a procession of youth choirs and bagpipers. Once at the church, the Madonna will be greeted by musicians playing Renaissance-style instruments.

Leading di Bicci scholar Bruno Santi of Florence, Italy, is scheduled to attend.

"The whole point is to bring the painting back to the cathedral in style," said St. James spokeswoman Corinna Laughlin.

Museum-quality piece

For decades, the 55-by-64-inch painting got little fanfare — or care.

It suffered from poor handling and crude retouching efforts over the past 500 years, church officials and art historians say. It was painted on four poplar planks, the top one of which was, at one point, out of alignment. Gluing it back during some past amateurish effort at restoration warped the panel.

"There were a lot of sins committed against that painting," said St. James Pastor Michael G. Ryan.

Church officials didn't know they had a museum-quality piece until 1991. Then, an architect weighing a bid for work at the church asked a friend, Elizabeth Darrow, to take a look at it.

Darrow, then a UW art graduate student who had studied Renaissance art in Florence, was stunned when she saw the regal young Virgin sitting on a monumental throne.

"This is the most important Renaissance artwork in the Northwest — and the largest," said Darrow, now a guest scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Darrow believes it is among the most exquisite and detailed works of the Virgin Mary by the prolific di Bicci.

"The colors are very intense and vibrant," she said.

"Her face is round, with rosy, translucent skin and refined features: straight nose, delicately arched eyebrows," she said. "It's very beautiful."

And likely very valuable. Since 1988, the auction house Sotheby's has sold three di Bicci paintings — for $121,000, $178,000 and $440,000.

Two years ago, church officials asked Seattle Art Museum to try to restore the picture. Chief curator Nicholas Dorman first sent the painting to Virginia Mason Medical Center for X-rays and found that most of the original colors were still in place beneath layers of yellow-brown varnish and past retouching. The saints' faces had been poorly repainted.

The colors Dorman used to retouch the work match the original pigments, museum officials said. The work was displayed for more than a year at the museum as the centerpiece of an exhibit of Renaissance church art.

"It's a great mystery"

The di Bicci painting has been authenticated by several Renaissance art scholars, museum officials say.

The artist may even have written about it in his journal. An accomplished workshop painter, he described a patron requesting an altar piece that has some of the features in the St. James Madonna. The patron's name, Bartolomeo Lucha Martini — Bartholomew Luke Martin in English — happens to match the names of three of the saints featured in the Madonna painting.

Art scholars suspect the painting hung in an Italian church for most of its existence and was probably sold in the 19th century when the market for Renaissance artwork began. When it was found at St. James, it was in a 19th-century frame, Dorman said.

How it ended up at a Seattle church is less clear.

"It's a great mystery," said Darrow, who has gone so far as to track down wealthy local Catholic families for clues. She still has not given up hope of solving the puzzle; she's even enlisted the help of art scholars in Florence.

St. James administrators have searched all their archives at the cathedral and the archdiocese, "and there is no record, no bill of sale, no letter," Ryan said.

Church officials heard there was an art dealer or collector who moved a few di Bicci paintings to the United States — mostly to the Midwest — during the 1920s and 1930s, but it is unknown whether the St. James Madonna was among them.

Church administrators have tracked down congregation members and workers from the 1950s. The best they can tell is that someone, perhaps an architect, found the painting in a crate in the lower level of the cathedral during a major renovation in 1950.

After more than a decade of playing detective, Ryan said he has given up. He would rather spend time admiring the artwork.

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com