(active in Florence around 1530)
Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist as a child, flanked by two angels,
oil on panel, diameter 107 cm, in a carved and gilded frame in Renaissance style

We are grateful to Professor Filippo Todini for suggesting the attribution of the present tondo. A written report by Professor Todini accompanies the present lot.

The present painting clearly recalls the oeuvre of one of the most influential artists in High Renaissance Florence, Lorenzo di Credi (1459-1537). Credi began his training with Leonardo da Vinci in Andrea del Verrocchio's workshop, which he took over after the death of his master. He mainly produced images of the Madonna and of the Adoration of the Infant Christ Child for private patrons. The pose of the Madonna and Child, and the balanced composition with the Infant Saint John and flanking angels, set against a wide verdant landscape “alla fiamminga”, is known from several works by Credi, for example in the Madonna and Child with Saint John in the Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City or the Adoration in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. A drawing by Credi in the British Museum, London, demonstrates the artist’s profound interest in developing new compositional solutions of this theme that would become almost a signum of his workshop’s output. Several scholars have discussed the pupils of Lorenzo Di Credi including Degenhart (B. Degenhart, Die Schüler des Lorenzo di Credi, Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 9, 1932, 147-156) and Dalli Regoli in her monograph on Credi (G. Dalli Regoli, Lorenzo di Credi, Pisa 1966, 71f., 190-194) regrouped a number of about thirty-five paintings from the master’s oeuvre and attributed them to an anonymous but talented hand in the close circle of Credi, calling it “Maestro della Conversazione di Santo Spirito” after a Sacra Conversazione in Brunelleschi’s church of S. Spirito in Florence. Scholars have proposed a range of possible identifications for this anonymous master, such as Giovanni Cianfanini (1462-1542) or Tommaso di Stefano Lunetti (died 1562) who is documented by Vasari as one of Credi’s students. On the basis of photographs, Mina Gregori has proposed the attribution of this painting to the “Maestro della Conversazione di Santo Spirito”- the similarities in figural drawing compared with other tondo compositions by the Master, such as the Mother and Child with the Infant Saint John and Angels in Worms, Kunsthaus Heylshof inv. 9, are convincing. Filippo Todini, however, was able to form a group of about ten paintings formerly attributed to the “Maestro della Conversazione di Santo Spirito”, which consists of several similar tondos by a different hand, showing the influence of Credi but with a different character. The present artist most probably received his training in Credi’s workshop. Based on a homonymous tondo formerly in the Smith Collection, Florence, (see ill.) this anonymous artist was christened “The Maestro del Tondo Smith”.

Zusatzbild:
Der namensgebende Tondo, ehemals Florenz, Sammlung Smith