(Florence, active in the first quarter of the 16th Century)
Madonna and Child,
oil on panel, 87 x 64.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Louis Waldman for suggesting the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

The oeuvre of the Master of the Scandicci Lamentation was first clarified by Everett Fahy in his doctoral dissertation in 1968 (see E. Fahy, Some followers of Domenico Ghirlandaio, diss. ms., Harvard University, Cambridge (MA) 1968), and further discussed by him in 1976 at which time he presented some fifteen works by this anonymous master (see E. Fahy, Some followers of Domenico Ghirlandaio, New York 1976). Fahy advanced the understanding of this unidentified artist, confirming that he was active in Florence during the first decades of the sixteenth century and worked in a style close to the early manner of Francesco Granacci and Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (both of whom were also active during the first half of the sixteenth century). This observation dovetailed with a series of studies which had previously observed a nucleus of similar, stylistically coherent works, which until then had not been assigned to a clear artistic identity.

The painter’s moniker derives from the principal reference work of his artistic production, a panel representing the Lamentation of Christ which was executed for the church of San Bartolomeo in Tuto in Scandicci, near Florence. The composition of the panel derives from Pietro Perugino’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ commissioned by the Order of the Poor Clares of the Convent of Santa Chiara, in Florence, and now conserved in the Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti (inv. 1912 no. 164). On account of this, Fahy suggested the Master of the Scandicci Lamentation should be more precisely identified as a follower of Perugino. Perugino had orientated his work towards Domenico Ghirlandaio during the first decade of the sixteenth century and had also been much influenced by other important Florentine painters including Raphael, Michelangelo and the young Andrea del Sarto.

The present painting clearly demonstrates Florentine artistic practice at the outset of the sixteenth century and can be compared to another Madonna and Child of similar dimensions painted by the artist, held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 17.3227). Both paintings are based on the central composition of Raphael’s Madonna del Baldacchino (Palazzo Pitti, Florence, inv. 1912 no. 165) and present the same decisively described figure types with carefully rendered anatomies, the same delicately sinuous folds in the figures’ robes and the delicate highlights in the figures’ hair. The Madonna’s humble posture and downwards-facing gaze create a counterbalance to the Christ Child’s playful eye and spirited pose.