(Siena 1568–1613)
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist,
oil on canvas, 63.5 x 50.8 cm, framed

We are grateful to Marco Ciampolini for endorsing the attribution. His written analysis accompanies the present painting.

This painting was hitherto unknown and its rediscovery constitutes a significant addition to the artist’s known oeuvre. It is consistent with works from Salimbeni’s mature and late period and can be dated probably to circa 1610. The distinctive pallette, reminiscent of the colouring of his compatriot Domenico Beccafumi, can be compared to the artist’s painting of Saint Michael overcoming Satan, signed and dated 1603, whilst the enduring influence of Cavalier d’Arpino can be detected in the figure types.

The soft physiognomy of the Child, is stylistically very close to the figure of an angel in Salimbeni’s Santa Canterina da Siena tra santi e beati senesi in the choir of Siena Cathedral, signed and dated 1611. According to Ciampolini, the similarities of the two figures are such as to suppose that the painter has used the same live model. In both works, Salimbeni’s interest in the last years of his life, in the realism and innovations of the early seventeenth century can be clearly observed: in the present Madonna, for instance a precise light source accentuates the softness of the skin and the material quality of the silky hair.

The present composition belongs to a group of similar paintings, all medium sized in format and with a strong pyramidal or diagonal composition, such as the Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine of Siena offered at Sotheby’s New York, 13 November 1968 as lot 119, later Colnaghi, London, or the Madonna and Child offered at Christies’s, London, 9 July 2003 as lot 92. A compositionally similar work by Salimbeni is the Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist sold Sotheby’s, London, on 6 April 2001 as lot 15.

Among the last representatives of the Sienese Mannerist School, Salimbeni was apprenticed in his father, Arcangelo’s studio. He possibly spent some time in Northern Italy and then moved to Rome in 1588 to work, together with others, on the fresco painting of the Vatican Library under Pope Sixtus V. During 1590–91, he received a commission from Cardinal Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini for paintings in the Roman Jesuit Church of Il Gesù and the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. These paintings show the influence of Cavalier D’Arpino and the Counter-Mannerist Barocci pupil, Andrea Lilio. Returning to Siena in 1595, he worked on many pictorial cycles, including scenes from the life of San Giacinto in Santo Spirito (1600), painted with his older half-brother, Francesco Vanni. Salimbeni had the lighter spirit and the more delicate touch, at times suggesting the quality of Barocci, such as in the present work. His fame earned him commissions in many Tuscan centres for the frescoed decoration of churches, among which the San Lorenzo paintings in San Pietro in Montalcino are distinguished by the richness of colour and the scenographic depiction.