Attributed to Battista Dossi Ferrara (?) 1490/5 - 1548 Ferrara

No other treatments of this subject by Battista Dossi are recorded. The present, hitherto unknown painting, shares the distinctive facial types, the coloured tracery to the edges of the drapery and the stippled treatment of the foliage so characteristic of Battista Dossi. Compare, for example, his paintings of The Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints in the Pinacoteca dell'Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo, and The Madonna and Child with Saint Francis and the Infant John the Baptist, sold London, Christie's, 14 December 1990, lot 9 (reproduced in A. Ballarin, Dosso Dossi, Padua 1995, vol. I, plates CXCVIII and CXXIX respectively).

We are grateful to Dr. Peter Humfrey for proposing an alternative attribution to the Master of the Twelve Apostles (Active in Ferrara 1530 - 1575) on the basis of a colour transparency.