Follower of Andrea Mantegna

Conte di Bardi (L.336).

This composition is after, and in the same direction as, Andrea Mantegna's engraving of the same subject.  Mantegna places the Madonna in a humble pose on the ground, following the trecento tradition of the Madonna of Humility, and the composition seems to be inspired by Donatello's Shaw Madonna, now in Boston.  The drawing recalls the first state of the engraving, in which both Madonna and Child are without haloes.  Only three impressions of this state are known.  Dates between 1450 and circa 1491 have been suggested for the engraving (see Early Italian Engravings, exhibition catalogue, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1973, p. 194).