Lippo d' Andrea Florence 1377 - after 1427

This panel was painted by the artist formerly known as the “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese”. Scholars now unanimously accept that artist’s identification with Lippo d’Andrea but, until recently, the artist was thought to be Ventura di Moro, whose signed Madonna and Child in the Pinacoteca, Siena, acted as a benchmark in reconstructing his œuvre (for the picture in Siena see P. Torriti, La Pinacoteca di Siena, i dipinti dalXII al XV secolo, Genoa 1977, p. 410, reproduced in colour; for an identification of the “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese” with Ventura di Moro see E. Carli, “Chi è lo Pseudo Ambrogio di Baldese?”, in Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Valerio Mariani, Milan 1971, pp. 109-12). Following Carli’s publication, Serena Padovani identified the frescoes in the Nerli chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, which had generally been ascribed to the “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese”, to have been painted by Lippo d’Andrea, named by Vasari as “Lippo fiorentino” (see S. Padovani, “San Michele Arcangelo”, in Tesori d’arte antica a San Miniato al Tedesco, Genoa 1979, pp. 55-57). More recent studies have attempted to construct Lippo d’Andrea’s œuvre around pictures formerly given to the “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese”, starting with the polyptych at Yale University, New Haven (see L. Pisani, “Pittura tardogotica a Firenze negli anni Trenta del Quattrocento: il caso dello Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese”, in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, vol. XLV, 2001, pp. 1-36, reproduced fig. 1; and S. Chiodo, “Lippo d’Andrea: problemi di iconografia e stile”, in Arte Cristiana, vol. XC, no. 808, January – February 2002, pp. 1-16, reproduced fig. 1). Parallels may be drawn between the altarpiece in Yale and the present panel; in particular the facial types of the Madonna and angels are very similar in both pictures.

We are grateful to Prof. Miklos Boskovits and to Everett Fahy for independently proposing an attribution for the present work to Lippo d’Andrea, that is to the hand formerly known as the “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese”, on the basis of photographs.