PSEUDO-PIERFRANCESCO FIORENTINO | MADONNA AND CHILD WITH THE INFANT ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AND AN ANGEL

Guerri family, Villa Margherita, Fiesole;

Grassi collection, Florence;

Private collection, Italy.

A. Labriola in Da Bernardo Daddi a Beato Angelico. Dipinti fiorentini del Lindenau-Museum di Altenburg, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2005, p. 191;

N. Pons in Da Ludovico Carracci a Ubaldo Gandolfi, exhibition catalogue, Modena 2017, no. cat. no., pp. 8-10, reproduced in color p. 8 and color details pp. 9, 10.

The Pseudo-Pierfrancesco Fiorentino was a name coined by Mason Perkins in 1928 to describe the group of diverse paintings first isolated by Bernard Berenson. In 1976 Federico Zeri noted that this "artist" was in fact several hands using compositions, figural groups, and motifs from Filippo Lippi and Pesellino.¹ It is possible that the workshop had direct contact with these two artists and employed cartoons or copied from original paintings. Creighton Gilbert proposed in 1988 that the Pseudo-Pierfrancesco Fiorentino can be identified as Riccardo di Benedetto, also known as "Riccardo delle nostre donne" for his painted Madonnas.² In any case, this artist or workshop specialized in half-length Madonna and Child compositions with limited variations in the background or in the attendant saints or angels. This compositional type is derived from Filippo Lippi's Adoration in the woods in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.³ A tondo with a composition nearly identical to the present, with the cityscape background replaced with a gold ground, was formerly in the Palazzo Rossi, Bologna, and sold at Sotheby's London, 8 December 1976, lot 66. Another close comparison is the tondo at Bob Jones University Art Museum, which replaces the small angel at right with a taller angel holding lilies, but which also has a sprawling landscape background.⁴ 

As is typical with the works given to the Pseudo-Pierfrancesco Fiorentino, the painted surface and frame together consist of a single piece of wood.

1. F. Zeri, Italian Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore 1976, vol. I, pp. 80-85.

2. C. Gilbert, L'Arte del Quattrocento nelle testimonianze coeve, Florence and Vienna 1988, p. 202.

3. Filippo Lippi, Adoration in the woods, c. 1459, tempera on poplar panel, 129.4 by 118.6 cm. Gemaldegalerie, Berlin, no. 69. See C. Eisler, Masterworks in Berlin, A City's Paintings Reunited, New York 1996, p. 191.

4. Pseudo-Pierfrancesco Fiorentino, Madona and Child with angel and young St. John the Baptist, tempera on panel, 79.4 cm. diameter. Bob Jones University Art Museum, Greenville, SC. See D.S. Pepper, Bob Jones University Collection of Religious Art, Italian Paintings, Greenville 1984, pp. 24, 163, no. 19.1.