Davide Ghirlandaio

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January 2001, lot 52, where acquired by the present owner.

C. Daly, 'Two reconstructions for Ghirlandaio’s workshop and a new altarpiece by Bastiano Mainardi', in Arte Cristiana, 931, July–August 2022, p. 308 (as Davide Ghirlandaio).

This moving and tender depiction of the dead Christ supported by the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist and Joseph of Arimathea was painted by Florentine Renaissance artist Davide Ghirlandaio, brother of the celebrated Domenico (1448/49–1494). As he served from an early age as an assistant and collaborator in Domenico's workshop, his œuvre has been difficult to separate from that of his more well-known brother. His hand, however, can usually be detected by the hatched strokes of the tempera which often run diagonally from upper left to lower right, the mark of a left-handed artist, as seen in the present panel.¹

The sweeping landscape in the background featuring a fortified town can be compared to the artist's Virgin and Child with Saint John in the National Gallery, London, formerly given to Davide's brother-in-law, Sebastiano Mainardi (c. 1450–1513).² Furthermore, the figure of Saint John the Evangelist, notably his profile, is reminiscent of that in the artist's celebrated Deposition in the Vespucci Chapel in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence.³ Moreover, the invention of a figure supporting the dead Christ and looking over his left shoulder (in the present case Joseph of Arimathea) is also found in Davide's Deposition of Christ with Saints painted for the Abbey of San Salvatore e San Lorenzo in Settimo, Scandicci.⁴

A slightly smaller version of the present work, with minor differences in the background and disposition of the nails in the foreground, was sold in these Rooms on 5 July 1995, lot 68, and subsequently entered the Pittas Collection (see Literature).

¹ J. Dunkerton, 'Michelangelo as a Painter on Panel. VI Painting Technique of the Manchester Madonna', in Making & Meaning. The Young Michelangelo, M. Hirst and J. Dunkerton (eds), exh. cat., London 1994, pp. 86 and 128 n. 10. 

² Inv. no. NG2502; tempera on panel; 78.8 × 46.5 cm.; https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/davide-ghirlandaio-the-virgin-and-child-with-saint-john

³ Reproduced in colour in J.K. Cadogan, Domenico Ghirlandaio. Artist and Artisan, New Haven and London 2000, p. 39, no. 22;

 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Domenico_ghirlandaio%2C_madonna_della_misericordia_vespucci_e_piet%C3%A0%2C_04.JPG

⁴ Casu 2018, p. 65; reproduced in Cadogan 2000, p. 321, no. 4, plate 313; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scuola_del_ghirlandaio,_deposizione_nel_sepolcro_e_santi,_1479-80,_01.jpg