Arcangelo di Jacopo del Sellaio

Anonymous sale, M^e Paul Martin, Versailles, 3 December 1961, lot 54 (as Jacopo del Sellaio, with an expertise by Prof. Roberto Longhi dating the work from 1480-1485);

With Galerie Mona Lisa, Paris;

Where acquired by the present owner, in 1997 (as Jacopo del Sellaio).

Possibly , R. Van Marle, Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, The Hague 1931, vol. 12, p. 413;

N. Pons, Una bottega fiorentina di pittura nella seconda metà del XV secolo: Jacopo del Sellaio e compagni, Phd Diss. Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1992, p. 194, pl. 188.

Works by Jacopo del Sellaio and by his son Arcangelo di Jacopo del Sellaio have long been confused and are mostly attributed to the father. In the 1980s, Everett Fahy identified two different hands and saw a distinction between Jacopo del Sellaio and the Master of the Miller Tondo. In 1996, Nicoletta Pons succeeded in assigning this last painting to Arcangelo di Jacopo del Sellaio, son of Jacopo, by comparing it to the San Frediano predella (see N. Pons, ‘Arcangelo di Jacopo del Sellaio’ in Arte Cristiana, 1996, p. 374–388).

The present painting is no exception: sold in 1961 as by Jacopo del Sellaio, it was added to the son’s corpus in 1992, in Nicoletta Pons’s thesis (op. cit.).

Born in Florence in 1477, Arcangelo di Jacopo del Sellaio was at first his father’s pupil, before taking over his workshop. Following his lead, he would continue to paint figures with marked facial expressions, intended to arouse Christian fervour in the townspeople, at a time when Florence was dominated by the strict preacher, Gerolamo Savonarola.

Arcangelo’s hand is seen especially in the Virgin Mary’s face, marked by grief as she cradles the head of Christ, which is particularly close to Christ with the Symbols of the Passion in the Accademia Carrara in Bergameo. An early photograph of this work, found by the Zeri Foundation, shows its condition prior to the most recent restorations, revealing even more marked expressions and drapery with broken folds. Mary Magdalene, on the left side of the composition, has a gentle expression reminiscent of the graceful Virgin in the tondo by Arcangelo now in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.