Master of 1416

Most probably collection of the Duke of Medina de las Torres;

Duke de Medina de las Torres (1893-1977);

By inheritence to his nephew, Count of Cardona;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

This Virgin and Child, or Virgin of Humility, since she is seated on a cushion rather than a throne, is a typical work by the Master of 1416, an anonymous painter who takes his name from an altarpiece dated 1416, depicting the Virgin and Child with Sts John the Baptist, Anthony the Abbot, Julian and Peter, in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence (inv. no. 1890.4635).

While works by this anonymous master were initially singled out and grouped under the same appellation by Richard Offner in 1926, recent research has uncovered more information about the artistic context in which he developed. There is no doubt that the Master of 1416 collaborated closely with Lorenzo di Niccolò; Sonia Chiodo has suggested that he could have been Bartolomeo di Piero, nephew of Lorenzo. In an article of 2007, Stefan Weppelmann supported Chiodo’s hypothesis, taking the view that the master actually represented a collaboration between two artists. Weppelmann suggests that these could have been two relations of Lorenzo di Niccolò sharing a workshop: his nephew Bartolomeo di Piero (c. 1390–1427/31) and his son Piero di Lorenzo (1402–1451).