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拍品专文
Federico Zeri was the first to piece together the oeuvre of this anonymous master, naming him the ‘Master of the Spiridon Story of Joseph’ after a panel formerly in the Spiridon collection, Paris (F. Zeri, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Italian paintings, Florentine school, New York, 1971, pp. 53-54). Zeri’s initial reconstruction of the artist’s works was expanded by Everett Fahy in 1976 when the present tondo was added to their number (op. cit.). The painting had first been published in 1945 as a work by Piero di Cosimo while with Georges Maratier, Paris, and prior to that had passed through the hands of another Parisian art dealer, Galerie d’Atri, in 1937 (E. Fahy, op. cit.). It was from a photograph noting its 1937 provenance that Fahy recognised the painting’s rightful author and published it as a work by the ‘Master of the Spiridon Story of Joseph’.
Fahy later preferred a different moniker for the artist, however, referring to him as the ‘Pseudo-Granacci’, given his stylistic proximity to Francesco Granacci. Prior to Zeri and Fahy’s intervention, many works by the anonymous master had been mistaken for those of Granacci himself, such as the John the Baptist being carried to Zacharias of 1510 in the Cleveland Art Museum. Like Granacci, the artist must have spent his formative years in the Florentine workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio in the early 1490s. Evidence of this can be found in his participation in Ghirlandaio’s Resurrection of Christ from that period (formerly in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and now in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), for which he executed much of the landscape. Fahy posited that the anonymous painter might be identifiable as the garzone Poggio Poggini, documented as assisting Ghirlandaio in Pisa in 1493 (E. Fahy, in Il giardino di San Marco, P. Barocchi, ed., Milan, 1992, pp. 49-52). Alongside Francesco Granacci and another painter noted only as ‘Jacopo’, Poggini is recorded as having executed the frescoes for the façade of the Casa dell’Opera del Duomo in Pisa between 1494 and 1495.
In a manner typical of the Pseudo-Granacci’s style, the figures in this Madonna and Child with an angel lean almost precariously, seeming to sway within the composition, which is otherwise balanced. The artist appears to have been more interested in conveying surface textures than the structural composition of figures. Careful attention was paid to the modelling of the Christ Child’s flesh and smooth contouring of the Madonna’s face, and equally to the rippling pleats of her transparent veil, soft folds of the angel’s sleeve and the heavy draping of her mantle. Tilted downward, the softly rounded face of the Madonna with its long, delicate nose and plump, almost puckered lips, is remarkably similar to that of the saint in the artist’s Saint John in the desert, a comparably youthful work now in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge M.A.
As Andrea De Marchi attests in a letter of expertise dated 31 March 2019, the figures’ poses, the understanding of volume, and the smooth, tight brushwork all betray the artist’s education in Ghirlandaio’s workshop around 1490. De Marchi dates this painting to around 1500, earlier in the Pseudo-Granacci’s career, when his style was still characterised by a fresh and bright palette. Later, his works would take on a cooler colouration, with an atmospheric effect inclined towards chiaroscuro, and his landscapes would become more abstract.
Fahy later preferred a different moniker for the artist, however, referring to him as the ‘Pseudo-Granacci’, given his stylistic proximity to Francesco Granacci. Prior to Zeri and Fahy’s intervention, many works by the anonymous master had been mistaken for those of Granacci himself, such as the John the Baptist being carried to Zacharias of 1510 in the Cleveland Art Museum. Like Granacci, the artist must have spent his formative years in the Florentine workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio in the early 1490s. Evidence of this can be found in his participation in Ghirlandaio’s Resurrection of Christ from that period (formerly in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, and now in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), for which he executed much of the landscape. Fahy posited that the anonymous painter might be identifiable as the garzone Poggio Poggini, documented as assisting Ghirlandaio in Pisa in 1493 (E. Fahy, in Il giardino di San Marco, P. Barocchi, ed., Milan, 1992, pp. 49-52). Alongside Francesco Granacci and another painter noted only as ‘Jacopo’, Poggini is recorded as having executed the frescoes for the façade of the Casa dell’Opera del Duomo in Pisa between 1494 and 1495.
In a manner typical of the Pseudo-Granacci’s style, the figures in this Madonna and Child with an angel lean almost precariously, seeming to sway within the composition, which is otherwise balanced. The artist appears to have been more interested in conveying surface textures than the structural composition of figures. Careful attention was paid to the modelling of the Christ Child’s flesh and smooth contouring of the Madonna’s face, and equally to the rippling pleats of her transparent veil, soft folds of the angel’s sleeve and the heavy draping of her mantle. Tilted downward, the softly rounded face of the Madonna with its long, delicate nose and plump, almost puckered lips, is remarkably similar to that of the saint in the artist’s Saint John in the desert, a comparably youthful work now in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge M.A.
As Andrea De Marchi attests in a letter of expertise dated 31 March 2019, the figures’ poses, the understanding of volume, and the smooth, tight brushwork all betray the artist’s education in Ghirlandaio’s workshop around 1490. De Marchi dates this painting to around 1500, earlier in the Pseudo-Granacci’s career, when his style was still characterised by a fresh and bright palette. Later, his works would take on a cooler colouration, with an atmospheric effect inclined towards chiaroscuro, and his landscapes would become more abstract.