The Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist

Botticini was, like his reputed teacher Neri di Bici, an artisan painter who was able to adapt to the swiftly changing currents in late quattrocento Florence. Paintings such as The three archangels with Tobias (Uffizi, Florence) demonstrate his facility with physiognomy and the portryal of emotion. His influences were various and include Verocchio, Botticelli and latterly Filippino Lippi. Botticini painted a number of larger-scale altarpieces such as the Madonna and Child enthroned (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Saint Monica and Augustinian nuns (San Spirito, Florence) but like his contemporaries he produced numerous smaller devotional paintings of which this is a charming example. It seems to be a relatively early work, circa 1470, closer to Verocchio than to Botticelli or Lippi, and is comparable to panels being painted in a similar vein by the Master of San Miniato.

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for confirming the attribution to Francesco Botticini upon personal inspection of the work (9 August 2007). 2007).