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Lot Essay
This beautiful renaissance tondo, monumental in scale, was only recently restored to the oeuvre of the Florentine painter, Pietro del Donzello. At the time of it sale in 1962 and its subsequent publication in Burlington Magazine later in the decade, the painting was considered to be the work of the younger Raffaellino del Garbo and was listed under that attribution by both Federico Zeri and Bernard Berenson in their respective archives. Prof. Laurence Kanter, however, recognized the painting’s author as Pietro del Donzello (written communication with the department, 25 February 2018). The elegance of the figures and pervading sense of serenity recall the work of Lorenzo di Credi and Domenico Ghirlandaio, to the whom the artist’s style is indebted. The figures are placed before a stone ledge and their high vantage point permit the inclusion of distant landscape with no interruption in the middle ground. The painting’s beautiful surface allows the viewer to fully appreciate the meticulously detailed representation of the city, rendered almost in miniature, nestled in the hills beyond.
Pietro and his brother, Ippolito, also a painter, took the name “Donzello” from their father, who was a donzello dell Signoria, a messenger of the Florentine government. Pietro is largely recorded as having produced standards and shields for the city of Florence and, while many commissions of that kind are recorded, only two paintings by the artist are documented, both executed for the city. The location of the first, his Crucifixion with Two Angels for the Ospedale di San Matteo, is unknown, but the second, his Annunciation can be found in the church of Santo Spirito, Florence (fig. 1). The Annunciation was painted for the one of the church’s Frescobaldi chapels in 1498-99 and remains in its original position today. The porcelain-like treatment of flesh and clean, sharply outlined features of the figures in the documented Santo Spirito painting find parallels in those depicted in the present tondo.
We are grateful to Prof. Laurence Kanter for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs.
Pietro and his brother, Ippolito, also a painter, took the name “Donzello” from their father, who was a donzello dell Signoria, a messenger of the Florentine government. Pietro is largely recorded as having produced standards and shields for the city of Florence and, while many commissions of that kind are recorded, only two paintings by the artist are documented, both executed for the city. The location of the first, his Crucifixion with Two Angels for the Ospedale di San Matteo, is unknown, but the second, his Annunciation can be found in the church of Santo Spirito, Florence (fig. 1). The Annunciation was painted for the one of the church’s Frescobaldi chapels in 1498-99 and remains in its original position today. The porcelain-like treatment of flesh and clean, sharply outlined features of the figures in the documented Santo Spirito painting find parallels in those depicted in the present tondo.
We are grateful to Prof. Laurence Kanter for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs.