DOMENICO DI BARTOLOMEO UBALDINI, CALLED DOMENICO PULIGO (FLORENCE 1492-1527)
DOMENICO DI BARTOLOMEO UBALDINI, CALLED DOMENICO PULIGO (FLORENCE 1492-1527)
DOMENICO DI BARTOLOMEO UBALDINI, CALLED DOMENICO PULIGO (FLORENCE 1492-1527)
2 More
DOMENICO DI BARTOLOMEO UBALDINI, CALLED DOMENICO PULIGO (FLORENCE 1492-1527)

The Holy Family

Details
DOMENICO DI BARTOLOMEO UBALDINI, CALLED DOMENICO PULIGO (FLORENCE 1492-1527)
The Holy Family
oil on panel
36 x 26 1⁄4 in. (91.5 x 66.7 cm.)
Provenance
Konsul A. Hyberg, Helsingborg, Sweden, acquired circa 1915-1925, and by descent until,
[The Property of a Gentleman], Sotheby's, London, 18 April 2002, lot 92, where acquired by the present owner.
Literature
O. Sirén, Italienska tavlor och teckningar i Nationalmuseum och andra svenska och finska samlingar, Stockholm, 1933, p. 113, fig. 70.
G.A. Gardner, The Paintings of Domenico Puligo, Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1986, pp. 324, 352.

Brought to you by

Francois de Poortere
Francois de Poortere International Deputy Chairman

Lot Essay

Domenico Puligo began his artistic career training under the Ghirlandaio family and later in the workshops of Antonio del Ceraiuolo and Andrea del Sarto. Among all his teachers, it was del Sarto who had the greatest influence on the young Puligo, lending a greater classism to his style. The vibrant green curtain backdrop framing the Holy Family in the present panel is a motif often found in del Sarto’s work, which was adopted by Puligo in this and a closely related panel of the same subject now in the Musée des Beaux-Artes, Nantes (inv. no. 125).

Giorgio Vasari, likely met Puligo when they were both apprenticed to del Sarto, and his Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori praised the artist's use of color, remarking on his ability to convey softness and depth with color over draftsmanship (op. cit., III, pp. 767-769). The Alana Collection’s Holy Family exhibits this distinctive technique in the vibrant reds and oranges of the Virgin’s gown, the near translucent fabric wrapped around the Christ Child’s waist and Virgin’s hand, the deep purples of Joseph’s tunic, and in the complexity of the flesh tones. Devotional panels depicting the Madonna and Child, such as the present example, were favored by the Florentine nobility and became a specialty of Puligo in the first decade of the sixteenth century. In the 1520s, Puligo shifted his attentions from easel painting to large-scale altarpiece commissions; unfortunately his artistic career was cut short in 1527 when he contracted and eventually succumbed to the plague.

More from Old Masters | New Perspectives: Masterworks from The Alana Collection

View All
View All