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Lot Essay
Dr. Everett Fahy has kindly endorsed the traditional attribution on the basis of a photograph. Botticini trained in the studio of Neri di Bicci, and later worked with Cosimo Rosselli and Andrea del Castagno. He became Verrocchio's assistant circa 1475. By 1480 he was under the influence of Fra Filippino Lippi, and painted numerous Madonnas in his style.
The present sheet is a studio copy after a lost drawing by Fra Filippo Lippi, which was in turn copied by Filippino in a silverpoint drawing now at Chatsworth, M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Vol. I, The Tuscan and Umbrian Schools, London, 1994, no. 35, illustrated. The prototype is a Virgin Annunciate now at Munich.
On the verso are two studies of the right hand and draperies of the Virgin in another Annunciation in the Martelli Chapel in the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence.
The technique is similar to that of drapery studies executed in Verrocchio's studio after clay models draped in waxed linen or cloth soaked in liquid clay. The combination of two differing techniques: that of drawing a sculptural model and that of copying a precious master drawing kept in the studio, provides testimony of Botticini's comprehensive training as an artist in Florence in the later 1400s.
The present sheet is a studio copy after a lost drawing by Fra Filippo Lippi, which was in turn copied by Filippino in a silverpoint drawing now at Chatsworth, M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Vol. I, The Tuscan and Umbrian Schools, London, 1994, no. 35, illustrated. The prototype is a Virgin Annunciate now at Munich.
On the verso are two studies of the right hand and draperies of the Virgin in another Annunciation in the Martelli Chapel in the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence.
The technique is similar to that of drapery studies executed in Verrocchio's studio after clay models draped in waxed linen or cloth soaked in liquid clay. The combination of two differing techniques: that of drawing a sculptural model and that of copying a precious master drawing kept in the studio, provides testimony of Botticini's comprehensive training as an artist in Florence in the later 1400s.