The Madonna and Child with Saints James and Stephen

The present painting is a modello for an altarpiece in a private collection (fig. 1; exhibited in Il Seicento Fiorentino. Arte a Firenze da Ferdinando I a Cosimo III, Pittura, Florence, 1986-1987, p. 232, no. 1.107; catalogue entry by Claudio Pizzorusso). There are some differences between the two works, most notably in the figure of Saint James, who in the finished altarpiece looks directly at the viewer and points with right arm outstretched to Saint Stephen. In addition, a second angel is included in the upper left section of the modello. Both the present work and the altarpiece reveal Vanini's great interest in such masters of the cinquecento as Raphael and del Sarto, seen here in the highly symmetrical composition and the somewhat awkward posture of the Christ Child. Pizzorusso (loc. cit.) dates the finished altarpiece to the 1620s, shortly after Vannini's return to Florence from Rome, where he was able to study the works of Raphael.