Lot Essay
Previously attributed to both Pesellino (label on the reverse) and Antoniazzo Romano, this picture was recognized as Ghirlandaio by Everett Fahy in 1996. He suggested that it may have formed part of the mural decoration that adjoined the marble tomb of Francesca Tornabuoni (d. 1471), in the church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, which was executed circa 1482 and thus closely contemporary with the artist's work in association with Perugino, Botticelli and others in the Sistine Chapel. The scheme consisted of four narrative scenes, two from the life of Saint John the Baptist, two from that of the Virgin (G. Vasari, Le vite di più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, III, 1878, pp. 259-60). The patron was a prominent Florentine merchant, Giorgio Tornabuoni (1428-1497) (rather than his father Francesco as Vasari states), who himself was portrayed in the Sistine Chapel and subsequently commissioned the celebrated frescoes of the choir of S. Maria Novella, Florence from the artist.