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Lot Essay
In 1932, Bernard Berenson identified a core group of paintings that had previously been given to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, a follower of Benozzo Gozzoli and Neri di Bicci, arguing that they were in fact painted by an as yet unidentified artist whom he named the Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino (Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School, London, 1963, I, p. 171). Subsequent scholarship has distanced this anonymous artist from the oeuvre of Pier Francesco Fiorentino, clarifying that his works owe a great deal more to Francesco Pesellino and Fra Filippo Lippi's paintings from the 1450s. Noting the strong ties to these two artists, Federico Zeri argued that the works of the Pseudo-Pier Francesco Fiorentino were actually produced by several hands in a single successful and prolific Florentine workshop, which he christened the 'Lippi-Pesellino Imitators' (F. Zeri, Italian Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1976, I, pp. 80-85).
The workshop drew upon those masters' oeuvres for its figural types and arrangements, as is demonstrated here; the infant Saint John the Baptist is based upon the corresponding figure in the Adoration in the Forest by Fra Filippo Lippi in Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, which is dated to circa 1459 (inv. no. 69), while the angels find their origins in Pesellino's Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist of circa 1455 at the Toledo Museum of Art (inv. no. 1944.34).
A note on the provenance
Dr. James von Bleichröder (1859–1937) was a partner in the Berlin banking house S. Bleichröder, founded by his grandfather in 1803. The family occupied a prominent position in German society; his father served as banker to both Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I. Together with his third wife, Maria, James von Bleichröder assembled a significant collection of nearly 200 artworks, ranging from modern artists such as Max Liebermann, to Old Masters such as David Teniers.
Despite being baptized as a Christian in his youth, James and his children were classed and persecuted as Jews under National Socialist racial legislation. The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 led to the 'Aryanization' of the Bleichröder banking house, resulting in its expropriation and transfer to non-Jewish ownership, followed ultimately by its liquidation in 1937. His art collection was likewise auctioned in Berlin in May 1938 at the Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus.
The workshop drew upon those masters' oeuvres for its figural types and arrangements, as is demonstrated here; the infant Saint John the Baptist is based upon the corresponding figure in the Adoration in the Forest by Fra Filippo Lippi in Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, which is dated to circa 1459 (inv. no. 69), while the angels find their origins in Pesellino's Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist of circa 1455 at the Toledo Museum of Art (inv. no. 1944.34).
A note on the provenance
Dr. James von Bleichröder (1859–1937) was a partner in the Berlin banking house S. Bleichröder, founded by his grandfather in 1803. The family occupied a prominent position in German society; his father served as banker to both Otto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I. Together with his third wife, Maria, James von Bleichröder assembled a significant collection of nearly 200 artworks, ranging from modern artists such as Max Liebermann, to Old Masters such as David Teniers.
Despite being baptized as a Christian in his youth, James and his children were classed and persecuted as Jews under National Socialist racial legislation. The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 led to the 'Aryanization' of the Bleichröder banking house, resulting in its expropriation and transfer to non-Jewish ownership, followed ultimately by its liquidation in 1937. His art collection was likewise auctioned in Berlin in May 1938 at the Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus.