.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This beautifully-colored, quietly devotional Madonna Adoring the Christ Child by Jacopo del Sellaio was painted when the artist was not much more than twenty years old, at a transitional moment during his long and fruitful career. Born around 1441, Sellaio – whose name means '[son] of the saddlemaker' – is recorded in the Florentine artist's guild, the Compagnia di San Luca, from 1460. The delicacy and linearity of the figures and the light, almost pastel palette betray Sellaio's indebtedness to Botticelli, who is described by Vasari has having apprenticed in Filippo Lippi's workshop alongside Sellaio.
Although he is recorded has having maintained a successful workshop with another Florentine painter, Filippo di Giuliano, Sellaio's most immediate collaborator was probably Biagio d'Antonio (1446-1516), with whom he worked in 1472 on the miraculously well-preserved pair of cassoni now in the Courtauld Gallery, London – the only pair of such chests which have survived intact with their accompanying spalliere (backboards) and which can be traced to their original commission. The artists' collaborative efforts are evident in a number of pictures in American and European museums, including the Madonna Adoring the Christ Child in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, which has variously been given to Jacopo and Biagio, and dates to c. 1475.
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for confirming the attribution of the present work, and for pointing out the painting's similarities with other works by Jacopo, including the marvelous Madonna Adoring the Christ Child at Christ Church, Oxford and the well-preserved picture of the same subject at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 41.100.10). The present work, however, as Fahy points out, predates the pictures at Oxford, and New York, embodying the sweetness and softer, lighter coloration of Sellaio's earliest efforts.
Although he is recorded has having maintained a successful workshop with another Florentine painter, Filippo di Giuliano, Sellaio's most immediate collaborator was probably Biagio d'Antonio (1446-1516), with whom he worked in 1472 on the miraculously well-preserved pair of cassoni now in the Courtauld Gallery, London – the only pair of such chests which have survived intact with their accompanying spalliere (backboards) and which can be traced to their original commission. The artists' collaborative efforts are evident in a number of pictures in American and European museums, including the Madonna Adoring the Christ Child in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, which has variously been given to Jacopo and Biagio, and dates to c. 1475.
We are grateful to Everett Fahy for confirming the attribution of the present work, and for pointing out the painting's similarities with other works by Jacopo, including the marvelous Madonna Adoring the Christ Child at Christ Church, Oxford and the well-preserved picture of the same subject at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 41.100.10). The present work, however, as Fahy points out, predates the pictures at Oxford, and New York, embodying the sweetness and softer, lighter coloration of Sellaio's earliest efforts.